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My dear atheists, I know you’re very excited about how well “The God Delusion” and “God is Not Great” are selling and all, but you’re not winning. Really, you’re not.

It’s good to see our African brothers and sisters are willing to take the torch from a dying West. Christianity cannot be proven false until the Gates of Hell prevail.

Dr. PZ Myers makes a habit of claiming that creationists are liars. I can’t speak for his claims about others, since I’ve never heard of most of them except via Pharyngula, but I do note with some amusement that a guy who openly advocates AVOIDING PUBLIC DEBATE should call me a coward… and dishonest for the crime of NOT QUOTING HIS ENTIRE POST HERE but merely quoting part of it and then linking directly to it.

The funniest thing about that is that most of his post isn’t all there on the front page of his blog either, you have to CLICK ON A LINK to read the rest of it. Just like you did from my blog, the one difference being that you could initially read more of it on my blog than you could on his. Yes, taxpayers, you are actually paying this razor-sharp mind to teach your children about Richard Dawkins and his magical flower fairies, or original replicators, whatever.

Apparently Ed Darrell is using the good doctor as his role model, as he accuses me of using a fictitious quote from Julian Huxley in my column this morning:

Vox quotes it in his article from last night/this morning. So, in other words, VD spreads the hoaxes with abandon. They don’t have editors at WND? No fact checkers? This is why a “debate” is fruitless; trying to debate someone who thinks this alleged quote from Julian Huxley is accurate in its context, or relevant, is a waste of time.

What quote from Julian Huxley? This one:

“We all jumped at the Origin of the Species because…the idea of God interfered with our sexual mores.”

Ed then adds an additional charge:

Your claim that economists and physicists debate laymen is as specious as your claims against evolution.

Now, here is the column in question. If you do find either a quote from Julian Huxley or a claim that economists and physicists debate laymen, do let me know, as I should be very interested to learn that we have apparently discovered that elusive passageway to the universe next door. There may be a Nobel Prize in it for Mr. Darrell.

You know, faced with prodiguous intellectual performances like these, it’s really a mystery why we don’t all stop thinking for ourselves and simply accept their desperate assertions that “there is no God!” and “evolution is fact, fact, fact!”

Andy Ferguson talks about his new Lincoln book:

Lincoln hatred as a whole is terribly mistaken, but not everything that Lincoln haters believe about Lincoln and the Civil War is wrong, in my opinion, historically or philosophically. In researching the book I spent a fair amount of time with people who really, really hate Abraham Lincoln — particularly in Richmond, Virginia, when the city fathers down there tried to install a Lincoln statue on public property and set off a storm of protest. One of the things that sparked the book was my realization that many of these Lincoln haters knew a hell of a lot more about Lincoln than I did.

Worse, the people who were defending Lincoln down in Richmond had no explanation for why they thought he was great.

I’m a card-carrying Lincoln-hater myself – a significant moment in my intellectual development was my realization that had I been around in 1860, I would have fought for the South, not the North that I had always idealized while growing up and visiting my Grandfather’s farm near Gettysburg – and while I’m not sure I’ll ever get around to reading Ferguson’s book, it’s a good sign that he’s intellectually honest enough to confess that the so-called Great Man wasn’t a paragon of morality and justice.

But he’s obviously wrong about Honest Abe not being honestly gay, because I’ve seen the video evidence.

I was on the phone with Big Chilly, which is always a mistake. We were kicking around a few things, from stuff that had to do with his interest in particle physics and event horizons to my hypothesis that one day, we will find the rest of the universe packed it black boxes marked “Do Not Disturb”, at which point some idiot scientist will, of course, open it.

I plan to write a paper proving this, in the hopes of receiving a letter from a prestigious physics journal rejecting my paper on the grounds that the boxes are merely regular cardboard shipping boxes colored black with magic marker, and in fact, one can still read the letters “UPS” underneath in some of the pictures which were thought to prove this stunning proof of the existence of dark matter.

