The development of evolutionary biology has induced two opposite reactions, both of which threaten its legitimacy as a natural scientific explana-tion. One, based on religious convictions, rejects the science of evolution in a fit of hostility, attempting to destroy it by challenging its sufficiency as the mechanism that explains the history of life in general and of the material nature of human beings in particular. One demand of those who hold such views is that their competing theories be taught in the schools.
The other reaction, from academics in search of a universal theory of human society and history, embraces Darwinism in a fit of enthusiasm, threatening its status as a natural science by forcing its explanatory scheme to account not simply for the shape of brains but for the shape of ideas.
One of the thing that many evolution opponents may not realize, when complaining that the scientific community is overly harsh and derisive in dismissing Intelligent Design as a supposed scientific theory, is that scientists are often harsh and dismissive towards one another as well. Stephen Jay Gould famously dismissed "evolutionary psychology" as pseudoscience and accused evolutionary graudalists of clinging to a favored thoery in clear controversion to the evidence.
One of my father's favorite anecdotes about scientists getting passionate about their theories comes from an astronomical conference he attended some years ago. A researcher got up to read his paper, and a rival of his stood up in the front row, faced the audience, and shouted: "Everything you are about to hear is either a lie or untrue!"
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