These discussions are not about transitional fossils,or about Gradualism vs Punctuated Equilibrium,or the great flood and the geologic column or the accuracy of radiometric dating, It's about a turf war. Up untill recent times religion has always been the arbiter of moral and scientific questions. That's changing, the boundries are being moved, as they should be. Religion answers moral questions and science deals with the factual state of the world/universe, two completely different systems that are not in conflict with one another.
I would say religion and science compliment each other. You're right; it is a turf war, but at the heart of it all are two disciplines that are not in conflict. A scentist does not deal in absolutes only probabilities, observable reality, replicatable experimentation, etc. Concepts like Faith in Science have no meaning, or if they do, they are obstructions to scientific thought. That does not make Faith wrong or Science wrong. Faith is a believe and trust in the unknown or the unknowable. Science is skeptical of both. I would not trust my minister to explain uniformitarianism any more than I would trust a geologist to explain transubstantiation. However, you need both Faith and Science to explain the world God has presented us.
Where it becomes a turf war is when one faction attempts to misrepresent what another's discipline is teaching. Belief in Evolution is not a disbelief in God. A relationship with Christ does not preclude a belief in Cosmic Strings or Inflation Theory. Without Science, we will be forever be ruled by despots and heirophants who would prefer us ignorant. Without Faith, we will be rudderless and easy prey for demagogues. We as free men have a responsibility to stand astride the two disciplines and use them to achieve what God has planned for us.
