This news strikes us as a little odd (subscription may be required). The American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world's largest organization of scientists:
...appealed for the help of mainstream religion in its quest [to quash Intelligent Design], arguing that religion and science were not incompatible. Many religious leaders had stated they saw no conflict between evolution and religion, noted the AAAS. "We and the overwhelming majority of scientists share this view."
And there's this:
Eugenie Scott, the director of the National Center for Science Education, told a weekend news conference it was time for the faith community to "step up to the plate," The Times of London reported. She said the idea one is either a Christian creationist or an atheist is believed by many people.
If we're reading this correctly the scientific community, or at least the portion of it committed to a Darwinian view of life, is trying to enlist churches and religious organizations in an effort to persuade their members that when Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett et al. declare that evolution is absolutely incompatible with religious belief they don't know what they're talking about. Indeed, The AAAS and Ms Scott seem to think that if religious folk would simply understand that Dawkins and Dennett speak only for most biologists, not all of them, and if the religious leadership would just get on board with the Darwinians, the dim-witted masses would eventually be confused enough to go along.
Why do the AAAS and the NCSE feel the need to do this, anyway? Aren't the arguments that the scientists themselves muster in favor of materialistic evolution persuasive enough? Are they tacitly admitting that they're losing ground, or failing to gain it, and, in desperation, they must seek to make allies of the very organizations that they in fact regard as their foes?
Whatever the case, we can be sure that if Eugenie Scott and her colleagues thought for one moment that they were sweeping the field there would be no appeals to the "faith community" to do anything except get out of their way.
