The Atheist Blogger

150 years ago today, Charles Darwin published “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life“. A monumental book, considered by biologists around the world to be the foundation of evolutionary biology.

In the 150 years since its publication, evolutionary theory has expanded and grown in ways that Darwin himself could not have imagined. The discovery of the multitude of transitional forms that match Darwin’s original prediction, and the work of others (the prediction and subsequent discovery of Tiktaalik being perhaps the most notable) helped bolster the theory, and firmly establish it as scientific fact.

Not only that, but all discoveries of biology since Darwin proposed his idea have complemented it perfectly, with DNA confirming common ancestry, and the various evolutionary development experiments that have captured evolution in action^[1].

So, happy anniversary to Charles Darwin’s masterpiece! May it inspire many more of the generations to come!

Foreword:

Life sciences has always been a favorite hobby of mine.  It could be the latest genetics book, the zoo, the natural history museum, or even my curiosity on the internet, I love science.  I like how it explains where we are, where we came from, and where we are going.  It almost hurt something deeper inside me when reading the life science section of the In the Beginning creationist textbook that some would want to be taught “side-by-side” in science classrooms to give students a “choice”.

The book does suggests that its research was completed by evolutionists to further their credibility and has been suppressed by the scientific community. When looking at their notes, it appeared to be finessed cut and paste quotations, a wonderfully played sound-byte taken out of context.  Enjoy.

Life Sciences:  We’re All Mutants!

Scene:  Friday Morning, Elementary Science Classroom after new law states that creationism must be taught alongside all other existing science courses.

The new science teacher walks into classroom, “Attention students!  I want you all to write down the two definitions on the board, the first one is macroevolution, the second one is microevolution.  Macroevolution, also known as organic evolution, is a naturally occurring, beneficial change that produces increasing and inheritable complexity.  Microevolution does not involve increasing complexity and it only involves changes in size, shape, color, or other minor differences.

Acquitted characteristics, those gained after birth, cannot be inherited.  For example, large muscles acquired by a man in a weight-lifting program cannot be inherited by his child.  Nor, did giraffes get long neck because their ancestors stretched to reach high leaves.

Like this guy

However, stressful environments for some animals and plants cause their offspring to express various defenses.  New genetic traits are not created; instead the environment can switch on genetic machinery already present.  Natural section cannot produce new genes; it selects only among preexisting characteristics.

The variations Darwin observed among finches on different Galapagos island is another example of natural selection producing micro-evolution.  While natural selection sometimes explains the survival of the fittest, it does not explain the origin of the fittest.  Today, some people think that because natural selection occurs, evolution must be correct.  Actually, natural selection prevents major evolutionary changes.”

That would be a scary and confusing day.  Students would be left to interpret that giraffes were created to eat tall leaves, period, without a cause and effect for their existence.  The idea that new genetic traits are not created and are already present in each being leads to some interesting conclusions.  According to this, if zebras being chased by lions figured out that if they were rainbow colored, the lions could not see them, if zebra species then changed, it was only because they already possessed the gene for rainbow colors.

you can't see me

This logic suggests that every creature already possesses in it’s DNA every evolution it could become and that similarities in species do not point to a common ancestor. The fact that a European Wildcat and your typical house cat both have claws does not suggest anything but they had a efficient designer who couldn’t think of anything else to put at the end of their feet.

Back to the beginning of life, proteins and the first cell, the book goes on and on about how no scientist has ever replicated or even come close to what went down in the primordial soup.  This edition of  In the Beginning was published in 2008, I’m sure it was a casual oversight on the editor’s part to forget to mention the Miller-Urey experiment of 1952.  They created amino acids from virtually nothing but the conditions that were found on Earth before life.  Here, you can even do-it-yourself and learn more about the cool stuff they did.  I hope they include this experiment in the next edition.

Next, is fossils.  Where are all the transitional fossils or living creatures, fish to amphibian, amphibian to reptile, reptile to bird, etc.?  The book exclaims arrogantly that these gaps are real and will never be filled!

Besides this one

or this one...

I could not begin to start laughing because you already found it!  Just a few pages ago the book had a picture of the duckbilled platypus and explained that it was a mosaic species with no logical place in the evolutionary tree.  Wait what?  If something doesn’t make sense you just call it something else and say it wasn’t what, part of the plan?

