Duane Gish vs Ian Plimer - Creation vs Evolution 1988

This debate ( video | 2:42m ) took place in Australia between the infamous Dr Guane Gish and pre-Climate Change Skeptic Ian Plimer. It was on the topic Creationism vs Evolution and was quite heated and filled with low-blows.

2.75 stars: Both sides engage in some pretty underhanded tactics here, making for an entertaining but unilluminating spectacle.

Heads up: the introduction is so freaking long that the link I provide above skips it. Also, I usually mention this at the end of the review, but the audio quality is pretty bad. The dated feel isn't helped by the fact that both speakers sound like they time-traveled from other time periods - Gish being an Antebellum gentleman and Plimer being a 30s/40s newsreel narrator.

Because Gish is what the Gish Gallop is named after I never bothered to listen to his debates because I would rather listen to more skilled Creationist debaters. Now I know that that's rather silly and so I finally decided to check him out. In Plimer seemed to handle himself well when he went up against George Monbiot and Tony Jones, in terms of rhetoric so I wonder how'd he do if he also had the facts on his side.

Well Gish brought up the usual stuff and didn't really support Creationism except by default. Plimer on the other hand came up and almost pointedly decided to attack Creationism itself. He listed several of the absurd implications to the story of Noah's Ark, accused Gish of lying in his own publications and cited specifics, cleared up some common Creationist misconceptions and ended with a pretty good anecdote about Creationism taught in public schools in the US.

The issue with Plimer's pointing out the weird parts of the Ark is that he does get some basic things about the ark story wrong, making it unsure whether or not he has attempted to go through the arguments. However, Gish's rebuttal seems to have just been an appeal to outrage at the underhanded tactics and he spent most of his time trying to clean up Creationism's image rather than pointing out the facts. The only specific correction he made is that God brought the animals to Noah, Noah didn't need to go all over the world to get them. Of course when Plimer comes up for his rebuttal, he rightly points out that that makes Creationism not scientific. The problem is that most people see the dogmatic prohibition of God in the science lab as unappealing or narrow-minded, which is a shame.

Again, a lot of heat was generated in this one. It was nice to see a Creationist having to deal with an underhanded opponent for once, though. Usually it's a befuddled scientist unaware of the weird Creationist arguments trying to talk about how awesome science is, instead.

Paul Nelson vs Kenneth Miller - Science, Religion, and Intelligent Design 2005

http://domain-of-darwin.deviantart.com/art/Evolution-of-Creationism-70115269

This debate ( audio | video | 1:20m ) took place around the end of the Kitzmiller v. Dover trials about teaching Intelligent Design in Kansas high school biology classrooms. The topic was teaching Intelligent Design (ID) and what ID was all about, and featured Paul Nelson, a fellow at the Discovery Institute, an ID think tank, vs Kenneth Miller, a cellular biologist and writer of high school and college level textbooks on intro biology.

4.25 Stars: Though one-sided, this is a great debate that allows one to get a feel of the most current Creationist objections to Modern Evolutionary Theory and how vacuous they are. What's keeping this from a perfect score is that Nelson isn't a strong debater and nothing compared to Miller who's been doing this since the early 80s.

Nelson begins with a cogent though content-sparse opening 20 minutes. He gives a vague discussion of what ID proposes and complains that academic freedom is essentially being suppressed not only in the scientific community but also in high school-level classrooms.

For example, Nelson asks us to consider a high school student who after reading a biology article wants to use it in a class discussion about current concerns in evolution. If the teacher allows this then she might lose her job because it goes against the dogma of evolution and thus any sort of critical inquiry of the theories we force upon our young scholars is suppressed and not encouraged.

This is a common argument from the ID crowd and indeed Miller got the same argument three years earlier from Steven Meyer. At first I'd say its disingenuous for Nelson to still use this argument because it has a perfectly cromulent answer but then I realized that I overlooked the beauty of bringing the argument up again and again. Bear with me here...

The education system in the US is a mess. Our country has regions that are comprised of states that are in turn are comprised of districts. Education curricula change from region to region, state to state, district to district and even within districts themselves. Kids who live in Shermer, IL but go to school A or school B could be getting two completely different educations.

It might be that among each different district, there is one that would take offense to a student talking about a 'controversial' article. I doubt it, but like I said, the school districts are a mess.

Well when Meyer brought this argument up against Miller in 2002, they were talking about a different school district than the one Nelson and Miller are debating here. If Miller is honest, which he is, then he can't use the EXACT same defense he used earlier because the Dover schools might have a different standard. Dover might have more vague language or something that Nelson could exploit if Miller isn't careful. 

