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It internecine battles mark the maturity if a movement then atheism has reached a high point with the stoush between Jerry Coyne and Chris Mooney. It all started with Coyne’s review of two theistic evolution books in the New Republic. This was followed some criticism from Barbara Forrest and then an exchange of blog posts at dawn between Coyne and Mooney. Needless to say there is more to come.

Coyne does a grand job showing the inadequacies of certain strain of theistic evolution in his New Republic article. A provocative and well argued review that has reverberated around the community where evolution and religion is discussed. It is a civil review and Coyne is at pains to ensure that he was fair in both praise and criticism. Unfortunately, it has lead to the creation of an unfortunate term “accomodationist” to disparage those that find no problem with the like of Ken Miller. Accomodationist is a stupid term and is a distraction from the main game. I don’t see why we simply name Miller et al as collaborationists and call for their removal from the order of proper sciency folk.

I’m not really sure what the point of this stoush really is. It seems to be based around that any religious ideas are poisonous and if scientists have religious ideas it will corrupt science. But science has accommodated religious beliefs for centuries with no problems. And given the religious nature of some of the past evolutionary science heavyweights, I see no danger if someone does have religious beliefs yet is quite happy to accept evolution as is.
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