I went to three of Michael Behe's talk while he was in Toronto [see Michael Behe in Toronto!, Part 1,
Part 2].
The third talk was on Friday morning (Nov. 15, 2012) in the Multifaith Centre. It was sponsored by Power to Change (formerly Campus Crusade for Christ). There were about 150 people in the audience, mostly undergraduates. I estimate that less than half were believers.
Behe gave pretty much the same talk he had given the night before. There was only time for a few questions and most of them were from skeptics. Two students challenged the science but their questions were convoluted and confusing and Behe had no trouble dismissing them. (The standard trick is to say "That's a very good question" and then suggest they could discuss it later on so that others have a chance to ask questions right now.)
One student asked about the philosophical justification for some of Behe's conclusions. It was a valid question but way over the heads of the audience. Behe gave an incorrect answer. I spoke to that student and her friends after the talk. Several of them were taking biology/evolution courses but they weren't really prepared to identify the flaws in Behe's arguments. They just knew that he had to be wrong.
This is the problem. It's just not that easy for the average person to refute the arguments of people like Michael Behe and Jonathan Wells. That's why we need to teach the controversy in school and show why their science is flawed.
Blog Archive
Popular Posts
-
Biology concepts – hydrogenosome, FeS cluster protein, loricifera, erythrocyte More than one way to skin a cat seems to be a newer versi...
-
As someone interested in linguistic recursion, I gotta join in... the below blog post has been getting a fair amount of attention around the...
-
Lab Times is a magazine that reports on news for life scientists in Europe. Their current issue (Sept. 14, 2011) has an "analysis...
-
My next door neighbor used to be the chair of the Immunology Department but Immunology recently moved to another floor of this building. The...
-
Biology concepts – fever, infectious disease, sexually transmitted disease, innate immune system Would you be willing to be a human guinea...
-
I claim that the top three criteria for good science reporting are: Accuracy, Accuracy, and Accuracy. Everything else falls into fourth plac...
-
Many proteins bind to double-stranded DNA and most of them bind specifically to a particular target site. The lac repressor, for example, b...
-
I met many interesting people at Eschaton 2012 in Ottawa. One of them was Ian Cromwell who gave a talk about racism on Sunday morning. Ian ...
-
I just heard from Dave Greig that Richard Harter died over a month ago [ Richard Harter 1935 - 2012 ]. He was a long time contributor to tal...
-
Biology Concepts – pollen, plastid inheritance, gymnosperms, angiosperms I am coming to believe that plants are more complex than animals, e...