Rob,

First I'd like to say that it seems that the tone of this conversation is quickly heading in the wrong direction and I apologize for my part in that.

In light of both a desire for brevity and declining interest on my part, I will only focus on two main topics you have brought up in your response, plus some odds & ends.

A). You posited that I completely misinterpreted the intent of your piece. Quote from your response: "I in no way said that religious people are more likely to struggle with the counter-intuitive."And "the only reference to religion was in downplaying its importance in the disbelief in evolution" Which are in contrast to a quote from your original post: "but I will certainly concede the point that if there were no religion…most people would probably buy into evolution." While I understand your concern about the level of mind-share evolution has among people, it seems more efficient to convince those who obstruct a widening mind-share, than to try to convince those who couldn't be bothered to research it in the first place.

Quote from your response: "just because Christians accept one counter-intuitive belief does not mean that they accept all counter-intuitive belief." True. But because they have accepted one belief that was counter-intuitive to their former world-view, if anything this indicates higher probability of them doing so again, whereas if they had never been able to accept a belief counter-intuitive to their current world-view, it would tend to diminish the potential for that happening in the future. Think of it this way: my friend, who isn't fond of heights, but otherwise enjoys swimming, one day works up the courage to dive from the really high platform at the local YMCA, which he frequents. In light of this, it would be reasonable to conclude that if challenged to repeat his high-dive, he would now be more likely to be able to do it, than if he had never made ther jump.

B). You seem convinced that I "…was using the same sort of logical errors over and over (mostly, extreme black and white thinking…". Presumably what you are referring to here is what is more commonly known as a 'false dilemma' fallacy. Scanning through, I counted eight places where you had cited me for black and white thinking.

1. Your opening statement as a general assertion without specifics.

2. You claim that I am asserting that a belief in God causing some people to reject evolution conflicts with the idea that some people can believe both: "The assertion that belief in God causes some people to reject evolution in no way conflicts with the idea that some people can both believe in God and accept evolution." Since I was the one who mentioned (and apparently am more familiar with) BioLogos, this would tend to conflict with your assertion.

3. You claim my 'black & white' thinking can't comprehend the following: "If evolution: then less support for the God hypothesis and therefore less reason to consider it likely that there is a God, unless other evidence strongly supports it" Two parts to your statement: Firstly: If evolution: then less support for the God hypothesis. Secondly: If less support for the God hypothesis: then less reason to consider it likely that there is a God. The second part is certainly rational. The first part is contingent on God and evolution being in some sense or on some level if not mutually exclusive, than mutually repugnant. A more-literal-than-not interpretation of the Genesis account would generally tend to foster this repugnation. A more-symbolic-than-not interpretation of the Genesis account would not foster this repugnation. So your line of reasoning holds true only in correlation to how literal you argue the Genesis account to be.

4. You asserted that using stepping stones to go from one concept to another, borders on incomprehensibility to myself due to my black & white thinking. But since I've been teaching piano for some years, I'd have to go with a 'no' for this one as well. During the teaching process, I build a foundation of fundamentals, some of which come naturally, some of which do not, (depending on the student) involving exercises and concepts related both directly and indirectly to piano playing itself. These fundamentals are then used collaboratively to raise the overall ability, over time.

5. You asserted that my use of the word 'species' in discussing your use of Wikipedia as a helpful analogy with evolution was black & white (black & white here being equated with wrong) thinking on my part. As you requested I read your article discussing the term species, however, I did not find it helpful with regard to discussing Wikipedia. You see, in discussing Wikipedia I was using the term species for lack of a better one, i.e., in a non-biological sense. So to presume that my use of the word species in a discussion of both evolution (generally a biological process) and Wikipedia (generally not a biological process) and to think I meant it in a biological context for both, was a misinterpretation on your part. Had I used another word such as 'style', you may have complained that it wasn't an appropriate term in the biological sense.

