Because of many other obligations and priorities, I will have to cut back significantly on my contribution to this blog for the next few months. For now, I'll be mostly linking to interesting articles and, of course, playing with the bunny (usually on the weekends). To kick off, some articles of interest are below the fold.

Sociologist Frank Furedi considers the "curious rise of anti-religious hysteria" and the elite's "frenzied attacks on religion." It is a very insightful article and it is nice to see at least one sociologist notice this phenomenon.

[HT to Salvador for finding this and linking to it in our comments section].

Biologist Francis Collins is interviewed and notes, "If you look at the history of the intelligent design movement, which is now only 15 or 16 years old, you will see that it was a direct response to claims coming from people like Dawkins." This is a good point that was also made by Ken Miller in his book, Finding Darwin's God.

The silence has finally been broken (!) and of course, Guts had nothing to do with it.

Virtual Shocking writes:

You may have heard me complain about the Intelligent Design movement, what a load of bunk it is, and how much damage its proponents are doing to scientific understanding and progress. However vast and harmful that may be, in degree it does not hold a candle to firebombing people's houses, bomb threats, and the other nastiness perpetuated by the hypocritical animal rights groups.

Well stated, as this is a point I have been making for years.

Also, make sure you read the Addendum, as Virtually Shocking seems to have something of an epiphany. Even PZ Myers breaks his silence, although there doesn't seem to be much steel in those steel toes this time around.

It is a excellent first step to see a few in the "pro-science" blogosphere condemn the animal rights extremists. But we really need more than token condemnations. Consider how the "pro-science" community has reacted to the lesser threat of the Intelligent Design movement over the years. That would provide a nice model for dealing with the more serious threat of the Animal Rights movement. For starters, it would be very helpful to explore and dissect what motivates these people who think vivisection is evil, no useful science comes from such experiments, and the ends justify the means.

On a somewhat related note, Brian Carnell writes about another wedge strategy for the public schools. Steven Milloy likewise considers this neglected wedge.

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