And that's the beauty of such an argument: new school district = new context to rehash it over and over again.

Kenneth Miller gives his presentation and it flies by comparatively. Miller is a very charming and well-spoken promoter of science. He makes a living, among other ways, writing books for people with little background understanding of science which give an accessible description of science.

Like I mentioned earlier, he's also been doing this since the 1980s. Another debate I will eventually review from 1981 features Miller DEVASTATING Henry Morris, one of the leading figures in Creationism. Almost 20 years ago Miller rocked Buckley, Dembski, Johnson, and Behe in a Firing Line episode on ID, too. So Miller knows how to do this thing.

He's also actually a cellular biologist who regularly contributes to the field. And he's also a practicing Roman Catholic.

Anyways, Miller notes that ID have only half-assed described what ID actually contends but because they don't want to alienate all the people who support their case they often fail to really get into the science of the matter. For example, even simple questions like how old is the Earth are mostly dodged, given lame excuses, or offered up meekly. This is because if they say 6000yo then they're obviously going against the scientific consensus, and not even the consensus of a field dependent upon evolution. If they say the established age, which is 4.5 Gya, then they have some 'splainin' to do to the more conservative folks that fund their think tanks. This issue comes to a head beautifully in the discussion that follows the openings.

Miller also presents several examples which show contrary evidence to the claims of the ID poster scientist Michael Behe and reminds us that Behe essentially said that the same criteria that establishes ID as a scientific theory would also have to call Astrology a scientific theory. Finally, Miller demonstrates that ID is really just Creationism find and replace by showing the Creation missing link, Cdesign proponentsists.

After his opening both guys did a bit of back and forth and then the audience asked a lot of questions. It was clear that Nelson was in Indian Country here as even the moderator kinda cracked a few jokes about how smart Nelson must be and how weird it is that he still thinks that evolution is a bogus theory despite all the evidence to the contrary.

Overall a friendly and lively discussion. Nelson wasn't too formidable and Miller was just too good of a debater to let Nelson get away with anything.

Bill Nye vs Ken Ham - Is Creation a Viable Model of Origins in Today's Modern, Scientific Era? 2014

2.25 stars: Lumpy and overlong, with nothing exciting intermixed to speak of.

This debate ( video | 2 hours plus ) was pretty popular over a year ago and took place between Answers in Genesis head Ken Ham and William Nye the Natural Philosophy Dude. The topic was "Is creation a viable model of origins in today's modern, scientific era?"

Because of Nye's large fanbase this debate got a lot of attention. The interbuttz site I frequent the most, Reddit featured countless front page (really popular) posts before, during, and after the debate. How lame was I to not be ready with a blog post reviewing the debate in order to get ALL THE TRAFFIC...I coulda lived like a king!

Anyways, this was a formal debate with a rather weird format. The speakers had 5 minute intros, then 30 minute openings and then 5-10 minute (can't remember which) responses followed by a cross ex section and I think Q&A and then closings.

The format kind of made the debate feel uneven or perplexing, especially the fact that each speaker spent roughly 35 minutes on an opening and then only had at least 10 minutes for a rebuttal. The straightforward 20->15->10/Cross Ex->5->Q&A format is one that I'll always stand by.

But let us move on. Ham went first and had a very well produced ppt but it he just doesn't seem to be a very good debater or have any umf to his presentation. Content-wise he presented nothing new and if anything he simply presented the basic outline of the Creation argument...It appears that that was secondary to Ham's obvious goal, which was to play up whether or not students should be taught Creation over or at least in tandem with evolution. He also, rather creepily, played up the Biblical teachings about sin and hell...his slide show was quite jarring with his welcoming cartoon slide animations going from pictures of animals to tortured souls reaching to the sky with agony as they burn in eternal flames...

Nye on the other hand, seemed more ready for a debate, though in his debates he isn't as animated or colorful as he is on his show. He also brought some interesting arguments and ones that were definitely more germane to the topic at hand.

Nye also was good about addressing specific parts of Ham's arguments in the rebuttal and cross-ex, while Ham was pretty terrible.

One thing I can criticize Nye for is something that only WLC does really well: and that's calling his opponent out when they fail to address an argument they made. For example, a new argument (to me) that Nye made was that Noah's Ark is assumed to have landed near Mount Ararat in modern day Turkey. Now, if the ark carried kangaroos, it's reasonable to think that once they left the ark, they migrated from Turkey all the way to Australia. Such a migration would take a considerable amount of time and would have meant that some of those kangaroos died on the way Down Under and would have left fossils somewhere in between...But ALL the kangaroo fossils are found in Australia...this argument can be repeated for many other animals, too.

