He doesn't have to argue. Everybody else argues instead.

Bill, I fully accept your point that it is ideas rather than people we should be considering although on a posting site such as this, ideas do tend to be personified.

Steve's exasperation is both justified and rational. We can never move forward as civilisation whilst facts are weighed against myth. I used to work with a couple of guys who belonged to a devout Christian cult that had decided that mobile phones were banned somewhere in the bible. (don't ask, and I never did either...). Now, if their interpretation became widespread, the upturn in fortunes of the Masai in rearing cattle and getting to market more efficiently could not have come about. The upturn being less starving African children because phone masts were put up for tourists on safari. Small example and nothing compared to religious disdain of blood transfusions or insisting on mutilating childrens' genitals. Let alone the noble art of book burning!

I am coming off the fence here. It is one thing to disagree with a scientific hypothesis but another to dismiss through ignorance and preconception. It is rather insulting too, hence I have no problem with being insulting back. Other than a misgiving over mocking the afflicted.