this isn't your father's scientology

Vox Popoli notes:

It's interesting how arrogant scientists can be despite the fact that so much of our understanding of how the world works is based on their reasonable conjectures, never mind how much past reasonable conjecture is now known to be wrong...

Much "science" is increasingly less concerned with empirical evidence and rather more devoted to ontological speculation. Now, there's nothing wrong with such speculation and certainly it's possible for it to somehow advance human knowledge. But to call it science is a misnomer; Richard Dawkins openly admits here that he has no more evidence for his hypothetical founding "Replicator" than he has for God. In this particular example, he is writing as a science-ist, not a scientist.

But don't let that vital distinction slow you down when you're criticizing those ignorant of the latest developments in scientific ontology... or should I say... scientology?