SOURCE.

But Ham never addresses it nor does Nye call him out on it...I woulda liked to hear more about this argument.

In sum, Nye was there to be the approachable science educator with a bit of debaters' kick to him while Ham wanted to leech off of Nye's name in order to get more followers and fund his newest project. The format and Ham's presentation certainly backs this up.

This leaves us a pretty lackluster and tedious debate and the crappy format and Ham's poor performance didn't make things any better. Such a bummer.

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.

Shermer & Prothero v Meyer & Sternberg

This debate ( audio | 1h58m21s ) took place in 2009 between Michael Shermer and Donald Prothero versus Stephen Meyer and Richard Sternberg. The debate topic was: Has Evolutionary Theory Adequately Explained the Origins of Life?

DB: 8m53s! The intro is wayyyy too long.

3 stars

APF review: 4/5
Robert Crowther talks about how awesome the cdesign proponentsists were in the debate.
Shermer licks his wounds and is more forceful in print than he is in the debate.

I was waiting to listen to this one for awhile because I know that the evolutionists side did a bad job and I remembered the ID proponents doing a better job. I always find myself saying that I think Stephen Meyer is a solid proponent of ID and I would imagine that I could cite this debate as an example supporting that position. I probably still could, but I wouldn't think it is all that impressive of an endorsement after just hearing the debate.

In fact, the best way to describe this debate is to call it a hornet's nest. The best part was probably Shermer and Prothero's opening and then it just went down hill from there. Damion goes into some detail about their arguments which I suggest you read if you want to know them but don't want to listen.

Basically, the IDers came off as really whiny. They also came off as creepily interested in one another, too. Several times in the debate Meyer would stop everything and talk about how great of a guy Sternberg is and Shermer mentions this...later on, during the Q&A the mod had to ask Meyer to not ask his own questions of his debate partner...it was kind of weird...

There was also a pissing match over what the debate topic was about. Technically, only Shermer's side really addressed it. The debate was on whether or not evolution was able to address the origins of life. All the IDers did was complain that they weren't being taken serial and that whales evolved too fast. They started mentioning the Cambrian explosion but barely did so beyond quibbling and both sides messed this topic up: complaining about how long it actually took and whether it should be considered an explosion or a short fuse. I can picture a layperson in the audience, who is interested in the discussion, begging someone to relate this back to the topic at hand.

Meyer did get some good jabs in on Shermer, maybe this is where I thought Meyer did a good job. Shermer compared Sternberg's argument to the god of the gaps argument in his rebuttal and Meyer was pretty slick in calling out Shermer for using canned responses in his rebuttals. This is a major issue that I have with Shermer in general, he is just too vague of a skeptic, it would be nice if he did some more research and argued more on specifics.

But besides that, the IDers mostly just patted each other on the back, whined that they too, had PhDs and didn't address the arguments their opponents made that were relevant to the debate's topic. They got away with this, though and the audience seemed raring to clap at anything pro-ID, I think they even accidentally clapped for a talking point that wasn't that pro-ID made by Sternberg.

Both Richard Sternberg and Stephen Meyer are the guys who sparked the whole Smithsonian/Peer-Review Controversy, something that was later treated in Expelled. Their back-patting all night in this debate definitely fits in well with the circumstances that are discussed in the Wikipedia article I link to.


A pretty frustrating debate. I would like to hear Massimo Pigliucci debate Meyer, personally. I just remembered that there is a debate between Meyer and Ken Miller out there, but I haven't heard it in awhile, maybe I'll check that one out later...

Pigliucci v Hovind on Evolution and Creation BEST TOP TEN

This debate ( audio | 2h10m26s ) occurred in 2003 on the Infidel Guy Show. It was between Biologist/Philosopher Massimo Piggliucci and Dr. Kent Hovind. It was on a lot of topics.

DB: 1m40s

5 stars. BEST TOP TEN

This one is pretty great. A lot of different topics are covered including evolution, Creation, geologic time, science education, Hovind's salary.

The debate is pretty one-sided, Piggliucci almost never lets Hovind get away with anything and calls him out on a lot of things. Hovind certainly is a smart man but he refuses to correct himself and though he is polite and doesn't interrupt or talk over his opponents he is a total sleazeball. You can tell he ultimately wants to just keep people from leaving the insane views of YEC.

One particularly annoying part is Hovind's relentless stance that time is the god of evolution. Apparently saying that evolution occurs over a long period of time is the same as saying that anything can occur given enough time. This is the argument Hovind uses to argue that evolution is a religion, too. The worst thing is that I have heard others use this argument - more specifically: Rabbi Schmuley Boteach uttered it in his 2008 debate with Hitch. So a pastor and a rabbi are so ignorant of what is required to label something a religion that they'll label the concept of time as a religion, as a god even.

