P.Z. Myers plays wack-a-creationist with a DI loon.
Professor PZ Myers blogs at Pharyngula (***Warning: This website contains profanity and may be offensive to some listeners. KKMS politely warn us. It'll be the cephalopods won't it?) .
He's a fairly strident atheist, but more importantly he's an evolutionary biologist working on zebrafish development. He also likes fossils, and is generally fascinated by the natural world.
Dr Geoffrey Simmons is an honorary fellow of the Discovery Institute. (***Warning: This website contains idiocy and may be is offensive to anyone who knows about science.)
He is a doctor with an interest in disaster medicine and management.
Both were invited on the Jeff and Lee Christian Talk Show, to discuss the evidence for ID and evolution. Simmons didn't like this idea and so demanded that the title be changed to "Is Darwinism a fact or faith issue" at the last minute. (Which was nice of him).
What follows is 40 minutes of creationist trouncing. Its just glorious. Simmons brings up Indohyus and claims this is the only whale ancestor. PZ responds with Pakicetus and Rhodocetus, "but theyz have nao bloholz, and they finz iz funnie?". Simmons it seems has only read a single article in Scientific American about this, and hasn't heard of any of the other whale fossils.
Rapidly backing off he then tries "Groth ov brainz iz complicated. Muzt bin dizignd!". Like I said PZ is a developmental biologist, working on fish brains, teaching college students neuroscience.As he said: "I'm afraid you've stepped right into my field there with that question".
You can't listen to the calls they took afterwards, (someone may make a version covering them too) but the one I heard was entertaining. A chap called in expressing the view that:
"evolution gives us easy justification for passing what we learn about drugs when used on animals to predict how they'll work on people... [and pressing them] on whether we should scrap that belief if we reject evolution."
The hosts response? Affter rambling about taking a "more holistic approach", and "having a doctor who relies on God's guidance" they ask:
"Do you believe there's any use or purpose for theology?"
"As someone who has my bachelor's in theology, I hope so".
PZ's take on this before, just before and mopping up afterwards.
The Discovery Institute's take on it is here. (archived here 'cos they deleted it).
Download the MP3 here. if the podcast isn't up yet. You know you want to!
Oh, and I want "Your ignorance is not evidence" on a T-Shirt.