Read all of John Bohannon's column for Science magazine.
I quote, without comment:
During one session, I witnessed the verbal equivalent of a professional wrestling match between Richard Dawkins and the celebrity rabbi Shmuley Boteach. Dawkins stepped into the ring first. The wily Oxford professor of popular science may be 66 years old, but he can handle himself in a fight. He's lean, fast on his feet, and he wears silky suits that are hard to grip. His opening was by the book, first maneuvering to put the fight on his own terms. Scientific arguments will get you nowhere in a God rumble unless you can establish that science has something to say about religious matters. A long and circling mini-lecture on the anthropic principle did the job. Then, to get at the throat, he made a big flying leap: Scientific laws as we understand them should apply to God. And then came Dawkins's surprise attack: To have created the Earth, let alone the universe, God must be a vastly more intelligent and complex being than we are. Our own excellence in design is already the vastly improbable result of natural selection. Ergo, by the laws of probability, God almost certainly doesn't exist.
A bearded man swaggered onstage and the game was on. Rabbi Shmuley deployed a fighting style perfected by "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, the Canadian kilt-wearing wrestler. During Piper's legendary feuds with Hulk Hogan and Mr. T, he famously exclaimed, "Just when they think they got answers, I change the questions!" And that's just what the rabbi did. His opening was actually a double attack, starting with a classic Piper eye-poke: Dawkins says that he has a problem with religion because it's not true. He lives in England where they have a queen, but he hasn't attacked the royal family. Is it true that some people are born more special than others? Then, taking advantage of the momentary distraction created by this dubious statement, the rabbi followed with a savage foot stomp: Dawkins is married, so presumably he believes in the institution of marriage. But is marriage a true institution? According to evolution, love is a trick played on the mind to ensure that you have sex and propagate the species. Dawkins says he doesn't believe in love. And most evolutionary biologists don't either. There was a lot more on both sides.
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