Error has no rights.

Living advertisement for secular atheism's Asperger's syndrome - P.Z. Myers - fires with all phaser banks at the notion that a mere Christian can give him suggesions about how not to act like a total walking pustule on the body politic of Christendom.

Some choice bits:

We're getting advice from Christians now! Look and laugh at this list: Five things that would make atheists seem nicer. It's gone awry even with the title. I especially appreciate the word "seem," because Lord knows there's nothing that could make us actually nice, and obviously we need the suggestions of a Christian, since we're all such not-nice people. I should make a counter-list of "five things that would make Christians seem intelligent" — maybe then one of them would notice the nasty implications of this clown's title.

But I'm the wrong guy to do it. You see, I'm not nice, and proud of it. I have no interest in being nice, and I think it's rather pathetic to start an argument by baring your throat to my teeth and begging for mercy before you've even started. It just makes me smirk and snap. It doesn't help, either, that his list is so snide and feeble…so sneebly.

There is projection all over this one. A charitable assumption might be that the original author was implying that atheists were "nice" but unfortunately weren't able to communicate their essential niceness.

On the other hand, if the original author was implying that atheists were not capable of being "nice," then didn't Myers' response prove that point?

And:

Science uses both inductive and deductive logic. Induction is the idea generator, the process that spins out tentative hypotheses that can be evaluated by observation, experiment, and deductive logic. Science is not infallible, and no one ever claims that it is, but it has something that religion lacks: a process of testing claims against real-world observations. To claim that science is as open to abuse as religion is ignorant nonsense. You can claim virtually anything about gods in religion, and all that matters is how many rubes you can persuade to believe it. Scientific claims are constrained by evidence.

And, yet, despite being constrained by evidence, fraud is rife in science.

For example, where is the base-line data supporting Global Warming, which is now allegedly lost, and which its developers were extremely reluctant to produce for critical examination? And where is Myer's outrage over that breach of scientific protocol?

Did Cyril Burt "cook the books" for his famous twin study? Even today, we don't know, but shouldn't science be able to answer that question since it is based on pure "evidence"?

What about the fact that no one has been able to replicate the study on the brain structure of homosexuals, on which study is based the claim that there is a "gay gene"?

Cold fusion?

The interesting thing is that the notorious frauds generally confirm the popular belief, or, more specifically, the worldview that the scientist wants to confirm. This is hardly surprising since science is a human enterprise engaged in by real humans and not the Spock-like creatures of science fiction. Human beings are fallen and drawn by their concupiscent desires to see what they want to see. Worldviews shape the data because worldviews determine what counts as "evidence" in the first place.

And to claim that scientific fraud and false belief are innocuous is an embarrassing kind of special pleading.

Just ask those who were sterilized in the name of eugenics.