Oy.

Anyways, like I said, a lot is covered, Hovind has a response (not necessarily an answer one would take seriously) to everything that can be brought up on this topic so he certainly keeps at the debate all the way through. The calls are all pretty great too, again this is one of the best!

Technical: Decent AQ, no video cause it's an internet radio show.

PZ v Simmons BEST FUN TOP TEN

This debate ( audio | 43m31s ) took place early in 2008 between outspoken New Atheist PZ Myers and the forgettable anti-Evolutionist Dr. Geoffrey Simmons on KKMS radio. The title of the debate was "Are Darwin's Theories Fact or Faith Issues" and it was pretty fun!

DB: 3m48s

5 stars. BEST FUN TOP TEN

Apparently before the debate the debate topic was changed to the subject I mentioned above and this pissed PZ off most thoroughly. PZ sounds pretty angry on his blog but sounds like a giant teddy bear IRL but in the beginning of the debate he sounded like an adorably angry teddy bear at the change. I won't explain why he was angry because he does so, thoroughly.

Another thorough part of the debate was the destruction of Dr. Geoffry Simmons. The guy was simply not prepared and spewed the most pedestrian of Creationist arguments out there to which PZ devastated. I recall reading about this debate and read that even the anti-evo folk over at William Dembski's Uncommon Descent site were remarking at how terrible Simmons did in this debate.

This is too fun 'a debate. All ya'll should check it out. It's a shame that it was so short and it was on the radio. Radio hosts seem to feel the need to summarize what one debater just said to the other debater and this is evident here and in the Unbelievable episodes as well. I can understand that they do so because it's the radio, maybe but it sometimes it seems like a waste of time and so much more could be said if they just let the debate flow. But alas, this was still a great time!

One of the best!

Technical: Great AQ, it's radio!

Kent Hovind vs The Infidel Guy Show - Creation Science vs Evolution 2004 BEST TOP TEN

This ( audio | video | 2:05.37s ) is one of my favorite debates, ever. It was about all things evolution.

5 stars. BEST CHECK TOP TEN

I think in 2004, Kent Hovind took on all the IG callers for two hours! It was pretty epic. Three callers in particular stand out, one was named River and he has called into Hovind's other show as well which I will post later because he's the only one I think ever reallllly got under Kent's skin and it is hilarious.

Three best callers:

One guy calls in about ERV which Kent just does not know about at all, Kent responds by saying that we don't know anything about DNA and that it is like a child looking under the hood of a car (this will get a laugh in the church or the prison church, now) but the caller (Ondo?) simply responds "but this is what we do know..."

Another (River) calls in and calls Kent out on quote mining articles about carbon dating and gets really specific and detailed, this is the longest call of the debate, too.

And another great call is an Irish geneticist, who points out the fact that research using evolution is successful enough to provide money and fund research on evolution and that if Creation science was producing research that could do the same thing then creationists wouldn't have to complain about not getting tax dollars or the fact that evolution does get tax dollars. Kent gets pretty annoyed by this guy, too. The guy says he studies the genetics of salmon and Kent tries to belittle this by saying something like, "in your professional field of salmon..." Pretty weak Kent.

Almost all the calls are great. Check this one out!

Steve Fuller vs Jack Cohen Podcast on Intelligent Design CHECK

This debate ( audio | 1:02 roughly ) took place in 2006 between Sociologist Steve Fuller and Biologist Jack Cohen. They discussed Intelligent Design and evolution.

3.5 Stars. CHECK

This debate is a bit scattershot. Because of Fuller's background and how he contributed to the Dover Trial, it focused more on how the scientific community interacts with the theory of Intelligent Design.

Cohen is a good speaker and certainly comes out on top but he tends to go off topic a bit. Fuller becomes more and more hysterical as the debate goes on. He has some speech mannerism where he'll start off a statement at a normal volume but seem to get more aggressive and intense as he gets to his point. It doesn't help that he seems to get frustrated that he's not making his points clear enough for the host to follow at one point. It also doesn't help that the host is a very soft-spoken and unassuming British guy seeming to be taken aback by the caustic shouts spewed at him, too.

However, Fuller does make more nuanced arguments for Intelligent Design though his tact makes him a bit off-putting. If you can, check out this dialog. Fuller does better in it than he does in other debates I've heard him in, especially the one he had with Stenger on Unbelievable a few years back:
( review )



Technical 
Low AQ.