Both Sides For Now

Chris Mooney:

[I]ncreasingly, evolution and climate change are being tied together in attacks on science education. The strategy tends to be the same: Students are encouraged to “critique” or examine "strengths and weaknesses" or hear “both sides”—but only a few hot button subjects are singled out.

I get nervous when people put "both sides" in quotes (except when it comes to slavery and the Holocaust) because it suggests an effort to anathematize and perhaps someday punish an unpopular point of view. But there I go, putting "both sides" in quotes myself on two subjects, and I'll bet I can think of others (giving women the vote; anything that's illegal in a free society; I'm rolling now!). May we at least agree that the smaller the number of subjects about which we try to close off intelligent, civil discussion, the better?

Aw, Their First Schism!

As 300 hundred atheists gather for a conference at the Biltmore in Los Angeles, there's already blood in the water, just like in the Church, which means that the movement is experiencing a vital moment of denominational maturity.

The largest tactical question the no-faith faith faces is how aggressively to challenge and confront believers. Books, articles, and conferences? Wearing sandwich boards on street corners? Throwing Gideon Bibles into the hotel pool? More cartoons of Mohammad (let's not and say we did)? The chairman of the Center for Inquiry, dedicated to fostering a secular society, has already been ousted in part because he was considered too mellow. Purges are good; they've definitely worked for us over the centuries, as has the public denunciation of apostates. When a second member of the accommodationist clique, author Chris Mooney, said that you didn't have to believe in God to be spiritual, biologist P.Z. Myers responded:

Whenever we start talking about spirituality, I just want to puke.

No worries. You guys are doing just fine!