The reason why the warfare myth is so enduring is because it is so useful. For the evolution camp it allows dismissal of skepticism as religiously motivated. Francis Collins continued this theme last year at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life's Faith Angle Conference on religion, politics and public life. His message is summarized by the Pew Forum report on the event as follows:
Francis S. Collins, the former director of the Human Genome Project, discussed why he believes religion and science are compatible and why the current conflict over evolution vs. faith, particularly in the evangelical community, is unnecessary. Collins, an evangelical Christian, talked about his path from atheism to Christianity and his belief that science provides evidence of God. He cited the Big Bang theory and the fact that the universe had a beginning out of nothing. He added that the laws of physics have precisely the values needed for life to occur on earth and argued that would seem to point to a creator.
Conflict over evolution vs. faith? The perpetuation of this two-dimensional strawman (evolutionists are merely following the scientific data, skeptics are religiously-motivated fundamentalists) is unfortunate, but convenient for Collins. Here is a Collins' quote from the Pew Forum transcript of the event:
There are certainly voices out there arguing that you can't have both of those; you've got to take your pick. You either are going to approach questions from a purely scientific perspective or a purely spiritual perspective, and the two are locked in eternal combat. I don't happen to agree with that, so perhaps I should say a bit of a word about how I got there.
Voices out there arguing that you either are going to approach questions from a purely scientific perspective or a purely spiritual perspective, and the two are locked in eternal combat? Amazing. I suppose there are such voices, but dwelling on them conveniently misses the scientific absurdity of evolution.
And note that Collins disagrees with the straw man, not the use of the straw man. When a historian disagrees with the warfare thesis, it means he believes it is not an accurate description of the relationship between religion and science.
But when the evolutionist disagrees with the warfare thesis, it means he is using the contrived idea to argue for evolution.