6. You assert that the reason I don't accept Wikipedia as a good analogy for Evolution is due to my black & white thinking. For an analogy to be useful or helpful I contend that it should aid in understanding - that is, it should provide a greater amount of understanding than mis-understanding. If I were to say that "an electric heater is like a CPU" is helpful as a stepping stone analogy to aid in the understanding of CPUs, since they both use electricity and generate heat through electrical resistance, overall I would consider that analogy to generate a larger amount of mis-understanding than understanding. While your analogy of Wikipedia and evolution is by no means that poor, due to the issues I mentioned I would not use it, since the areas in which it generates mis-understanding outweigh the areas in which it generates understanding, from my point of view. You of course understand that this has nothing to do with the truth value of evolution itself. Our disagreement lies not in that Wikipedia bears zero relation to evolution, but we disagree over the value that would be required for it to qualify as having a "strong similarity to Darwinian evolution".

7. You assert that because I considered the word 'severe' in a slightly-grayer-on-a-gray-scale than your slightly-darker-on-a-gray-scale use of the word, that I was incapable of gray-scale thinking.

8. Another non-specified assertion of blanket black & white thinking. What I think you may be having an issue with, and which if pursued we will probably just go round-and-round about, is my tendency to look for truth lending itself to specific applicability. Now I am currently of the opinion that in your quest for understanding generalities you ignore essential details. I suspect that you may maintain an opinion that I am stuck on the generalities and am ignoring the big picture. As you say "Evolution is all about shades of gray", I am content with the gray as long as it at some point is delineated by black and white. When the gray is required to go on ad infinitum, I get a little skeptical. What I am un-accepting of is something that works well generally in the abstract but begins to fall apart the more specifically it is applied to reality.

C). Some odds & ends:

1. You wrote "I remember as a small child -- probably much too young to have understood evolution -- not having a huge problem with believing that sort of religion. Being easily graspable would qualify it as intuitive in my book" It is fairly unlikely that 'as a small child' you were introduced to more than a simple characterization of 'religion'. The 'Child's First Bible' you might find in Barnes & Nobles is short a few things that the grown-up one has, though it does have much cheerier illustrations.

2. You wrote "Also, I'm not sure I agree that most Christians think that you don't have to "do" anything to attain heaven." If you will permit a bit of theological digression, what I was referring to was that Christiantiy prescribes not a works-based salvation but a grace & faith-based salvation. If I were to offer you, say, a Rolex, you might ask me if you had to do anything for it. I would reply, no, you don't have to do anything for it, just take it, it's yours. Hopefully, you would not reply that you knew there was a catch and that you certainly aren't going to take it because that would be doing something, and you don't want to do anything to get the Rolex.

3. Your phrase "counter-intuitive-in-completely-different-ways" is purely subjective. While it certainly may qualify as 'completely' for some, it may be only 'moderately' or 'slightly' for others, you need to think of it (if you'll forgive the expression) in shades of gray.

4. Suppose that gas prices were significantly and uniformly cheaper during spring of last year than they were the preceding and following seasons. If you were to say "Geez, I wish gas cost what it did April 13^th 2006", would you think it unreasonable for the listener to wonder what made April 13^th 2006 unique with regard to gas prices? Perhaps you would, since you remarked "I did not use 'Old Testament creator' in contrast to 'New Testament creator', that was your misinterpretation." When you intentionally specify to a noticeably greater degree than necessary, you attract attention by use of that specificity. Also, why do you anthropomorphize God as the "invisible man in the sky", from where do you get this caricature? Perhaps for reasons as mentioned in C1?

5. You refer to "those folks as 'moderates'" who believe in both God and evolution. Thank you for the clarification of your definition.

6. You wrote, of whether or not evolution occurs "It doesn't prove anything about the existence of a God, but it certainly is relevant." This was a good catch on your part, I was wrong. Reference B3.

7. You wrote "Many people, when they learn of evolution, eventually discard belief in God in the same way they discard belief in Santa Claus when they discover that their parents bring them presents on Christmas." And in reference to C6 above, "Sure, it is still possible for there to be a Santa who never leaves the north pole … but isn't actually responsible for bringing the presents." While this analogy is a bit strained to begin with, it would be more accurately-illustrative to say that you would no longer believe that Santa or his helpers wrap all the presents themselves after you saw your parents removing presents from under the tree and wrapping them at 3 a.m. Christmas morning. In the converse (starting with your Santa example and applying it to God), one could say that you no longer believe that God created the universe since you saw/could definitively explain how it happened without him.

