Hey, Ben!
I initially joined the site in the first flush of my New Atheist phase, when I thought I was doing the world a favor by being nasty and overbearing to religious folks. I did learn a lot about biology and natural history, though, which have become abiding interests of mine. I went away and started getting more into the philosophy of science, which made me realize how shallow and polemical our pop-science poobahs are. The whole creationism thing is just a factoid-war that has less to do with science than with venting outrage at the presumption of people we consider our moral, intellectual and socioeconomic inferiors. The vaccine and virus deniers have the potential to cause a whole lot of legitimate and needless suffering, but creationists are about as dangerous as 9/11 truthers at this late date.
Some ten years later I toddled back here and karma caught up with me. I tried to be a little more realistic and critical about scientific endeavor, so for a few months I got hassled by science bros who sounded just as immature and narrow-minded as I had been when I first joined up. Finally the admin told me that philosophy was nothing but "mental masturbation," so I took the hint and hit the road.
Hope all's well.
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