Anyhow, another result of the conversation was this little passage by the noted fantasy writer, Flicka Flawkins:

“Whether we call the pretty flower fairies magic or not, they were the creators of life; they were our Founding Fairies… The pretty flower fairies may have had four wings apiece, or maybe two, or they may have been totally different. If they could not fly, we may say that their queen must have been captured at a later date by evil swamp frogs. If so, the pretty flower fairies were utterly destroyed in their attempts to rescue her, for no trace remains of them in modern toadstool circles, or anywhere else, for that matter.

As usual, when a critic can’t find any holes in my argument, he simply invents them:

First, Day establishes as his premise that real biologists, scientists who practice in the real world and actually understand Darwin and evolution, are “afraid to expose themselves to the ridicule that the softness of their science renders them liable.” In short, he’s saying they don’t talk to the public.

This is incorrect. There are obviously several evolutionary biologists who do talk to the public, Dr. Myers among them. My link to his blog proves that I am aware of this. And some of them very much enjoy talking to the public, it seems Richard Dawkins would rather talk to the public than do science these days. What they don’t want to have to do is listen to anyone else, much less be forced to respond to questions they would prefer to avoid answering. Dawkins, in particular, is notorious for avoiding difficult questions whether the subject is biology, philosophy or theology. I suspect he’ll add history to that list, particularly military history, pretty soon.

So you can dance all you like, science fetishists, and substitute any amount of “reason” for the observable evidence, but you’ll never be able to get around the fact that Dawkins, Myers and Rulon have all publicly admitted their desire to avoid debate in their area of scientific expertise. As laudable and justifiable as you may find their reasons, their confidence in their beliefs will be questioned by most reasonable and intelligent people for their obvious unwillingness to defend them in public on neutral ground.

The sleight of hand involved in substituting near synonyms such as “talk to the public” and “public scrutiny” for “public debate” is very remniscent of Sam Harris and his attempts to substitute “unjustified belief” and “an absence of rationality” for “religious faith”. But the set is not the subset, and attempting to equate the two is intellectually dishonest.

While scientists certainly have the right to not defend their beliefs in public debate, it is everyone else’s right to draw their own conclusions about this decision to flee the field.

Groundbreaking journalist Katie Couric demonstrates the heights of female professionalism. From Drudge:

CBS EVENING NEWS anchor Katie Couric is being accused of slapping an editor — after he injected a word she detested into a script! “The stress has caused her to blow up at her staff for small infractions on the set,” charges NEW YORK magazine reporter Joe Hagan, in a story set for publication on Monday.

“During the tuberculosis story in June, Couric got angry with news editor Jerry Cipriano for using a word she detested— ‘sputum’ —and the staff grew tense when she began slapping him ‘over and over and over again’ on the arm, according to a source familiar with the scene. It had seemed like a joke at first, but it quickly became clear that she wasn’t kidding.”

A top CBS executive tells the DRUDGE REPORT that no formal complaint has been filed against Couric over the incident.

“I sort of slapped him around,” Couric admits to the magazine. “I got mad at him and said, ‘You can’t do this to me. You have to tell me when you’re going to use a word like that.’ I was aggravated, there’s no question about that.’

Too bad he didn’t defend himself and break her jaw. Like most Americans, I’ve never been interested in watching her read from the teleprompters, but it would be pretty funny to see her mumbling the news with her mouth wired shut.

She’s really an inspiration, isn’t she? There’s just something about her that insensibly reminds one of Jackie Robinson, the dignity, the grace. She’s like Ghandi in a skirt.

The good professor’s advice notwithstanding, Scott fearlessly volunteers to make it:

Hey, Vox! I will be happy to debate the evidence supporting evolution or creation with you on-line at your blog, or mine, or both. I’m an enthusiastic Darwinian and a serious Christian.

