This isn’t a recording of my debate with John Haught over the compatibility of science and faith, but rather a post-debate discussion I had with the writers of The Evolving Scientist, a website produced by biology graduate students at the University of Kentucky.
Two days ago, I sat down with the group and recorded an hour-long podcast about science and religion (you can also hear it here and subscribe to the iTunes feed here).
It touched on many things, including my post-mortem of the debate with Haught, the origins of religion, the canard of “scientism,” and so on.
This is a smart group of students who asked good questions. And they’ll let me know when the video of the debate comes online.
UPDATE: The server appears to have crashed (there are too many of you!), but the iTunes feature seems to work okay.
I can’t seem to grab it from the intertubes, iTunes, or even stream it. I’m sad now.
I can’t get it either. Fail.
A soothing voice for children. Okay, it’s time for your “Magic of Speciation” books on tape for toddlers.
Crashed our server
The iTunes link is working, you can listen to it without subscribing.
Good stuff 9/10. Lucid, informative & wide ranging. Good voice. Some nice little things I didn’t know or knew but hadn’t connected properly. Worth one hour of my time. Thanks Prof.
** Surprised that WEIT = 15k-30k daily hits ~ I had no idea
** Good point regarding the role played by ‘blogs’ in speeding up the process of outing & correcting scientific errors/frauds such as arsenic bugs or XMRV and chronic fatigue syndrome
[& a deserved H/T to Abbie Smith of ERV]
This is also good: Jerry Coyne explains ‘Why Evolution is True’ at the AAI 2009 conference HERE [Video 57 minutes]
P.S. Can’t you dig up a blues/jazz tune for your cell ‘phone? 🙂
A broken server – I’ll blame PZ and his anti-caturday campaign. He even broke his own server.
Thanks for listening everyone.
We had this Python front-end on the EvolvingPodcast.net called MediaCore that’s still in beta (version 0.9), and it’s what messed up for whatever reason.
It’s working fine for me now! Sorry about the issues.
This is a very enjoyable discussion, thanks for sharing it.
Servers crashed?
Maybe they need to run a Level 5 Kat Skan.
Definitely worth listening to! (I wish they had used a searchable audio player, though, so I didn’t have to download the whole thing twice just to relisten to certain parts.)
The part about how religion keeps people from doing things they should be doing, even things that have little impact on other people like getting divorced and going their separate ways, is very important.
At one point, I thought I heard you say that children don’t go to church until a certain age, which wasn’t true in my experience. Most churches I’ve been to have separate rooms where mothers with babies can sit and hear or view the sermon and still participate in the service.
Excellent podcast, can’t wait to hear the debate as well.
One item near the end of the QA on Evolving Scientist concerned whether any religion’s view of evolution could be changed by “one member of the congregation” and the answer JAC gave is that he doubts it. I would argue that Roman Catholicism certainly is that religion. I know many Catholics who don’t really understand evolution but refer to the Pope’s acceptance and thereby acquiesce that evolution must be true. Perhaps a Catholic might find evolution counter-intuitive, but then they would accept the tenets solely on the Pope’s opinion.