8. You wrote "BTW, which side are you arguing? … Maybe you could pick a position and stick with it?" From a secular viewpoint, you could say that my position is 'cause-of-diversity-of-life agnostic'. It could also fit under the heading of 'truth-seeker' or similar. Over the course of time, as new evidence, thinking, and arguments come along, the probability of truth for evolution or creation (from amongst their various flavors) increases and decreases (and due to the inception of various flavors of these concepts, the shift will also occur along multiple axis). Accordingly, when Darwin released his Origin Of The Species, the more rational point of view (secularly speaking) would (in my context) place a greater probability of truth with evolution, since there was little (any?) evidence or scientific explanation directly confronting it (generally speaking).

9. FYI, Francis Collins born and raised (from a theological point of view) functionally atheist and did not 'go religious' until well into his adulthood. Also, to say simply that he 'accepts evolution' ignores important nuances of his position.

10. With regard to your original post's title "Does fundamentalist religion cause the rejection of evolution? Or is it the other way around?" The word "or" indicates 'one or the other', not 'both', not 'neither'. This is a text-book false dilemma fallacy, since fundamentalist religion does not cause the rejection of evolution, and neither does evolution cause the rejection of fundamentalist religion – there are many things which cause rejection of evolution, and many things which cause rejection of fundamentalist religion. Everyone is affected by their environment, and to differing extents by different things (your neighborhoods example is a suitable parallel). Because of this, people have varying levels of sensitivity to different stimuli, which will tend to cause different results.

11. You wrote "Process failure? Says who? How do you define failure without some intelligent designer? Failure in what sense?" The only thing that must be pre-supposed is an observer, since without an observer, it becomes very difficult to say that something is a process. A process, in this context may be defined as "a series of actions or operations conducing towards an end" (that is from Webster's 9^th Collegiate dictionary, not a extremist-creationist-website). If you want to assert that gene replication is not conducing towards an end, then feel free to skip to the next paragraph. Now failure can be defined as "non-performance of a duty or expected action" (emphasis mine). Now when I consider the various aspects of gene replication, I conclude that the end which the process is conducive towards replication accuracy. Out of necessity, I therefore conclude that the farther away from accurate replication the outcome of the process is (outside of a normative distribution), the more I am inclined to describe it as a failure. If you do not consider a mutation a failure in accuracy, or if you see the process as conducive to mutations, then that is equally your interpretation. If you see the process as conducive to mutation simply because it does/can happen, then I would consider this an error in reasoning since for a natural process to be immune from all other natural process would necessitate it having some degree of supernaturality.

12. When you ask why that "since I am the 'intelligent designer' of such a system, do I not consider it a 'failure' when something mutates, but actually consider it part of the design?", you are asking a circularly-fallacious question. If, by definition, you consider it part of your design, then by that definition it would not be a failure. If an independent observer were to look in detail at your system, they would see where you had allowed/specified the frequency and/or magnitude of 'mutation'. This is in contrast to an independent observer looking in detail at your system, and, after determining the ends towards which your system was conducive, found evidence of something they considered unintended occurring in your system, then they may well consider that a 'process failure'.

13. You said "If it did require truly random changes, sure, Wikipedia might still work just fine (assuming the selection process was still in place). As long as you don't mind waiting a few hundred thousand years for it to be useful." With regard to 'truly' random changes being server errors, etc., your assertion is in error. The selection process depends (in your scenario) on the prerogative of the user/viewer, which cannot be utilized until it has been implemented. If you presume users able to make edits (but relying on 'truly' random changes for new entries), your selection process would almost instantly break down since no user/viewer will return to a known-to-be information-less site if when are looking for information. So then if you presumed to rely entirely on 'truly' random changes and just wait it out, you would be asserting a gamblers fallacy. There is actually little need for speculation, however. If one were to contact the site administrators and obtain error frequency and type information, as well as the ratio of accurate-information-increasing to accurate-information-decreasing errors, it would be not too difficult to extrapolate it out.

14. You wrote that you believe I "can't wrap [my] head around the concept of equilibria", and then justify this assertion almost entirely by the fact that I disagree with you.

15. You expressed unfamiliarity with the term 'praxeological', and then proceeded to accuse me of insufficient knowledge of economics. I recommend this and possibly this as reference for you.

Now I understand that it can be frustrating when you cannot convince people to think like you do, despite honest sincerity. However, I do appreciate your efforts. Whether or not you decide to post this on your site, is a choice that's entirely up to you (that is, it's up to the chemical reactions in your brain ;) ).