>You would be hard put to find evidence of my detesting science.
>On the contrary, in the very message you're quoting I acknowledged
>its powers.
I read this as a little ironic: 'which can tell us how to vaporize great cities in the twinkling or an eye or give us Frankenstein foods to eat'.
> However, if the fundamentalists say that belief
>should be free and someone else says it should be coerced,
>then certainly I stand with the fundamentalists on that issue,
>although I doubt if they would care for my company.
But this is hardly the issue in Kansas. Teaching the theory of evolution in a classroom is not coercing a belief, it is making available a body of knowledge and theory to students.
>
>The question is, What beliefs shall be coerced? And why? I
>can't see much reason for coercing belief in evolution,
Again wrong on two counts. Evolution is not a belief and it demands no exercise of faith on the part of those that understand the theory. Second, the belief is not coerced - you can be taught evolutionary theory without any obligation to believe it.
>whether or not it is "real" or possesses other interesting
>metaphysical properties.
Reality is not a metaphysical property, but a physical one.
> I prefer a skeptical population
>to a bunch of true believers, myself.
Science, unlike religion is premissed upon scepticism. To look for the answer, that is the essence of science. Not to look, that is the essence of religion. Conflating the two is making a virtue of stupidity. -- Jim heartfield