Salient: From the Sublime to the Ridiculous

More discussion surrounding the gross misrepresentations of atheist arguments and arguments for appeasement by atheistic scientists is to be found here in response to Mary Midgley argues that opponents of intelligent design are driving people to accept it. In response to Midgley's preposterous contention that, "scientific atheism and Darwinism which are pernicious moral doctrines", PZ Myers provides an amusing argument from ridicule.

Mary Midgley appears not to have read Dawkins' The Selfish Gene and yet has critiqued things that Dawkins never said in the first place.

On his own website, Dawkins clarifies:

1. I have never said that there are no positions available except for my own and creatonism.
2. I have frequently said that natural selection is NOT the only source of evolution. I have written enthusiastically about Kimura's neutral theory of evolution.
3. I have frequently emphasized that natural selection favours cooperation and 'using something that others are not'.
4. I have repeatedly repudiated the worship of Thatcherite competition.
5. I have never said that religion MAKES people do appalling things, only that it frequently IS used to justify doing appalling things, just as ideologies such as Marxism are.
6. Far from being angry with anyone who says there are mysteries, I frequently and passionately invoke mystery as an inspiration for science, and I frequently state that science cannot answer some questions.

More : M. Midgley, ‘Gene-juggling’, Philosophy 54 (October 1979). : In Defence of Selfish Genes by Richard Dawkins : Read the goddamn book!!! : Dawkins needs to read some theology (as though that would convince Dawkins!) :