robo_mojo
May 20, 2008, 03:23 AM
Sorry for bring up something so old. But I've just viewed the debate between Christopher Hitchens and Rabbi Shmuley Boteach. Anyone else watched this?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=vnMYL8sF7bQ
I haven't seen much of Boteach before this so I thought it would be interesting.
Christopher Hitchens is excellent to watch. He speaks calmly and controlled, makes his point easy to understand and makes a lot of sense. Even if you don't agree with everything he says, at least he makes listening comfortable (and often humorous).
Boteach on the other hand is like listening to fingernails scratching on a chalkboard. He preaches, sounds whiney, and yells his (often incoherent) points. Boteach's points are frequently special pleading, ad hominem, and strawmen.
I've just gotten past the point where Boteach tries to debunk the theory of evolution by pleading that we are too complex to be accounted for by evolution. He says that the only kind of mutations that could be allowed in evolution are the kind that are beneficial (it'd be more correct to say "not harmful", but that's easy to misunderstand). But then he says that scientists say 99% of mutations are harmful and therefore mutation cannot account for the genetic evolution as we know it and that evolution must be guided somehow.
He then goes on with the "impossible-because-of-big-numbers" arguments about how evolution could not have produced us complicated humans on its own without some external force moving it along the right path. More of this kind of argument, pleading that the earth is just perfect for our survival and it couldn't have been a bit different or we wouldn't have existed (possible, but then we wouldn't be here talking about it, so this is just a form of the "self-selection" principle is it not? And of course I'm reminded of Douglas Adams' puddle of water). And that we (life on this planet) are the only life in the galaxy (somehow he knows this?) and that mutation, natural selection and so on would have existed elsewhere too, so evolution is insufficient to explain why we're here (???).
Of course this isn't all. He also has a thing or two to say about the optic nerve, and how infant circumcision is justified because some researchers reported that circumcised males are less likely to get AIDS...
It'd be fine if it was just a mistake or two here or there. But the way he preaches, it is just bad argument after bad argument. All I could do was facepalm through the whole thing.
Fortunaetly, Hitchens seems able to ignore most of this and doesn't feel it necessary to try to debate every wrong point.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=vnMYL8sF7bQ
I haven't seen much of Boteach before this so I thought it would be interesting.
Christopher Hitchens is excellent to watch. He speaks calmly and controlled, makes his point easy to understand and makes a lot of sense. Even if you don't agree with everything he says, at least he makes listening comfortable (and often humorous).
Boteach on the other hand is like listening to fingernails scratching on a chalkboard. He preaches, sounds whiney, and yells his (often incoherent) points. Boteach's points are frequently special pleading, ad hominem, and strawmen.
I've just gotten past the point where Boteach tries to debunk the theory of evolution by pleading that we are too complex to be accounted for by evolution. He says that the only kind of mutations that could be allowed in evolution are the kind that are beneficial (it'd be more correct to say "not harmful", but that's easy to misunderstand). But then he says that scientists say 99% of mutations are harmful and therefore mutation cannot account for the genetic evolution as we know it and that evolution must be guided somehow.
He then goes on with the "impossible-because-of-big-numbers" arguments about how evolution could not have produced us complicated humans on its own without some external force moving it along the right path. More of this kind of argument, pleading that the earth is just perfect for our survival and it couldn't have been a bit different or we wouldn't have existed (possible, but then we wouldn't be here talking about it, so this is just a form of the "self-selection" principle is it not? And of course I'm reminded of Douglas Adams' puddle of water). And that we (life on this planet) are the only life in the galaxy (somehow he knows this?) and that mutation, natural selection and so on would have existed elsewhere too, so evolution is insufficient to explain why we're here (???).
Of course this isn't all. He also has a thing or two to say about the optic nerve, and how infant circumcision is justified because some researchers reported that circumcised males are less likely to get AIDS...
It'd be fine if it was just a mistake or two here or there. But the way he preaches, it is just bad argument after bad argument. All I could do was facepalm through the whole thing.
Fortunaetly, Hitchens seems able to ignore most of this and doesn't feel it necessary to try to debate every wrong point.