Thursday, January 20, 2005

Uncommon Knowledge, with Jonathan Wells and yours truly A few days ago I taped an episode of the PBS-broadcast show "Uncommon Knowledge" in Stanford, CA. The show will probably air sometime during the next couple of months. The topic was intelligent design, and I was facing Discovery Institute's creationist Jonathan Wells, author of "Icons of Evolution." It was an interesting experience in the sense that I thought Wells conceded so many points that one would conclude that there is no real reason to debate the issue at all. When pressed (either by me or by the host -- the latter slightly leaning toward Wells' position in his sympathies), Wells admitted that ID doesn't make any positive empirically verifiable prediction (hence, it isn't science by the currently accepted concept of it), and went as far as saying that ID should not be taught in public schools, because it is "too young a theory." Of course, ID is actually older (much older) than evolution as an idea, going all the way back to Plato. But never mind that. This is the second time I face an ID proponent whose arguments, when challenged in a more or less intelligent manner, regress to the point of very modest and essentially irrelevant statements (the other time was a live debate in front of an audience in Kansas a couple of years ago, when I was facing Discovery Institute's Paul Nelson). Indeed, maybe I should count also a couple of public meetings with Bill Dembski in the same category. Though Bill conceded much less than either Wells or Nelson, he was almost constantly on the defensive, and looking very awkard at that! Could it be that all it takes to show what these people are really about is a bit of politely presented attacks (as opposed to defenses of evolution)? Can it be that simple? Of course, what impact all of this has on the audience is a whole different matter... 2:20:49 PM    comment []

Bush, public prayers and court challenges Mike Newdow (who I met personally, nice bright guy) has tried and failed again to put a stop to obvious infringements of the separation between Church and State in the US. You may recall his failed (on a technicality) attempt to get  "under God" taken out of the pledge of allegiance last year). Newdow wanted the Supreme Court to forbid Bush from having a prayer said at his inauguration. The request, seems to me, is obviously correct, as no sensible person would deny that invoking God at a public ceremony celebrating the election of the nation's leader is as clear a violation of the C-S separation as one can imagine. (So it is to have our children say "under God" every day of their lives in public schools, of course, or to put "in God we trust" on our money.) But of course both lower courts and Supreme Court justice Renquist rejected Newdow's argument. The White House invoked the lamiest (and yet most common) of the arguments: well, every president has done it for 200 years, so... (by the same token, we could justify slavery, which after all has a "tradition" of thousands of years). The other question, however, is whether Mike's attempts are ultimately hurting more than helping his own cause. True, he is getting a lot of publicity. But he is unlikely to obtain any actual result, and by and large what he is doing is to attract the ires of conservative Christians, and even somewhat negative reactions from mainstream religious people who see him as an "extremist." The last thing we need, seems to me, is to give the Christian right one more excuse to claim that they are a "persecuted" majority (as nonsensical as that may be), especially considering that even if Newdow wins nothing of substance is going to change. Then again, you've got to admire the guy's guts... 8:57:00 AM    comment []