I've long known Jim Manzi as one of the hopes for an intelligent future conservatism, but I never knew he was as incisive and sane on religion and science as he is on environmental policy. I found Bob Wright's Evolution of God a thoroughly stimulating, careful and riveting book - a provocation of sorts but one that I found extremely helpful in my own current religious wilderness. I read the Jerry Coyne review and share Jim's aversion to it. It seemed to me to wilfully misrepresent the book it was reviewing in some serious respects (Leon Wieseltier's crusade against Bob is almost as sustained and vicious as his jihad against yours truly). Anyway, I really recommend the careful, relentlessly calm and reasoned response of Manzi in defense of Bob's arguments. I also found Jim's post on "liberty-as-means" libertarianism about as good a current description of what I call the conservatism of doubt as I can imagine. And he deepened my belief that federalism is a critical tool of this conservatism, especially on cultural and religiously sensitive questions like abortion and homosexuality.
To have people as intelligent as Jim and Jonah Lehrer and Bob Wright and Hanna Rosin and Conor Clarke and Conor Friedersdorf and Peter Suderman and Julian Sanchez pinch-hit for me was, I repeat, an honor. I'm so grateful.