The hard fact is that intellectually dishonest dodges such as Gould’s non-overlapping magisteria merely encourage religionism, and religionism is inevitably always in conflict with reality. Although religious extremists understand almost nothing, the one thing they do understand is that you can either believe in invisible magical creatures for which no shred of proof has ever existed and which contravene everything we know to be true about reality, or you can accept empiricism and slowly learn about the highly complex and only partially-understood real world. It’s impossible to do both because myths are always simplistic and fail entirely to match up with what we know to be true. Thus there is always a tension between myth and reality, and the religionist solves the dilemma by rejecting reality. The USA is increasingly returning to the 11th century precisely because religionists have such a firm grip on politics, thanks to the fact primary and secondary education in the USA is of relatively poor quality. It’s unsurprising that having established this grip on politics and therefore on policy, religionists should further seek to erode what little factual information is presented to children.

Ultimately every society must face a choice: greatly restrict the pernicious influence of magical thinking in preference for promoting reality and humane values, or accept a slow slide into intellectual incoherence and bigotry that must ultimately result in repression and violence. I wonder how long it will be before a new Witchfinder General appears in one of the more backward US States?