Those Provincial Scientists

[click post title for NY Times article]

Breaking news from the NY Times' science page: Neo-Darwinian scientists believe in scientific materialism, including a crass form of determinism! Gasp! This could launch a new phase in the Culture Wars! How will the backward religionists respond to this? No one knows! Will organized religion survive this new assault? Stay tuned for more, er, developments!

With all due disrespect to the scientific community and the staff of the Times, this is very, very old news. Unfortunately, it seems that physics and journalism majors don't receive the liberal arts background that would allow them to know this. However, we enlightened humanist elites will smugly bear with their backwardness, lack of sophistication, and general ignorance. After all, they're only scientists and journalists. With the specialization required by today's disciplines, one can't expect such professionals to be familiar with the commonplaces of Western intellectual history, can one? But, just possibly, one should fault them for wondering what the effect of materialistic determinism might be on Christianity. One does assume, after all, that these people read the news.