Jason Rosenhouse catches an instance of the incredibly silly claim that the Galileo affair and the current attacks on evolution are not conflicts between science and religion. Then, surprisingly, Jason finds himself responding to two of his SciBlings defending the claim.

I think Jason is so obviously right here that this is barely worth commenting on, except to pile on on one point: does it really matter whether the officially religious sides in the science-religion conflicts were sincere, or, as Jason’s critics claim, merely using religion as a cynical ploy?

I don’t see how it does. Consider: what if we found a diary entry by Hitler, a letter to one of his close associates, or an account written by such an associate, indicating that Hitler didn’t believe any of his own Antisemitic rhetoric, and was purely an unprincipled monster who judged that Antisemitism would help his rise to power and a useful tool in ruling. Would any of that change the fact that racism played an important role in the Holocaust, and that the Holocaust is worth thinking about when we think about how horrible racism is? Of course not. The same goes for Galileo, evolution–not to mention the Inquisition and Sept. 11th, where the “just politics” defense is also used.