Letters to the Editor
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Gentlemen, start your metaphors...
From the article:
And we may find that the big-bang theory goes out of favor at some point in the future. And then what? Religious people will have backed the wrong horse. So it's fraught with danger to seize on these cosmological ideas.
Very much like the new-age writers who seized on certain popular ideas in physics in the 70s, (string theory, anyone? look at all the pretty dimensions!) ideas that in the late 90s underwent an enormous amount of revision and change, all of which has left said new-agers looking decidedly last age...
In a larger sense this is simply illustrative of the fundamental difference between the process of science and the process of religion. Science says "Here's the best interpretation we've been able to come up with -- all this may change if we get some new data tomorrow." Religion says "Our ideas are inherently correct and eternally unchanging and you will offend us if you question them."
But I encourage religious leaders to ignore these warnings and continue making the oft-used statement "Scientists are just now coming to understand these eternal truths" because at the end of the day exposing the faithful to even bad, obsolete science may just fire off a hunger for a system of discussing our place in the universe that's not based on magical thinking.