Obama is a good man who would make a good candidate. Clinton is a good woman who would make a good candidate. Both would make excellent presidents. I tend more toward Obama, but I would be fine with Clinton. Please, no matter who you support more, be civil to and about your fellow Democrats. To unjustifiably attack or sully the candidate you don't support in this fight is to do nothing more than lend support to the Republicans. If you are a Clinton supporter, great. Positively express your reasons for supporting her. If you are an Obama supporter, do the same. Do not try to gain points by negative assaults. Keep an eye on the ultimate goal of a Democrat winning in November, and be civil. Both are good and worthy of our support, even if we might differ on which we prefer. Tear into McCain if you want to draw someone's blood.

Ah, Wes, just like Shawn, the other "pro"-Clinton troll...don't you know that every time you post your divisive, polarized, tactless, and thoughtless attacks on any Democrat who doesn't agree with you another Republican gets his or her horns? Don't you know that people like give McCain and the right-wing judges he wishes to appoint shudders of joy?

The sad thing is that Hillary Clinton is a remarkable, capable person. I think she is a very admirable person, and would make a fantastic president. People like you, Wes, do nothing more than sully Senator Clinton with your obnoxiousness. Do Obama supporters go overboard sometimes? Oh yes. However, I have not seen the sort of venom from them that I have read from you and Shawn. Obama can win the general election, as can Clinton. If the one who gets the nomination doesn't, it will not because of their failings, for their strengths outweigh them, but because people like you have done their darnedest to divide the party. Clinton is not my first choice. I prefer Obama, but if Clinton were to somehow be nominated, I would enthusiastically support her. This election is too crucial to engage in the the sort of childishness you typify. So, please, grow up, and realize that fellow Democrats are not your enemy. McCain and the Republicans who want another four years to continue their destruction of this country are. This goes for Obama supporters, also. Be civil - we are on the same side, after all.

I will agree with you that Wes seems to be very earnest in his advocacy, and I don't begrudge him his passion. I think it is admirable. However, he has been very, very strident and inflammatory in his advocacy for Senator Clinton and attacks on Senator Obama. I think such stridency hurts his point, and makes his preferred candidate look bad. It is too bad, as it is clear that he is otherwise very thoughtful. I just think that we can do more by being civil with each other, as the disagreements between the two camps are really so subtle and small in comparison to the divide between us and the Republicans. That is all.

Wes, if it offended you to be lumped in with Shawn (who doesn't seem remotely serious), I apologize.

I respect PZ Myers and Richard Dawkins as scientists and original thinkers. Heck, reading Dawkins' books was one of the influences that led me to become an evolutionary biologist. However, I continue to despair of how evangelical they have become for the "new atheism". It is not that I have a problem with atheism. I would likely be classified as an atheist, after all. I do have a problem with the construction of strawman depictions of all religion, no matter the type, as caricatures of Christian fundamentalism. I do have a problem with the ceaseless belittlement of others for no real reason other than to bolster their own religious position. I do have a problem with the meanness and lack of respect for others. I have a problem with the juvenile stunts like that of Myer's recent desecration of a host wafer (really, what was the point of that?). I respect and admire their science, but, speaking as an evolutionary biologist, I really wish they would stop with the pontificating and needless provocation. Part of my job is to try to inform the public about evolution, and this just gets harder when their antics and attacks just reinforce popular misconceptions advocated by creationists conflating evolution and atheism. Don't they realize that they just close minds when they behave as they do? I had the opportunity to meet PZ Myers at the Evolution 2008 conference this summer, and he seemed like a very nice, quite eloquent person. It is hard to square that with some of the vile invective on his website (which is still, by the way, a good place to learn about some really cool science). I wish I had had opportunity to ask him about things like the desecration (though the conference was several weeks ago, and thus long before that), and why he feels the need to do such things, and what he hopes to accomplish.

I simply cringe at the thought of having to deal with the blowback from things like this every time I try to teach laypeople about what I work on, or even basic ideas like Sewall Wright's shifting balance theory or Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium.

I can sympathize with disagreement and anger at attacks from fundamentalist Christians and ID creationists, but there simply is no reason to stoop to their level.