That just doesn’t happen in science, if something “doesn’t fit” science always investigates and explains it.  In the May 8, 2008 publication of Nature, the draft sequence of the platypus genome, showed that the platypus has more than 80% shared common mammalian DNA, while the other 20% contained reptilian DNA. Many transitional species do die out, while a few rarities do survive, like the platypus.

screwing with your logic

The hardest classifications to accept were the ones used for pre-homo sapiens, the only two explanations given are either the category should have never been created (like homo erectus) or it was actually a human.  That’s right, Neanderthals are just humans who matured at a lower rate.

I'm just a little slow

Earlier, I told you how the book stated, “Natural selection prevents major evolutionary changes.”  It actually goes on to contradict itself when it claims that mutations are the only way new genetic material can be introduced and that almost all observable mutations, “has never produced a form of life having greater complexity and viability to it’s ancestors.”

That’s what this book has a hard time understanding!  We are all mutants!  Every single one of us.  Evolution (or micro-evolution as it’s called in the book) are multiple mutations, one after another, to create new variations and new species.  This book can not accept randomness.  Randomness does not allow for a higher purpose.

There are further attempts at explaining DNA that fall very short and is barely worth mentioning the argument since the book does not believe that mutations exist or that they could be beneficial.

The one argument in the Life Science section that didn’t even have to do with something breathing, and as far as I’m concerned, is the boldest statement I have read in this book so far.  It says, there is no evidence that languages have evolved.  I can understand and sometimes sympathize with the beliefs and misunderstanding of a species evolving and mutating, however, this statement says that one of the fundamental roots of culture never evolved.  The book says that simple languages did not evolve into complex ones or vice versa.

Language may not have the complex DNA and organ systems that you have a hard time understanding, but instead a collection every culture’s way of encoding and decoding information, that will always be evolving.  Maybe that’s what this book can not accept, something quite simple and sophisticated, continuously changing over time.

They liked to quote Darwin out of context during this section, so I will try to repair and sum up his idea of randomness over time, the concept this book can not grasp, ”…from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.”

For Next Time:

After much thought, I have decided not to tackle the second part of the book and split up the first part of the book into two sections.  It would be impossible in the amount of time that I have been given for this guest blog to argue with this book the following subjects (since they dissect each one at great length and in order to accept their conclusion, you would have to first accept that a great flood caused all of these):  the Grand Canyon, Mid-Oceanic Ridge, Continental Shelves and Slopes, Ocean Trenches and Ring of Fire, Earthquakes, Magnetic Variations on the Ocean Floor, Submarine Canyons, Coal, Oil, Methane Hydrates, Ice Age, Frozen Mammoths, Major Mountain Ranges, Overthrusts, Volcanoes and Lava, Geothermal Heat, Strata and Layered Fossils, LImestone, Metamorphic Rock, Plateaus, The Mohorovicic, Salt Domes, Jigsaw Fit of the Continents, Changing Axis Tilt, Comets, Asteroids, and Meteoroids.

If I am invited back, I would be more than happy to write about anyone’s favorite.

Find me around.

Dear Fans Of Atheist Blogger,

As Adrian has let you know, he’s on holiday and has asked  S. A. Alenthony and myself to guest blog in his absence.   A little background on myself before I get started, my name is Samantha, twenty-something from Chicago anywhere.  I’m a self-described avid reader, critical thinker, and video game addict. I like meeting creative people who have strong opinions of their own. Sometimes I visit museums, occasionally find myself on the internet, and I found my doppelganger when I wasn’t ever trying.

My doppelganger and I have very much in common, we even share the same name, we only differ in two ways – he’s a he and he believes in Jesus.  For us to have so much in common and only have it divided by such a harsh difference seemed to be a terrible shame.  I am (and as is he) very open to each other’s points of views and continue to challenge each other in new and exciting ways.  This time, he takes the cake.

About a month ago, I thought that maybe my doppelganger was not informed as well as he could have been since he had a different background from mine, so I took him to the Field Museum of Natural History.  Where else is such a brief time could someone absorb the knowledge they did not possess?

Sam vs. Sam

“Which of us is the evil twin?” my doppelganger began to ponder after our visit to the museum.  He thought, “What if I send her my beliefs and my understanding to her?  Sam, why isn’t my side taught in public schools.”

“Tell educators, publishers, museums, and the media to educate themselves and stop perpetuating misinformation and bad science.”

