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

UPDATE: This is an excellent discussion with lots of argy-bargy from Prof. Atkins. What I so liked about this discussion is that Atkins is an honest atheist and does not beat around the bush. These guys should should do a full moderated 3-hour debate — it would be so beneficial to those interested in this debate. Meyer too was brilliant.

Justin Brierley from the Christian radio program Unbelievable has put together an amazingly high-quality debate. I made a rough transcript, so please see below for that.

The MP3 file is here. (60 minutes)

The following is from the Unbelievable website:

Intelligent Design theorist Stephen Meyer vs. Atheist scientist Peter Atkins debate Intelligent Design.

The documentary film “Expelled” is presented by US Actor Ben Stein and makes the case that scientists who question Darwinian orthodoxy and support Intelligent Design are being “expelled” from academia.

As the UK edition of the DVD is released we ask “Is freedom of thought at stake or is Intelligent Design out of bounds when it comes to biological science?”

Stephen C Meyer is co founder of the Discovery Institute in the USA and a major proponent of Intelligent Design.

Peter Atkins is Professor of Chemistry at Oxford University and an outspoken atheist.

They both feature in “Expelled” and join Justin to debate the pros and cons of Intelligent Design theory.

Mark Haville who is bringing the film to the UK also joins the discussion.

Thinking Christians should subscribe to Justin’s podcasts here to get a regular dose of scholarship:

http://ondemand.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/AudioFeed.aspx.

PS. Justin Brierley also interviewed William (Bill) Dembski and Lewis Wolpert a couple of weeks ago on the same radio show.

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

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?