On the 26th Coyne also posted another piece entitled “Weekend Malaise” in which he concluded w/ these inspiring words:
“The people who are designing new antibiotics and pathogens already appreciate evolution; licking those problems doesn’t absolutely require that everyone else share that appreciation. I would love it if that happened, but I have no illusions that our world will suddenly change for the better if everyone accepted evolution. If a genie gave me a choice between two wishes: 1) everyone in the world suddenly accepts evolution in the way we scientists understand it; or 2) all religious belief would suddenly vanish from our planet, I know which one I’d pick. Choice number 2 would eliminate far more harm than #1, and has the added benefit that it will automatically produce acceptance of evolution as a byproduct.

I do love my job, and want to inspire people to understand why evolution is so marvelous—the true story of our origins, with fantastic organismal “design” the result of a blind, mindless process of gene competition—but I’m under no illusion that the battle to get it accepted will make a huge difference to our planet. What will make a bigger difference is to inculcate general habits of skepticism, rationality, and respect for truth—and a general disdain for superstition. Those, of course, are the habits of science.”

I weep for this country. We’ve lost our way and the sparrows ate all of the bread crumbs we left in our path to find our way back and start again w/ a clearer understanding of just how poisonous the very sight of sacred books has been to our species.