<<In the creation/evolution squabble a third factor
is involved: an adversarial relationship between the critics and the
practitioners. I don't mean the kind of healthy adversarial relationship
in which the combatants can shake hands and have a beer after the debate,
as I've seen Phil do. I mean the kind of adversarial relationship in which
each side plays to a different audience, tosses brickbats at one another,
but the two sides never talk....
When you talk to the people working in a field like
evolutionary biology, you find out fairly quickly that they're not a bunch
of atheists intent on overthrowing Christianity. In fact quite a number of
them are Christians. But if you never talk, you don't find that out. So,
creationists, when you read a paper by Gould, instead of thinking about how
you might use what he said to show the bankruptcy of evolutionary theory,
maybe it would be better to write Professor Gould a letter.>>
Problem is he won't answer. And Dawkins won't debate with anyone either. He
prefers to throw his own bombs, then sit back with his small circle of atheist
friends at Oxford and refuse to come out of hiding (he's pretty unpopular
among his colleagues as a result).
Anyway, I agree with Bill in principle. It would be much better if we could
"all get along." The problem is, of course, that extremists on both sides take
up arms and make everyone else defensive.
So what do you do with an extremist like, say, Dawkins? You can ignore him.
You can write him a letter (which he'll politely toss in the round file). Or
you can meet him out in the marketplace of ideas and do to him what he wants
to do to all his opponents.
This is the way it will always be in the real world, I think. So we must
choose our sides and our goals and our tactics wisely, but we must choose. And
then we must take action.
Jim