Over at the Chronicle of Higher Education, Michael Ruse discusses Robert Wright’s Atlantic piece that blamed New Atheists for creationism. Surprisingly, Ruse’s piece, “Are the New Atheists responsible for the creationist menace?“, is not 100% bad: he doesn’t buy Wright’s off-the-wall thesis that there was once a nonaggression pact between churches and evolution to not attack each other, and Ruse holds mainline churches more responsible than atheists for the incursion of creationism in schools. (Duh!) But the piece is spoiled by Ruse’s curious idea that because Darwinism has become a “secular religion,” and for some folks is connected with atheism, the courts will either ban the teaching of evolution in schools as a violation of the First Amendment, or allow creationism in:

Having said that, I do think that Wright has something of a point. I too worry that polarizing things does lead to a religion-or-science-and-take-no-hostages kind of thinking. And whatever the Constitution may say and whatever previous interpretations may have been, I fear that the present Supreme Court might take this as an excuse – if indeed they even look for excuses – to allow some form of biblical literalism into biology classes. The fact is that the New Atheists do tend to treat Darwinism as a form of secular religion – complete with Darwin Day (Darwin’s birthday) as their festival of celebration rather than Christmas or Easter. And I worry that some wily lawyer is going to take advantage of this. Accommodationist folk like me can help map out a middle ground that respects and observes the separation of Church and State. Evolution in the classrooms; God in church.

Well, he can worry if he wants, but there’s no evidence to support his angst. Where are the data showing that New Atheists have turned people away from evolution? And the incompatibility between many aspects of science and faith does lead many to a religion-or-science kind of thinking, but nobody, least of all me, teaches that in the classroom. And remember who started that: the faithful who insisted that evolution was incompatible with their faith.

But the stuff about treating Darwinism as a secular religion is offal. It’s based purely on the fact that many of us see Darwin as a kind of scientific hero. Many physicists hold Einstein in similar regard. Does that make physics a secular religion? At least we know that Einstein and Darwin existed, unlike the father-figure of conventional faith. Nor do we see Darwin or Einstein as having supernatural powers or a postmortem ability to personally (as opposed to scientifically) influence the world. Indeed, all of us know that their science was sometimes flawed. Darwin’s genetics was wonky; Einstein couldn’t accept pure indeterminism. Try finding a religious person who sees any flaws in God.

And what do we do on Darwin Day? We don’t shout hosannas to Darwin, or beg for his mercy, pray to him, or spend all of our time propitiating him. We give talks on evolution—in other words, we spread science and tell people the truth. All of this is the exact opposite of religion.

Ruse keeps raising the alarum that if we don’t make nice with religion, and if atheistic scientists don’t shut up, the Supreme Court of the U.S. will ban evolution from public schools as a form of faith. But that will never fly, because it’s a science, supported by evidence. I doubt that even our hyper-conservative Court would ban evolution from schools or put creationism in, if for no other reason than they’d look even more stupid than they do now.

As for Ruse patting himself on the back for his “accommodationism,” as if only people of that stripe can effect the separation of church and state in America, he’s dead wrong. Show me ONE New Atheist who doesn’t agree with him about “Evolution in the classrooms; God in church.” All of us are at least on that side, and secular/atheist organizations like the Freedom from Religion foundation have been far more effective than Ruse in enforcing that separation.

Finally, as always, Ruse must always drag in how poorly treated he’s been, both in the past:

Naturally enough the New Atheists don’t much like [Wright’s] hypothesis. Jerry Coyne, over at Why Evolution is True, expectedly has gone ballistic. Using terms usually reserved for me, we learn that Wright’s thinking is “madness.” He is “dumb.” And: “As always on this topic, Wright is “talking out of his nether parts.”

and in the future:

Undoubtedly this post is going to bring down the usual opprobrium from the faithful [he means the New Atheists here], but before I vanish beneath the avalanche of scorn and sarcasm, let me say that in major respects I fault the mainline churches far more than the New Atheists.

Ruse could improve his pieces, at least marginally, if he wasn’t always so butthurt. Really, does he expect us to praise him for such blather? He needs to learn to keep his wounded ego out of his posts; it only makes him look weak and vindictive.