What terms would you like for the debate? Be prepared, I think, to provide citations and evidence from the scientific literature, because that’s what I’ll do while I’m attempting to wipe the floor with you….:)

Cheerfully….Scott Hatfield

Sounds good. I’m curious to see what sort of answers science has for someone who hasn’t paid any more attention to the literature than reading four of Dawkins books, plus “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea” by Daniel Dennett. I’ve never read Behe or a single ID/Creationist book, and I don’t watch videos. If Scott can’t obliterate me, both sides should be able to concur that there are some serious problems for the evolution meme’s viability in its current state.

As for terms, I’d suggest that since you’re the one attempting to prove the positive case, that you write a post of 750 words, (not including citations), which I will post in its entirety on my blog as well. I will have three days to respond with a similar post of 1,000 words (including quotations) which you will post on your blog. You will have three days to post a reply of 1,000 words and so on. Let’s see how far we get in five exchanges and take it from there.

Scott replies:

Well, that (proposed terms of debate) sounds just fine to me…. I look forward to our exchange in August.

Unfortunately, we can’t get rolling right away, as I have a certain book to complete first and since I’m on the final stretch, I don’t want to risk any distractions. Since biology is entirely outside my areas of both interest and expertise, I think this should be an interesting experiment as to whether the current state of the science is enough to trump raw intellect. Scott should theoretically be able to wipe up the floor with me as easily as I walk over feminists and socialists; if he can’t, (and I’ve read enough Dawkins that I suspect this could be the case), then we should be able to conclude that evolutionary theory isn’t quite as solid as it is purported to be… or perhaps only that Scott is an incompetent Darwinist champion.

If Al, Brent and anyone else feels like pitching in, I’d appreciate it if you’d refresh my memory of some of the more common reasons given not to believe in God or Christianity, other than the basic “there is no proof your sky deity doesn’t exist”. I just want to make sure I don’t miss any of the usual ones. I’ve already got these six, what am I missing?

1. A loving God wouldn’t send anyone to Hell.
2. Omnipotence-Omniscience conflict. (I thought knowledge WAS power.)
3. The problem of evil.
4. Euthyphro.
5. I don’t like God / If God exists, I wouldn’t approve of him anyhow.
6. I believe in one less god than you.

I’m sure I’m missing a few, so don’t hesitate to chime in.

The Science Avenger explains why evolutionary biologists are right to be afraid of debating creationists and that professors Rulon and Myers are right in advising them to shirk debate, as, apparently, does their hero, Richard Dawkins:

1. Debate is a skill like any other, and it correlates far more with the ability to think and speak quickly, than it does with being accurate. This is, in fact, why creationists insist on live spoken debates rather than written ones.

Translation: you’re going to get your ass kicked, so you don’t dare play. I note that there is copious evidence that creationists are willing to make their case in writing, in both book and debate form. Anyhow, I thought we were supposed to be the low IQ crowd, when did we suddenly become the side with the intellectual advantage?

Also, statistics would indicate that out of the hundreds of thousands of scientists, most of whom we are informed subscribe completely to evolutionary theory, there should be at least one or two rhetorically competent individuals capable of defending evolution from those wickedly sharp but wildly ignorant creationists.

2. What we on the scientific side of the debate say ad infinitum is not that the creationists are stupid, but that they are unscientific, and that they are wrong. Debating them as equals will give the impression to the casual observer that they ARE equals.

There is no shortage of evidence proving that those on the self-proclaimed scientific side of the debate do indeed say that creationists are stupid, one need only look at Pharyngula’s site to find far more examples of that than the cumulative total of transitionary fossils yet found. And the opposition must be presumed to be equals until you prove that you can defeat them on neutral ground; failing to debate them just gives the casual observer that they are not only your equals, but your betters.

3. Bullshit. “Archaeopteryx was a fake” takes 4 words to assert. Refuting it takes considerably more time, as refutations to most poor arguments do. Any logical fallacy takes longer to explain than to use. Also, repeating the point from earlier, being articulate is not a very valuable talent for a researcher.

Again, they’re incompetent and can’t win, so they won’t play. And it only takes twelve words to turn the burden of proof around entirely. “So you assert. Prove Archaeopteryx was a fake or retract the claim.”

