Dawkins said that if you followed that line of thinking that procreation should be presented as a ‘controversy’ between two schools; the ‘sexual reproduction’ school and the ‘stork’ school.

Obviously the commonality of people who deny the holocaust in light of captured Nazi records, photography and film included, and the people who deny evolution is that they claim a certainty that is contradictory to the evidence. Why would they do this?

I think that the answer is that they’re clinging to a dogma which appeals to them emotionally. They just cannot accept reality and the implications that it carries with it. The weight of releasing such closely held beliefs and redefining their own place in the world is just to much. Ego.. They just cannot accept that their own place in the greater scheme of things could be so small.

After all, God loves them and created an entire universe around them. Damn it, why can’t they be special?!?!?

First, what is it that Dawkins is aiming at? Is he merely wanting people to believe in the facts of evolution because the proper authorities have told the unwashed masses what to believe? Or does he want people to actually understand how science and skepticism works — and to follow the conclusions with intellectual honesty?

I've clearly tipped my hand with my phrasing of the questions, but I think that is roughly how Dawkins sees it. It is not merely a matter of % of people who agree about evolution specifically — he wants to get at the root cause of how and why people believe what they do about the world.

Second, once we're clear on what 'we' want to accomplish, the question of tactics becomes important. It's not obvious to me what is the right path to take, but many people employing many different methods with the same goal may be one route…

As for the Times Online, that place is a tabloid that abandoned journalistic ethics years ago. No surprise they gave it a headline fit only for supermarket aisles.