The full video of this debate is online here.
On October 3rd of 2007 in Birmingham, Alabama, Professor Richard Dawkins and his Oxford University colleague Professor John Lennox engaged in a lively debate over what is arguably the most critical question of our time: the existence of God. The debate centered on Dawkins’ views as expressed in his best-seller, The God Delusion, and their validity over and against the Christian faith. Both presenters agreed to the format and topics of discussion.
HT to http://apologetics315.blogspot.com
Stephen Meyer, Michael Medved, David Berlinski and Thomas Woodward are coming to Tampa Florida for Design vs. Darwin Event
The debate between Darwin and design is coming to Tampa, Florida with a major one-night event featuring some of the leading voices challenging Darwinian evolution.
Click here to register for this event: http://signatureinthecell.eventbrite.com/
Discovery Institute senior fellow and national radio personality Michael Medved will lead a two-hour discussion about the evidence for intelligent design and the challenges it proposes to modern evolutionary theory. Joining him will be Signature in the Cell author, Stephen C. Meyer; leading Darwin skeptic and author of The Deniable Darwin, David Berlinski; and scientist, scholar and writer, Thomas Woodward author of Darwin Strikes Back.
The event will take place at The A La Carte Pavilion, Tampa, FL, Thursday, January 28th at 7pm and is hosted by the C. S. Lewis Society. Discovery Institute is one of the co-sponsors.
The cost of admission is $6 for Students and $12 for Adults. For more information and advanced ticket sales, call (727) 376-6911 x 336. Or you can simply purchase tickets to the event online: http://signatureinthecell.eventbrite.com/
Source: Facebook
From here: http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/12/ouch_intelligent_design_guys_p.html
The great debate over the adequacy of evolution continues. Sort of. The latest head to head meeting had Dr. Stephen Meyer and Dr. Richard Sternberg debating Dr. Michael Shermer and Dr. Donald Prothero. Heading into the debate I was quite excited; these aren’t lightweights, after all. The defenders of evolution are well known in science circles and to followers of the overall debate. Indeed, we’ve blogged a fair amount on Dr. Prothero who has, shall we say, a colorful and cavalier way with the facts. He is known more for polemical bromides and spurious personal attacks than for any serious science.
Waiting for the event to start, I was wondering if Prothero would be better behaved in person than he is hiding behind a keyboard. His partner was Skeptic magazine’s head honcho, Michael Shermer, who has debated Stephen Meyer before, and is known for making more theological arguments against ID, as opposed to bringing any serious scientific criticisms bear. I expected he would be the good cop to Prothero’s keystone cop. What I didn’t know was that Prothero would be Ed McMahon to his Johnny Carson.
On the other side, the contenders are just as well credentialed — maybe more so — with one holding a philosophy of science degree from Cambridge (Meyer) being the less qualified, since Sternberg holds two degrees in evolutionary and theoretical biology. Not to mention that Meyer’s new book, Signature in the Cell, is by far the most prominent book of any of the participants, having just been named a bestseller by Amazon.com, and last week honored in the Times Literary Supplement of the London Times as one of the best books of the year.
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.
Shermer opened by denouncing intelligent design as not science and not to be confused with science, which is what he and Prothero apparently assumed to be the topic of the debate. (It wasn’t, sadly.) Then he turned it over to Prothero, who — after repeatedly repeating that science cannot resort to the supernatural — proceeded to race through a litany of complaints against intelligent design and assertions about the creation of amino acids and proteins, most of which was non-controversial and also not evidence for Darwinian evolution. Prothero made a number of claims about RNA chains, about how the evidence of the fossil record is “ironclad” or would be if people treated it fairly, and about how the Miller-Urey experiment was right, “and even if they weren’t it still works” (quit laughing, he was serious!). His Darwinian motivational rant went on about how the Cambrian explosion was really a “slow fuse,” not an explosion. Amazingly, he claimed that almost all the major phyla had ancestors 50 million years before the Cambrian. Alas, he was so far wrong that it wasn’t all that much effort to point it out, completely discredit him, and then let him hang himself with his twisted rope of unearned arrogance and condescension. If you’re going to be arrogant, you’d better be able to back it up with something better than, “I climbed some rocks in Russia and read an article in The New Scientist.”
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.
