Wednesday, July 01, 2009

PZ on the Radio, With British People

PZ Myers just recorded a discussion on the topic "Is Christian faith at odds with science?" Also appearing: Denis Alexander, who among other things is a professional biologist himself, the Director of the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion (sounds like the Templeton Foundation, doesn't it?), and the author of the book Creation and Evolution: Do We Have to Choose?  The discussion had a moderator of sorts -- the host of the radio show Unbelievable, a British Christian talk show.

PZ's posts about it are here and here; direct link to the MP3 file is here. (Right-click the link and choose "Save Link As" if you want to download it, rather than stream it.)

You could see Alexander as an "accomodationist," which is a not-kind word among certain of us militant atheist/scientist types. It's also worth noting that he dances around the idea of evolution having a purposeful direction, which from a biologist is more than a bit of an eyebrow-raiser.

I'm a little more than halfway through it now (it's 80 minutes long) and I have to say, I wouldn't care to have this discussion with Alexander. He's maddening in his habit of answering orthogonally and PZ frequently has to bring the discussion back into focus. Still, it's not bad overall, and it's always worth hearing PZ and admiring how he keeps his cool in these discussions.

(x-posted, in slightly modified form)

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