The impugnment of Dawkins as a scientist has to be expected by those who espouse
a god but can't prove that one exists. I maintain that "militant atheism" is a fallacy and the label is used as a weapon to isolate and denigrate non-belief. The reason there is no militant atheism is because there is no unilateral ideas, creed, or opinion and certainly no
"faith" that would constitute a coherent set of by-laws that is found in religion.

"My own view is that the whole discussion is misled because of grave misconceptions about the very notion and character of religion."

The very same thing can be said about the grave misconceptions of non-belief.

"Militant means fighting, thus those who fight can be called militant - what else?"

The label is spurious. It is used as a pejorative, here, to insist on a fundamentalist idea
that is shared by those wanting to denigrate non-belief. The whole intent of this thread is to make atheists fanatics which isn't true.

For that matter, we can talk about militant religionists who insist that their "faith" is
to be accepted as somehow untouchable by criticism. Let's start a new thread,
Militant religionists are the New Religion. These are the ones who fight against Dawkins and other non-believers by denigrating his and other's non-belief viewpoints. It's hypocritical to say that these religionists (on Mudcat and other places) are not attacking
non-belief because it is evident that they are.

"He occasionally suggests that Darwin's theory applies to sociological groups; after all, his perceived authority is based on his past successes in Evolution Theory."

Yes but this is not "Social Darwinism" which is an idea perpetrated by early industrialist businessmen in the U.S. to justify their exploitation over their workers and the poor. This was a misreading of Darwin who actually never made the statement "the survival of the fittest" used to justify reprehensible actions of Libertarians and the statement is not in the Origin of Species.

Religion, if it is to be untouchable when it comes to criticism, becomes "militant". It's fair game to disagree politically and denigrate political parties or ideas but somehow someone's "faith" is above commentary or questioning? This is the height of hypocrisy.
We can discuss, even passionately argue about politics but religion is so "holy" that it's out of bounds. Why is that?

You don't have to agree with Dawkins, there's no rule book for that but to impugn him as a bad scientist by those who have no scientific credentials whatever on the basis that they are somehow devout enough not to have to discuss their "faith" intelligently is arrogant and intolerant. It's so religious.