Intelligent Design
If you hadn't heard, Toby and I attended a lecture by Michael Behe tonight given at the University on "Intelligent" design and his new book, The Edge of Evolution. I won't go into all the nasty-gritty details, but just leave it at: he is wrong. Wrong wrong wrong.
In a moment of surprising bravery on my part (seriously, I was scared to death), I told him so. I stood up in front of 200+ people and told a world-renowned author that he failed to provide any substantive evidence that "irreducible complexity is a roadblock for Darwinian evolution". Unfortunately, my criticism was easily handled by him, being that I'm not a micro-biologist and well-versed enough in nanotechnology and molecular mechanics to argue. Thankfully, there were two biologists who were also present that could. Both of their questions/criticism made him visibly nervous.
The most irritating part of the night, in my humble opinion, was two-part. First was the fact they showed a trailer for Ben Stein's new "documentary" Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed - a film arguing that scientists are being prosecuted for believing that life is designed (see instead why "this movie is not a documentary at all, but anti-science propaganda aimed at creating the appearance of controversy where there is none." at Expelled Exposed.)
And the second irritating part? We had to listen to upbeat Christian rock while waiting for the show to start, which only reinforces one of my favorite quotes by Richard Dawkins: "Intelligent design is nothing more than creationism in a cheap tuxedo."
See Toby's post about the lecture as well.
Edit: Movie title has been linked under directive of the CCEAD.
