Unfortunately, I guess, the producer of “Janet Parshall’s America” called me up and cancelled my appearance on the show tomorrow, saying “they were going in a different direction” because of some “breaking news.” I thanked him and asked him to keep me in mind, but I got the feeling ( I may be wrong) that the opportunity has passed me by. Oh well …. (It will be interesting to see who/what they have replaced me with.)
I think, however, that the little summary that I wrote here was worth the time - it helped me articulate my position, and I think I will have the opportunity to make the same points elsewhere, possible in more important venues.
Thanks to all who offered me support and advice.
9 Comments
Great White Wonder · 8 December 2004
Boooooooooooooooooooo!!
I was looking forward to hearing about how it went over. Next time.
Gary Hurd · 8 December 2004
It could be that your post here lead to the cancelation. I know its paranoid. Why let the creaionists have all the paranoid fun?
charlie wagner · 9 December 2004
From today's program:
"Then, John West, of The Discovery Institute will be talking with us about the latest with the teaching of evolution vs. creation in our school system. It promises to be an informative hour, so don't miss it."
http://www.jpamerica.com
Gastric ReFlux · 9 December 2004
I see a commenter above already looked at the jpamerica site and they don't have anything "late-breaking" noted, but it may be the site is lagging. It wouldn't surprise me, though, if they decided to avoid it. I think Janet prefers interviewing those she can give enthusiastic "Absolutely!" responses to.
Chet · 9 December 2004
What better way to help insure another nomination for National Religious Broadcasters award.
Tom Clark · 10 December 2004
I listened to the broadcast with John West, in which he said that the main push by the Discovery Institute in it's intelligent design strategy is to emphasize the difficulties Darwinism (natural selection) has in accounting for evolution. This presumably paves the way for accepting ID as a more plausible explanation than Darwinism. Fat chance.
To Parshall's credit, she took a call from a well-spoken opponent of ID, who pointed out the regress problem involved in explaining evolution by appealing to a designer that in turn needs explanation. West replied that this regress didn't obviate the (supposed) fact that the universe exhibits hallmarks of design, e.g., supposedly irreducible complexity.
But of course he conveniently ignored the explanatory difficulty which makes ID non-science. Science increases our understanding by explaining complex phenomena in terms of lower level, less complex phenomena, using principles that are themselves reasonably well understood (of course new principles and phenomena may be revealed in this process). If we are irreducibly complex, appealing to a designer as an explanation invokes *further* irreducible complexity, since after all a designer must be at least as complex as we are, if not more so. If irreducible complexity requires a designer, this means the designer must have a designer, and so forth ad infinitum. Since science consists in increasing understanding by explaining complexity via principles and less complex components, then clearly ID isn't science since it multiplies, not reduces, complexity.
Great White Wonder · 10 December 2004
Just my opinion, but the "regress" argument for why ID is garbage is just about the crappiest (yet legitimate) argument you'd ever want to raise in such a forum.
You need only read the conclusory sentence in Tom's post to appreciate how unpersuasive that argument is going to be for the average listener. No argument assumes that the phrase "irreducible complexity" has meaning will ever be "clear."
charlie wagner · 11 December 2004
Ed Darrell · 11 December 2004