Missing the Point

Last week, Pharyngula linked a blog post about the idea that "[o]utside the laboratory, scientists are no wiser than anyone else", and how scary that should be. It's a good story – I bookmarked it – but it wasn't until today that I read the comments, and found far too many of them fall into two blocks:

1. Theistic scientists being offended by the implication that they aren't scientists, and
   
2. Atheists insisting that the people in (1) aren't scientists.

No wonder I was taught not to discuss religion or politics in polite company.

(Disclaimer: most of the comments there are very good, including in the two blocks I mentioned above. I'm just bemused by all the misinterpretation flying around.)