4. You’ll notice there are almost never references to any real scientist talking like this.

Because, as we’ve been discussing, real scientists are afraid to debate and prefer to avoid it. It’s the non-scientists who are on the so-called scientific side of the debate who are willing to debate and who regularly argue like this. There are several examples in the comments to the post to which Science Avenger is referring.

5. Quite the contrary. The scientific playing field is very open. It is in the peer-reviewed literature.

Irrelevant change of subject. We’re talking about evolutionary biologists and their self-proclaimed fear of debate. OF COURSE they want to play on their home field, where they literally get to serve as the referees as well.

Now, I tend to prefer written debates myself, but in an increasingly post-literate, visually-oriented world, there is an increasing need for verbal debate. It is amusingly ironic that the evolutionists should find it hard to recognize how the modern world is evolving.

UPDATE: PZ tries to claim that he’s not afraid of debate on equal ground, it’s just that he would rather engage the public in a manner which lets him have the complete control, you know, like he does in his classroom:

The second attack is coming from wacky ol’ Vox Day who accuses me of cowardice for advocating that we don’t debate creationists. It’s a remarkably cowardly job on his part: he quotes the bit where I say that the ‘debate’ format is tactically poor and throws away the strengths of science, and then stops right were I start to make suggestions for actively engaging the public with substance and evidence and ideas. Is Day dishonest? Why, yes. But that kind of fraud and blatant twisting of words is Day’s specialty, right up there with his penchant for looney right-wing theocratic babble.

You’ll note that everything I wrote was completely accurate and that Dr. Myers isn’t denying that he would prefer to engage in a format that doesn’t throw away the strengths of science. Even though other scientists, such as physicists and economists, seem to be able to survive and even thrive in that format.

As for cowardice, I note first that I’m not the one running away from debates, that’s for the likes of Michelle Malkin, Dr. Myers and Prof. Rulon. Second, I wasn’t interested in the part of the post where PZ writes about HOW he is going to avoid debates, I was only interested in WHY he wishes to do so. Third, I never copy the entire contents of someone else’s post unless it’s very short, my understanding is that it is bad Internet etiquette, the link is there so that readers can visit the original blog and read the post in its entirety.

Kathleen wisely asks for confirmation:

Sooo, clarify for me, Mr. VD. Do you think women should or should not be allowed to vote? I normally have outstanding sarcasm detection, but your facetiousness baffles even me at times.

I first must congratulate Kathleen on her good sense, as the combination of my straight-faced sarcasm and iconoclastic idiosyncracies has caused more than one individual to embarrass himself by leaping to a demonstrably erroneous conclusion.

I do not think women should be allowed to vote. I do not consider voting to be a human right. I do not believe in democracy, but as a positive half-measure, I am open to direct democracy in the place of the utter fraud that is representative democracy.

I further assert that I can prove Kathleen does not believe that voting is a human right nor does she believe in democracy, even though she almost surely thinks she does. In the unlikely event that she happens to prefer freedom to security, it is highly probable that I could even convince Kathleen that women should not be allowed to vote.

This post from 2004 expresses my opinion on the matter, which can be summarized as placing a priority on individual freedom, not voting or democracy.

An ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 70% of men favored smaller government, but only 48% of women believed the same way. So men are far more likely to view big government as part of the problem, not the solution.

PJ O’Rourke once said: “Advocating the expansion of central government is a crime against humanity!” It’s pretty clear to me that one of the most destructive forces in our society has been women’s suffrage. Women consistently and reliably turn towards government as a solution for perceived problems, which creates more intractable problems, which then is used to justify more government intervention. This process is unlikely to stop until the entire edifice collapses of its own weight.

It’s too bad that the concept of the states as laboratories of democracy has been abandoned, because I’d love to see the difference between two neighboring states, one of which permitted women to vote and the other that did not. It would be particularly interesting to see in which state women would prefer to live. I suspect the answer might surprise a lot of people.

A past discussion of this issue can be found here.