Suprise: creationists trying to have it both ways

I am always amazed at the ability of creationists to hold two contradictory ideas simultaneously. A case in point is how they view the scientific community's attitude towards evolution. On the one hand, they are constantly telling us that more and more scientists are seeing problems with evolution, and make it sound like there is massive criticism of all of the holes in the crumbling edifice of evolutionary theory. On the other hand, they tell us that biology is a monolithic conspiracy that won't accept any dissent and the reason creationists can't publish is because scientists don't accept dissent. Which is it, are we rife with dissent or are we intolerant of dissent?

This came to mind because of a recent conference in Altenberg, Austria on the status of the Darwinian synthesis. This conference was called by a prominent evolutionary biologist, Massimo Pigliucci, and has many other prominent biologists at it. The one thing they all have in common is they think that the evolutionary synthesis needs some modifications or additional theories.

The Panda's Thumb has a summary and critique of a creationists' (Casey Luskin) response to this conference. Luskin claims that this is proof of how weak evolution is and how there are so many scientists critiquing it. As the link shows, Luskin is confusing disagreements about details with disagreements about the whole theory, as is typical of creationists. But what I would like to add is how this completely contradicts creationists' claims that scientists don't accept dissent.

If Luskin's characterization of this conference was correct, and it is a massive attack on evolution, then he can no longer make any claims that the rejection of intelligent design and their failure to publish is because science is close minded and doesn't accept dissent, or that critics risk losing their jobs. If on the other hand he wants to claim that there is a Darwinist conspiracy against ID, then he must admit that the Altenberg conference does not really question evolution, but only details. Choose one or the other, but quite trying to have it both ways.