This is fair, and not inconsistent with other public speeches I've found, which mention the failures of "Pan-Islamism" and spurn the idea of a caliphate. So I t

This is fair, and not inconsistent with other public speeches I've found, which mention the failures of "Pan-Islamism" and spurn the idea of a caliphate. So I think I was off base about Ataturk. He was also a hardcore nationalist by any modern standard, which helps a lot when trying to get people in a nation to do stuff. I still think that, in the US at least, sneering at religion or defining it against science is a terrible way to further science. There are really 2 types of "religious" people in the US [1], the "USA #1 + God" group, and the "church every week" type. These need to be approached a bit differently, I think. The first group's opinions really fall into the existing political polarization issues more than any explicitly faith-based concern. In both cases, understanding and using the groups' language would help a lot to communicate science. [1] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/29/religious-typology-overview/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/29/religious-ty...