I was involved in one of those heated internet dustups last
week. It started when Hank Campbell, creator of the Science 2.0
, accused me of being “anti-science” and “hating biology,” which
he claimed I see as a “tool of Lucifer.”  “Anti-science”? “Hate
biology”? Lucifer ? What had I done to spark such emotive
language?  Wesley J. Smith  I argued against the creation of
“three-parent” IVF embryos on ethical and safety grounds. (The
father of the child in three-parent IVF would be the man whose
sperm fertilized a genetically modified egg containing
substances from two women, who would both be biological
mothers.) I might have ignored Campbell’s criticism. But it was
posted at the popular website Real Clear Science , so I pushed
back .  That tempest in a teapot got me thinking about the
ubiquitous use of the “anti-science” epithet. The point of the
slur is to avoid actual discourse by branding an intellectual
opponent as irrational, theocratic, and/or reactionary, to the
end that the adversary’s opinions be dism