To be fair most sources tend to pick one or possibly two of those tropes to run with, so this is of course a major exaggeration on my part. On the other hand, that fact doesn’t really lessen the reality of the cynical attempts made to not only distance themselves from the ideology behind the attacks, but to actually foist the blame onto whatever group they dislike most.

Having said that, there are certainly scientists out there that actively pick fights with religious people over their ideas. As with any group they’re the ones that tend to get attention, even though they’re generally not representative of the group as a whole. Unfortunately I think these are the ones most likely to think of science as a search for The Truth® (which is why they’re probably the most vocal…they have the strongest feelings on the subject).

More often, though, I think it comes from religious people pushing their ideas into arenas where it doesn’t belong. The easiest example of this is the myriad attempts at getting Creationism taught in schools over the years, though there are many other examples.

I’ll leave it at that. Every time I attempt to elaborate, this turns into some kind of treatise on epistemology and NOMA. To paraphrase the internet (who claims to be quoting Mark Twain) “I didn’t have time to write a short comment, so I wrote a long one instead.” (actually this is my short comment).

(((:~{>