This guy is to be taken seriously? I had to remind myself not to laugh every so often during his presentation — it was so pathetic and ill-informed. Basically, Shermer and Prothero blathered on about supernaturalism, and Meyer ceded his time to Sternberg, who made an interesting presentation about whale evolution. Then he proceeded to point out the topic of the debate to Shermer and Prothero: Has Evolutionary Theory Adequately Explained the Origins of Life?, something which they never addressed because they were so busy falling all over themselves to denounce intelligent design.
Some of the best points came later in the debate, when Sternberg slammed Prothero with factual put down after factual put down, citing the current literature time and again. His command of the subject matter — from population genetics to junk DNA — was so far and above beyond Shermer and Prothero’s knowledge, so far above their pay grade, that it was almost painful to watch him school them point after point. As I said before, shortly you’ll be able to watch the debate for yourself. But be warned, it isn’t pretty.
See also:
http://www.stephencmeyer.org/
http://www.signatureinthecell.org
Dr. Stephen Meyer will debate Skeptic magazine editor and Darwin defender Michael Shermer in Beverly Hills on Monday November 30.
More info on Facebook here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=184759894536&ref=share
Apologetics 315 has a bunch of stuff about this debate online, including the MP3 which is over 2 hours long and includes questions and answers from the floor.
Moderator of the debate, Dr. Bradley Monton has kindly put up a review of the debate on his website here.
I was really hoping for some knock-down arguments from Ayala given his amazing academic credentials and outstanding ranking in the world of evolutionary biology. But once again, I think there was little gunpowder in the evolutionist’s chamber and we are all intellectually the worse for it.
I wonder if Richard Dawkins will have time to listen to the debate (that could have been his) and reconsider debating Craig.
Reading the summary on Bradley Monton’s website, I wonder if Dawkins may regret NOT taking up the offer and debating Craig, especially if he is so sure of his incredible claims. Why? Because apparently Craig conceded afterward that he is very inexperienced at debating this subject, so Dawkins could have blasted some big holes in ID and its followers like myself by hitting us between the eyes David Tua style with the evidence that we keep asking for.
As for a winner, my feeling is that we can notch up another win for Craig, but overall the debate could have been a lot better.
Lastly, it seems to me that for such a smart guy, Ayala’s should have a worldview that is much more coherent. He seems to believe in God, but rejects any notion that we can detect God’s handiwork in biology. He also seems really confused about theology — even though he has a doctorate in theology!!! I wonder if he has ever come across the essential doctrine of the fall because it seem to me that it plays a vital role in so many of the criticisms he has of “design” in biology. If Ayala rejects both general revelation and special revelation, upon what does he base any belief in God at all? Why not just go the whole hog and ditch God-belief altogether?
There is usually more heat then light generated in the evolution wars. However, this video is actually pretty good imo. Thanks to the Hoover Institution for making this available!
embedded by Embedded Video
From http://www.premier.org.uk/unbelievable, here is the MP3:
http://media.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/6e95c37b-33f7-4fdf-adb2-b628ab78914b.mp3
On Tuesday night, I debated atheist Christopher Hitchens, author of God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, at Virginia Commonwealth University. The topic was, “Does God Exist?”
Thanks be to God (and to you for your prayers) because I don’t think the debate could have gone much better. There were several atheists who approached me afterwards to say that I had won.
One young lady actually apologized for being an atheist! Her position was not well represented, and she said that the arguments for God were.
Hitchens was his usual charming and witty self (I really like him and said as much), but he did not answer any of the eight arguments that I presented for the existence of God. And as many in the audience acknowledged, he dodged nearly all of my questions.
Here is the introduction of a long e-mail sent to me two hours after the debate by a VCU Philosophy professor who attended (this professor told me that he is completely “non-religious”):
Dear Dr. Turek, I wanted to say once again that I greatly enjoyed your talk and that, in my judgment, you clearly and unequivocally prevailed against Hitchens. Your two mind-body arguments were, I thought, very good, as were your modernizations of the cosmological argument and the teleological argument. I was also moved by your argument that, given how vanishingly close to zero are the chances of there being any sort of life, let alone intelligent life, it is more reasonable to infer that there is a God than it is to infer that there isn’t — the first an inference, but not the latter, being an ‘inference to the best explanation’, as philosophers of science would say.
Read the rest here.