You would have thought that last statement was something that I said, but it’s actually In The Beginning (Compelling Evidence  for Creation and the Flood) by Walt Brown, Ph.D. preface, sent curiosity of my doppelganger.  You can see it on Amazon as well.

Now, as I begin to read this book, the introduction mentions the book contains three parts:  Part I – The Scientific Case for Creation, Part II – Foundations of the Great Deep, Part III Frequently Asked Questions.

This will be the first section of my project and during the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th I will take an unbiased approach to what the book is suggesting during it’s three separate parts and finally during my 5th and last section of this guest blog spot, I will critique and use your critiques from comments you posted on the book’s message.

Please keep in mind when referencing this book it refers to it’s intended reader to be anyone interested in the subject in the origin of life.  The ultimate goal of this book, as from reading the introduction, is to educate public school teachers.

A challenge had begun.  The first challenge being, even though I am an accomplished reader, how I was going to swallow over 400 pages of creationism.  It’s a lot easier when one-sentence epitaphs are yelled from across the internet at you, but 400 pages of my undivided attention, this was going to be a big one.

Wish me luck, a sample of the next post, here is the first diagram on the first page of chapter one.

Source

Earlier this month, Ray Comfort agreed (well, the second time) to a discussion with Thunderf00t. The rules were simple: the two men, one room, and one camera. Any questions were on the floor for discussion, and each man would get a copy of the video to use as they wished. As it turned out, Ray Comfort had a separate cameraman (for higher quality video I guess) in the room, but overall the debate was as stipulated.

Thunderf00t has uploaded the entire discussion, uncut from start to finish, and if you have a spare 90 or so minutes, I advise you watch it all! Ray Comfort’s points are torn apart in front of him one by one, as Thunderf00t explores the deeper meaning of Ray’s arguments (evidently not done by Ray himself) such as the “how do you know it is creation?” rebuttal to any claim of the kind “creation needs a creator” in reference to the universe itself.

Here is the entire debate as a YouTube playlist, so sit back and watch the Bananaman get defeated by common sense and logic, as played by Thunderf00t.

Enjoy!

The Royal Mint commissioned a special edition £2 coin in honour of Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday. The coin is a limited edition of 25,000, and mine arrived this morning!

Presentation Pack

The presentation pack (above) has a short but detailed biography of Charles Darwin, as well as information about Evolution, and of course the coin itself. I think the front of the coin is pretty awesome:

Darwin vs. Monkey

There are still coins available if you want to buy one. They cost £7.99 each (plus shipping), and well worth it if you want a nice souvenir of Darwin’s 200th year. You can buy the coin from the Royal Mint website.

A few clips have been going around the internet in the last week, due to the almost radical turn of the new series of “That Mitchell & Webb Look”, a comedy sketch show starring David Mitchell and Robert Webb. The first two seasons were filled with hilarious sketches, but the third has some absolute gems surrounding issues of skepticism, such as this sketch mocking religious zealots and their passion for finding messages in pieces of fruit (or anything else for that matter).

In the same episode, they attacked the pseudoscience of homeopathy with a sketch called “Homeopathic A&E”.

On the subject of David Mitchell, I was rather surprised to find an article he wrote a week ago in the Guardian that spoke out against the “Camp Quest” summer camp for children of atheists. I’m not sure if he has ever stated his religious beliefs, but evidently he doesn’t support the “new atheist” ideals. I wouldn’t suspect him to be a Christian (or even a believer given the content of his shows), so perhaps he’s on the same line as Julian Baggini?

A few months back, Ray Comfort asked Richard Dawkins to debate with him. Dawkins agreed, but requested a $100,000 donation to his foundation for reason and science (the standard rate he requests), and that the debate would be recorded. Ray offered $20,000 instead, and Dawkins refused. Ray could have left it at that, saying he was not able to pay anything higher, but instead he released a video with a futile attempt to mock Dawkins over a quotemined section of “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed”. That alone was cowardly, but what happened a few days ago is enough to disgust any upstanding member of society.

As most people know, Thunderf00t is a very popular atheist YouTuber, and also a commentator on science, mainly evolutionary biology. He has been featured on many blogs, including Pharyngula, on certain issues such as the VenomFangX DMCA debacle and his popular “Why do people laugh at creationists?” series. Thunderf00t is, by all accounts, a mainstream and prominent atheist. He might not have books, but he has over 50,000 subscribers and the entire atheist blogosphere behind him.

