The news is not good.

It was a room full of bright, scientifically literate people—molecular
biologists, anthropologists, physicists, engineers—and yet, three days
were insufficient to force agreement on whether or not there is any
conflict between religion and science. While at Salk, I witnessed
scientists giving voice to some of the most unctuous religious
apologies I have ever heard. It is one thing to be told that the pope
is a great champion of reason and that his opposition to embryonic stem
cell research has nothing to do with religious dogmatism; it is quite
another to be told this by a Stanford physician who sits on the
President’s Council on Bioethics. Over the course of the meeting, I had
the pleasure of hearing that Hitler, Stalin, and Mao were examples of
secularism run amok, that the doctrines of martyrdom and jihad have
nothing whatsoever to do with Muslim terrorism, that people can never
be argued out of their beliefs because we live in an irrational world,
that science has made no important contributions to our ethical lives,
and that it is not the job of scientists “to take away people’s
hope”—all from atheist scientists, happily trading in the most abject
and paralyzing shibboleths of academic political correctness. There
were several moments during our panel discussions that brought to mind
the final scene of Invasion of the Body Snatchers—people who looked
like scientists, had published as scientists, and would soon be
returning to their labs nevertheless gave voice to the alien hiss of
religious lunacy at the slightest prodding. In case anyone thought that
the front lines in our culture wars could be found at the entrance to a
megachurch, I am here to report that we still have considerable work to
do in a nearby trench.

(Sam Harris in the current issue of Free Inquiry)

If reputable scientists cannot be made to agree that there are
important intellectual and moral differences between knowing something
and pretending to know it, we are doomed. Happily, the meeting at Salk
will be convened again next fall. Perhaps then it will be possible to
rule out the Virgin Birth of Jesus as a valid scientific hypothesis.

I know, Sam. I know.