The difficulty I have with taking natural selection seriously is that so many of those who argue against it do so out of motives that have nothing to do with the relative merits of the theory...likewise many who favor it.
Any time I try to read something substantive on natural selection I find myself wondering "Is this a real argument, or is the author merely defending his ideological turf?"
It's enough to make one take up basketweaving.
The difficulty I have with taking natural selection seriously is that so many of those who argue against it do so out of motives that have nothing to do with the relative merits of the theory...
I started to say, well, it wouldn't make sense to dismiss natural selection simply because you question the motives of those who argue against it, but then you added
likewise many who favor it.
But you're correct to try to distinguish between ideological turf-defending, on the one hand, and the marshalling of evidence and argument in favor of (or against) natural selection, on the other hand. I'll confess that I don't often find it hard to distinguish between these two, since the turf-defender almost immediately tips his hand by resorting to ad hominem's or other shifty debater's tricks.
But, you know, everybody needs at least one good basket...