So Thunderf00t decided to ask Ray Comfort to a discussion, since he was going travelling and would be close to where the Living Waters ministry is based. He dutifully contacted Living Waters, but they told him to contact Ray directly on his blog. This is the comment (now removed from Ray’s blog as requested) that Thunderf00t left:

For the attention of Ray Comfort,
Your staff (T Ramos) suggested I post this here.

I run the popular pro-science youtube channel under the screen name of Thunderf00t.

For context.
Thunderf00t 54 000 subscribers
Thewayofthemaster 9 000 subscribers

This summer I will be touring the US and should passing near to LA (the Mnt Wilson Observatory).

You have previously stated that you wish to have a public discussion with “prominent atheists.”;

My proposal would be simple and honest.
You and me, one room, one camera. Through civil discourse we examine our points of contest and points of agreement. We both then take a copy of the video. I will put it up uncut on my channel.
You are free to do with your copy as you wish.

If you have an interest in such a project, let me know some windows of opportunity and we will see if we can converge on a date.

If you accept or decline the offer, please delete this post. To otherwise will lead to pointless speculation about motives.
I would rather not have made such an invitation in public but it was suggested by your staff

Best wishes,
Thunderf00t

Polite, honest, and with all good intentions. Thunderf00t established himself as a popular science-minded atheist, and proposed a simple format for discussion. He didn’t even want a debate! He just wanted the two of them to sit down and discuss their views as any two men would do in a polite conversation. He requested it be recorded, so that others may watch, and Ray can do whatever he likes with his copy. The key thing to note at this point is that Thunderf00t demanded no money.

Ray Comfort accepted the proposal, but with his sick and twisted sense of morality:

Regarding your request for a debate. I would be more than happy to do this. The only condition would be an honorarium of $US100,000, payable to “Professor Richard Dawkins,” on my behalf.

In other words, Ray wants to use Thunderf00t to get to Richard Dawkins. He gets a decent and well-thought out proposal to a discussion, and Ray turns it around and throws back an insult. This is a despicable act of cowardice, and is deeply unfair to Thunderf00t, who was willing to give Ray the discussion he wanted, for free, and by means of a civil conversation. What kind of morality is that? Punish a person who comes to you with an honest request in order to get back at someone who you failed to meet the requirements of before? It’s beyond Ray’s usual ridiculous nature; this was pure greed, coupled with the kind of scheming you get from stereotypical “evil geniuses” in films.

Ray once agreed with Ben Stein’s criticism of Richard Dawkins, that he was fine with Intelligent Design, just not certain designers, like God. Well now Ray has shown his true colours, we can say a similar thing about him. Ray is not interested in debate or discussion with “prominent atheists”, only discussions with certain prominent atheists…namely Richard Dawkins.

Of course, who better to explain this than Thunderf00t himself:

Do Thunderf00t a favour and favourite his videos, rate them with 5 stars (it counters the votebotes that attack his account regularly), and leave a comment on his channel. He certainly deserves it.

Ray Comfort’s latest stroll into the land of irrational thought has produced yet another blog post that attempts to link the theory of evolution with Adolf Hitler. It’s common knowledge that Hitler was a creationist, at most believing in some form of “micro-evolution”. Hitler never mentioned Darwin in any of his books, and the mentions of “evolution” that Ray gives us are almost all references to social evolution. Hitler can be accurately described as a social Darwinist, a political theory that has no relation to Darwin or to the biological theory of evolution that is studied today ^[1][2]. With this in mind, after reading through the 5 or so quotes in the post, the rational thinker is left with the resounding question “Ok, so what?”.

Let’s leave the fact that Hitler was a creationist, that his politics were not based on science but on racism and white supremacy. Instead, I want to examine the “so what?” that often gets ignored, yet is actually very important in analyzing Comfort’s argument. We shall begin by assuming that Ray Comfort is completely correct; that Hitler was a believer in the theory of evolution. We shall also assume that Hitler was so devoted to the theory, he decided to use it through social Darwinism in order to justify genocide. What does this tell us about the theory of evolution? Nothing. A theory is not defined by how people use it, but by what it tells us. The theory of evolution says nothing of “higher species” or that organisms must systematically wipe out all those who are “inferior”. In fact, the theory of evolution gives us no help in pinpointing which species are “more evolved” than others, or even what that would entail.

