[pstuart]

Sigh. You went to effort to make your case but I don't buy it (and resent your conclusion of effectively blaming me for the failure of discourse today).

> You're saying "willfully unintelligent" as if he's explicitly trying not to be intelligent

No, I did not. He has access to the science and he also has a religious tract. He chooses to treat that religious tract as an inerrant literal depiction of the creation of the world.

Those are competing thoughts and "willfully" means that he made a choice.

And "willfully" is kind of tricky here, because it would not surprise me if he was raised in a Christian household that effectively brainwashed him into these beliefs.

>And I think that's at the core of how political and ideological discourse is so rotten today.

And I disagree. I think a huge part of the problem is religious fundamentalism and a rejection of science.

Edit: oh, and neo-nazis and white supremacist are bad people m'kay?

[peterwwillis]

> (and resent your conclusion of effectively blaming me for the failure of discourse today).

Well, I apologize. I'm not intending to blame you for anything.

> He chooses to treat that religious tract as an inerrant literal depiction of the creation of the world.

According to an article I read about him, that doesn't appear to be the case. https://books.google.com/books?id=hSsEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA40#v=one... Third column, halfway down: "Mims did not become a Bible literalist." etc

> Those are competing thoughts and "willfully" means that he made a choice.

According to the article, Mims came to his conclusions after scientific study, not from growing up with a bible and deciding to just go with what he learned first. He looked at fossil records (among other things) and decided they weren't good enough to explain things without some extra force, and "chose" an intelligent designer as that force.

> it would not surprise me if he was raised in a Christian household that effectively brainwashed him into these beliefs.

He's a Texan, so I'm sure he was raised around Christianity, but he was actually an evolutionist before he became a science writer.

> I think a huge part of the problem is religious fundamentalism and a rejection of science.

In this case, science brought him to God. It would be funny if the public response and effect on his career wasn't so sad.

[pstuart]

Thank you for the civil dialog in what could be a very contention discussion.

If Mims was being truly scientific about the Bible then that would include looking for finding falsifiability in the literal truths of the Bible. (Clearly I'm not religious and my take on that book is that it is, at best, a collection of inspirational stories -- not documented fact).

I respect each individual's right to have their own relationship with "God", including believing in things that I think are, dare I say it, stupid.

Scientific American did the wrong thing to fire him, but instead should have had a very clear firewall to ensure that they respected his personal beliefs and would not be associated with them.