Let me be a bit trollish so as to establish an actual counter-position (though I actually believe everything I say):
This is where the sequences first turn dumb.
For low-hanging fruit, we first see modern mythology misinterpreted as actual history. In reality, phlogiston was a useful theory at the time, which was rationally arrived at and rationally discarded when evidence turned against it (With some attempst at “adding epicycles”, but no more than other scientific theories) . And the NOMA thing was made up by Gould when he misunderstood actual religious claims, i.e. it is mostly a straw-man.
On a higher level of abstraction, the whole approach of this sequence is discussing other peoples alleged rationalizations. This is almost always a terrible idea. For comparison, other examples would include Marxist talk about false consciousness, Christian allegations that atheists are angry at God or want a license to sin or the Randian portrayal of irrational death-loving leachers. [Aware of meta-irony following:] Arguments of this type almost always serve to feed the ingroup’s sense of security, safely portraying the most scary kinds of irrationality as a purely outgroup thing. And that is the most simple sufficient causal explanation of this entire sequence.
Let me be a bit trollish so as to establish an actual counter-position (though I actually believe everything I say):
This is where the sequences first turn dumb.
For low-hanging fruit, we first see modern mythology misinterpreted as actual history. In reality, phlogiston was a useful theory at the time, which was rationally arrived at and rationally discarded when evidence turned against it (With some attempst at “adding epicycles”, but no more than other scientific theories) . And the NOMA thing was made up by Gould when he misunderstood actual religious claims, i.e. it is mostly a straw-man.
On a higher level of abstraction, the whole approach of this sequence is discussing other peoples alleged rationalizations. This is almost always a terrible idea. For comparison, other examples would include Marxist talk about false consciousness, Christian allegations that atheists are angry at God or want a license to sin or the Randian portrayal of irrational death-loving leachers. [Aware of meta-irony following:] Arguments of this type almost always serve to feed the ingroup’s sense of security, safely portraying the most scary kinds of irrationality as a purely outgroup thing. And that is the most simple sufficient causal explanation of this entire sequence.