For instance, human beings are considered to be more evolved because of our consciousness, yet some bacteria have genomes hundreds of times larger than our own. So how do we calculate inferiority when we have two opposing lines of measurement, one based on evolved attributes, the other based on number of mutations. I don’t think one could make a good argument for either, especially given the further problem of how to compare attributes (is consciousness a better attribute than metabolizing citrate for example?). This all points to the conclusion that most would agree on; that science tells us about the universe in which we live by describing and explaining it, but it does not tell us what to do with this knowledge.

Science told us how to make the nuclear bomb, but science did not tell us to drop these bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. If science was responsible for these actions, then you could easily justify Newton as responsible for the deaths of everyone killed by projectiles. The reason creationists like Comfort do not extend their argument to include men like Newton is that they accept the theory of gravity (and yes, it is just a theory Ray). By holding Darwin and his theory as responsible for the actions of men he never knew, yet not doing the same for other scientists like Newton, Nobel, Einstein, etc reveals Ray’s dishonesty and unwillingness to discuss evolution on an intellectual level. Instead, he prefers to launch a thinkly veiled ad-hominem attack in the hopes that people will focus on the supposed “link” and not the attack itself. This may have worked well for him in the past, but not today, and not on this blog.

With the recent discovery of Ida, also known as Darwinius masillae, it was only a matter of time before Ray Comfort got on the case and started spouting his usual rubbish. The cartoon provided with the post is rather amusing, and also quite ironic. There are no doubts that Ida is “definitely ape”, but then there are also no doubts that homo sapiens are “definitely ape” either! You only make this kind of statement if you believe (as Ray does) that apes and humans are completely different “kinds” and not related to one another.

Ray responds to a commenter’s challenge to come up with characteristics that one would “expect to see in a transitional reptile/avian fossil?” by dismissing the question outright, claiming that such thinking is mere “speculation”. Well of course it is speculation in Ray’s eyes! We know he doesn’t accept the theory, so any hypothetical question about the theory is going to be speculation for him. The point was for Ray to imagine a world where evolution were true, and then imagine what characteristics he would expect to see in a transitional fossil. It’s a very easy question, and it’s actually how science works. We come up with a hypothesis: “I think twins can communicate telepathically with one another”, and then make some predictions which are speculations based on the idea that the hypothesis is true: “If my hypothesis is true, then twins under controlled conditions should be able to communicate”. We then do experiments, and if the prediction remains true throughout the experiments, we are able to confirm the hypothesis. Ray’s rejection of the question is just evidence that he rejects science, yet he claims in his post: “I believe in true science, not in the pseudo-science of evolution.”. No Ray, you do not believe in true science. One cannot believe in true science and yet reject outright the scientific method.

I think another tell-tale sign of Ray’s rejection is this statement:

I have said that there is no scientific evidence of any species “evolving” into another species. That’s the evidence that is still missing.

Of course, the evidence is not missing, and every time we show it to Ray, he simply rejects it. He has said on his own blog that there is no evidence that would convince him of evolution, since evolution contradicts the Holy Bible. This kind of closed-mindedness reveals Ray as the hypocrite he is; always asking for evidence but never accepting any of it because of his presuppositions.

You have your own definition of evolution, but ask the average person on the street what they believe it is, and they will say that Darwin said that man evolved from primates–that our great, great, great grandfather was an ape.

The definition of something is based off the people who know the most about it, not the “average” person on the street. The average person on the street in countries like Sweden thinks that Christianity is ridiculous; does that define Christianity as ridiculous for you Ray? Darwin never stated that our great, great, great, grandfathers were apes; only creationists did that. It is not surprising that people disbelieve in the theory when most people are taught complete lies about it.

You believe in a common ancestor (like a branch on a tree of common descent), they don’t. They believe we are direct ancestors. That we are apes.

The common ancestor of modern apes and humans was (not surprisingly) an ape. We are direct descendants of these ancient apes, just as modern apes are. We are not direct descendants of modern apes. Just in the way both myself and my cousins are direct descendants of my grandmother, but not of each other. The only difference is that with evolution, it takes much longer than 2 generations.

It is very clear that there is no empirical evidence for Darwinian evolution.

Fossils aren’t the only empirical evidence. Now that we know how DNA functions, we can see evolution in action. We have told you this, but you never listen. My only hopes are that some of your followers will read this and explore science for themselves, and hopefully rid themselves of your lies and misinformation.

