Jeune Street

It often appears as though Dawkins and his followers—often dubbed the New Atheists, though some object to the term—want to change the country’s science community in a lasting way. They’d have scientists and defenders of reason be far more confrontational and blunt: No more coddling the faithful, no tolerating nonscientific beliefs...

The New Atheists win the battle easily on the Internet. Their most prominent blogger, the University of Minnesota biologist P.Z. Myers, runs what is probably the Web’s most popular science blog, Pharyngula, where he and his readers attack and belittle religious believers, sometimes using highly abrasive language. ...

More moderate scientists, however—let us call them the accommodationists—still dominate the hallowed institutions of American science. Personally, these scientists may be atheists, agnostics or believers; whatever their views on the relationship between science and religion, politically, spiritually and practically they see no need to fight over it.