Both Uncommon Descent and Telic Thoughts are discussing how less than 1 mile up the road from UCSD, scientists gathered last week at The Salk Institute for Biological Studies to bash religion. The New York Times‘ science section covered the conference, but failed to recognize that many ID-proponents accept Big Bang cosmology and even find it is evidence indicating cosmic design. Nonetheless, the vitriol and hatred coming from these scientists against religion is striking. Consider these excerpts from the article:

[O]ne speaker after another called on their colleagues to be less timid in challenging teachings about nature based only on scripture and belief . . . With a rough consensus that the grand stories of evolution by natural selection and the blossoming of the universe from the Big Bang are losing out in the intellectual marketplace, most of the discussion came down to strategy . . . By the third day, the arguments had become so heated that Dr. Konner was reminded of “a den of vipers.” “With a few notable exceptions,” he said, “the viewpoints have run the gamut from A to B. Should we bash religion with a crowbar or only with a baseball bat?“

(George Johnson, “A Free-for-All on Science and Religion,” The New York Times [November 21, 2006], emphasis added)