Well, after almost a month of inactivity on the blog, I’m back! I firstly want to apologise for not making even small posts during my absence, but I honestly had so much to do I either forgot or couldn’t get the time to write anything. I have been reading and following my favourite blogs though, so I haven’t missed any of the things that have happened recently. The reason for my absence was a large number of exams that I always try to prepare for, but tend to ignore right up until they are actually upon me. Thus for the last 3 weeks I was studying like crazy, only stopping to send the occasional message on Twitter. I think that during that period, Twitter replaced my blog almost completely, and I know that large number of my readers follow me on Twitter as well (and if you don’t yet, please follow!).

So, now that exams were over, I went to stay with my mother for the weekend, and was cut off from the internet (apart from my mobile phone’s internet) for 3 days. To top it off, when I arrived back from a 3 hour train journey yesterday, I was whisked away by my friends to a Godfather film marathon. It was the first time I’d seen any of the movies (please forgive me), and I thoroughly enjoyed them all. With the help of two bloggers and Skype friends of mine, Splendid Elles (@elles) and Andrew Milne (@footbullet), we successfully created a new religion using Twitter, based on a truly awesome British snack: JaffaCakeology. If you want to join, simply hashtag all your tweets with #JAFFACAKES, and pledge devotion to our prophet, @cmkempe.

Back to business then, and I have 4 months off doing practically nothing other than some programming and various projects. This leaves plenty of time for writing blog posts, both short and long. Today I’m going to write about a presentation I saw over the weekend. It was the start of Salisbury Festival, which is an event spanning several months in which numerous activities are run in the city where I grew up. One of the events this weekend was a talk given by Charles Foster, a lawyer who has written a book called “The Selfless Gene”. His talk was entitled “Living with God and Darwin” and promised to

[demonstrate] that orthodox Christianity is not incompatible with what evolutionary biology says about our world.

The real problem, he said,

centres around the ethical implications of natural selection, and what such a system – based on selfishness, waste and death – might say about the loving creator God of the Christian faith.

I thought such claims were interesting, so I went along to hear his argument. However the talk was not what was promised. Instead of showing how Christianity wasn’t incompatible, he simply spent his time laughing at creationist claims (along with the rest of the non-creationist audience). He talked at length about how Young Earth Creationists were foolish, how the evidence contradicts their claims, how nobody can possibly claim such things without being ignorant. This was all very well, but he didn’t cover how this was wrong in a Biblical sense, which would have actually supported his argument. I highly doubt there were any Young Earth Creationists in the audience; this is England we’re talking about! I highly doubt there were any Old Earth Creationists there either! He spent a good 20 minutes talking about creationism in it’s various forms, spending a few extra on Intelligent Design, and ending his case against creationism with a passionate argument against a “god of the gaps”.

The rest of the talk was a haphazard presentation on the evidence for evolution, and I wasn’t impressed. He didn’t go into any detail, and his slides were all extremely bad quality, as if they had been photographed from some other talk. He never mentioned the mechanisms that make evolution tick, and he kept on blaming the “neo-darwinists” and “disciples of Dawkins” on most of the confusion over evolution. Overall though, there was nothing there that could convince anyone of either position. At the beginning he told people he would make creationists in the audience “very angry”, and atheists (well, “disciples of Dawkins”) very angry too. Neither of his prophecies held true.

At the end of the talk, an atheist at the back stood up and asked him to give the evidence for God, since his talk was about showing how God was compatible with Darwin. Mr Foster explained that the way he saw it, the lack of explanation for civilisation and morality is an indicator that a God exists. In other words, because science cannot explain everything about us, God must still have some hold. What a strange conclusion for the man to make, given his argument against a “god of the gaps” that he made clear earlier on. I started to raise my hand, but another atheist across the room from me got there first, pointing out his contradiction.

So poor Mr Foster lost out to the regular thorn in the side of theists: self contradiction. Such a pity. His book was on sale in the lobby afterwards, but there was no way I was paying £11.99 for it. I suspect it will include all the same repeated arguments against creationism, which in this country aren’t really needed. Nobody apart from the fringe churches accept creationism as a legitimate claim anymore. I further suspect that the arguments for evolution will be equally bad, thus misleading the people who read it into thinking that science knows very little about the subject.