Here are some observations from a Hitchens fan who was at the debate. Sounds like Turek won the debate, but Hitchens was not in great form (unwell perhaps?). Enjoy.
http://rudyhenkel.livejournal.com/2726.html
Anyone know where the MP3s are?
This should be really exciting for those who like a lively debate!
Frank is from this site: http://www.crossexamined.org/
Check it out. Frank is “in ya face!” and so is Christopher Hitchens — so this should be a fun debate. See a short video of Frank on his website above.
http://crossexamined.org/calendar_event.asp?d_ID=121
Debate with Christopher Hitchens: Does God Exist?
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Virginia Commonwealth University
VCU: Commonwealth Ballroom in the Student Commons
Richmond, VA
What is Kogs-4-Kids?
Kogs-4-Kids is a workbook set that has just been released that supports the Real Science-4-Kids curriculum. This workbook set helps students make cognitive connections between the scientific discipline they are studying (chemistry, biology, physics, and earth and space) and other disciplines such as critical thinking, language, technology, the arts, philosophy, and history. Kogs-4-Kids plus Real Science-4-Kids work together to create not only a foundation for scientific knowledge but also a framework for scientific literacy.
Order the complete Chemistry 1A Bundle today or the individual workbooks of interest (recommended for grades 3-5). You can also download sample chapters for each topic. Find out why kids are going krazy for kogs.
Full videos of the debate are located here.
Thanks to our friends at Apologetics 315.
It happened in Auckland…
http://mandmandmandm.blogspot.com/2008/06/battle-of-bills-review-of-craig-cooke.html
My small idea of getting Dr William Lane Craig to have a debate at Auckland University ended up being an event that far exceeded my expectations. Despite the New Zealand Association of Rationalists and Humanists (NZARH) booking a larger lecture theatre at the last minute we still had to open up three additional lecture theatres with live video feeds and we still had people sitting on the floor! Question time had to be extended because of the interest. The range of people in attendance was excellent; hardened skeptics, evangelical Christians and everyone in between, young and old, high school students through to tertiary faculty.
And is about to happen in Palmy…
http://christiannews.co.nz/2008/debate-bill-craig-and-bill-cooke/
I have moved this list to a new page and greatly improved the previously ugly layout. Enjoy it here. The list is now in chronological order.
Cool stuff, stolen from here: http://apologetics315.blogspot.com/
Does God Exist? Greg Bahnsen vs. Gordon Stein
There are a lot of great theism/atheism debates out there. But this one is surely a classic.
For those not familiar with the transcendental argument for the existence of God or Greg Bahnsen, this should be a good introduction.
Here is the transcript of the debate.
Here is the debate on MP3: part 1, part 2, part 3.
Anthony Flew Says There is a God
World-famous atheist Anthony Flew’s recent book "There is a God" has caused quite a stir in the atheist community.
Hear more about his conversion to belief in God in a short MP3 by Probe Ministries.
This article/MP3 is by Michael Gleghorn. Definitely worth a listen. So much for the "weakness" of the design argument…
Christopher Hitchens vs. Mark D. Roberts Debate MP3
If you haven’t heard this debate, I encourage you to listen. Both sides are very cordial, but the exchange is quite lively.
Christopher Hitchens is author of God is Not Great.
Mark D. Roberts’ most recent book is Can We Trust the Gospels? — which, I might add, is an excellent book.
This debate took place on the Hugh Hewitt show and full transcripts are available.
The audio is compiled into one MP3 here.
Christianity vs. Scientific Naturalism Debate MP3
A debate between Dr. William Lane Craig and Dr. Garrett Hardin.
This was an interesting debate. Hardin’s answer to the question asking for the evidence for scientific naturalism was very telling.
I will leave this one open to your comments. Enjoy the MP3.
Christian News has news that W.L.C. is coming to NZ in June. Check it out here.
This is huge news for those interested in apologetics as Craig is one of the best.
Apparently Richard Dawkins was asked if he would debate W.L.C. and replied: "It would look good on his C.V., but not on mine."
Probably what Dawkins really means is that: "Um, I know I will not be able to play fast and loose with this guy like I can with most others, so, um, what derogatory comment can I use to diffuse the question?"
It’s a shame that he turned it down. Craig debated Peter Atkins (MP3)from Oxford University a few years ago, and has done numerous other debates and written and co-written several books.
Check www.reasonablefaith.org for more details!
