Mark Mathis vs Scientific American Editors interview on the Expelled Documentary 2008 BEST CHECK

This debate ( audio 1 & 2 | 1:13.47s ) took place in 2008 between Mark Mathis, a producer for Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed who screened the movie to editors of Scientific American, who recorded an interview with Mathis for their podcast.

4.25 Stars: Mathis is just in over his head in this interview with probably the most informed journalists on the topic he could possible meet. It's an uneven match, but a very good listen. BEST CHECK

This one is pretty brutal. It is just over an hour of legit scientific journalists grilling someone who obviously has no idea what he is talking about and apparently had no idea what he was getting into. To be fair, it was a bunch of people versus one guy who obviously has no background in science whatsoever.

The topics discussed ranged from the Wedge document, academic freedom, theistic evolution, Hitler, all the stuff that came up in that terrible movie. I've seen it. It's boring and cheap and Stein makes a very tortured comparison between himself and Reagan for some reason.

The editors questioning Mathis included John Rennie (pictured above) then Editor-in-Chief of SciAm and Steve Mirsky who hosts the mag's podcast called Science Talk. Both have backgrounds in science and journalism so they sure didn't pull any punches.

I suggest everyone gives this one a listen. Mathis barely keeps his head above water the whole time, I think he only gives one legit answer to a point I think that people on the side against ID/Creation often make: that the reason why it's not the Earth is round or flat teach the controversy or gravity is just a theory, teach the controversy...is because evolution deals with issues more personal to humans, like the origins of life. But that's more of an explanation why evolution is a bigger target and not a negation of the point made by asking why IDers aren't attacking other science theories.

But that one point takes Mathis a very long time to bring up and if anything, I don't see why anyone wouldn't agree with that. Mathis gets pretty punchy near the end and so does Rennie. This is a very intensely fun listen.

Technical
Great AQ, it's a podcast! As of now, I am hosting the mp3s because I haven't found links to them on the internet, the iTunes archive of the show probably has them, though.

Revised 8-23-2015: Added a bit more flesh to the review and brought the score down in light of the uneveness of the match up.