I’m finally reading a book I should have read a long time ago, Del Ratzsch’s 1996 book The Battle of Beginnings: Why Neither Side is Winning the Creation-Evolution Debate. Ratzsch is a theist who clearly has some sympathies with creationism (and, more recently, intelligent design), but he takes a fair-minded, nuanced approach to things. This is admirable, and it’s this sort of approach that I want to emulate. 

The start of his book is worth quoting:

Some public disagreements transcend the category of mere debate and become social institutions. Each side develops its own organizations, journals, networks, buzzwords, mythologies, heroes, conspiracy theories, horror stories, dire predictions, standards of orthodoxy, loyalty tests and so forth. The “creation-evolution” dispute currently has that status in American culture — and not for the first time, either. 

Ratzsch doesn’t think this is a good development, and I agree.

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