Tag Archives: Richard Lewontin

News

First report on Meyer-Shermer-Sternberg-Prothero debate

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UPDATE: The audio is here.

The 4-man debate took place last night in Beverly Hills.

The first after-action report from Evolution News.

Excerpt:

It was all shaping up to be a serious heavyweight bout. And then Meyer and Sternberg simply KO’d the competition in the opening round. If I were being generous I might say that Prothero tripped over his own arrogance and impaled himself on his condescension, but let’s be honest; he was completely knocked out by Sternberg. I think Sternberg earned a third degree tonight, one in evolutionary bulldozing.

The debate video will be made available at some point by American Freedom Alliance, the sponsors of the debate, along with Center for Inquiry, The Skeptics Society and Discovery Institute.

[…]To call the debate a massacre would be a discredit to Sitting Bull. The only thing I can say is that Shermer needs to add a point to his booklet on how to debate “creationists” — namely, leave Donald Prothero at home in his van by the river.

Read the whole thing. I’ll post a link to the debate when I get it.

Note, I’ve never heard Rob Crowther sound this harsh before. It really must have been a blowout.

Events

Upcoming debate with Stephen Meyer, Richard Sternberg and Michael Shermer

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Story here. (H/T Manawatu Christian Apologetics via Apologetics 315)

Excerpt:

A public debate about the origins of life hosted by the American Freedom Alliance and featuring: Stephen Meyer, Rick Sternberg, Michael Shermer and Don Prothero

Admission: $20.00 Students: $10.00
RSVP: Saban Theater Box Office (323) 655-0111

Monday, November 30th, 7pm,

Saban Theater, Beverly Hills

Here’s a neat quote from Harvard paleontologist Richard Lewontin, courtesy of Apologetics 315:

“We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.

It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.”

I hope that Shermer and Prothero can be more open-minded with respect to the evidence compared to Richard Lewontin’s faith-based epistemology.