Squeers,

"I never expected anything more from Pell. He's about the worst spokesperson Catholics could elect. But the whole affair was an embarrassment, from the giggling audience to the pious Pell to the indignant Dawkins. Absolutely nothing of any depth was discussed."

I agree - and I'm now supposing I was a bit naive to have expected anything more. The Q & A forum is apparently constructed so that discussions are trite. I think I would have been indignant as well, confronted with a giggling audience and a pious cleric who appeared to lack any intellectual depth outside of his brief.

Once again, I only managed to watch the first few exchanges on Q&A. The whole programme seems to be constructed to encourage the lowest common denominator to prevail, and to allow pre-processed views to be articulated in response to pre-processed questions.

I'm not sure why I expected a Dawkins/Pell edition to be any different. I found the whole thing to be about as exciting and controversial as a can of tomato soup.

It certainly demonstrated - at least, the fifteen minutes or so that I saw - the pointlessness of having an atheist and a theist conduct a discussion. They did not talk to each other, they talked past each other, one using the language of science and observation, the other using the language of faith and the supernatural.

It is interesting to speculate what the protagonists, the studio audience, the programme's producers and its viewers each expected to learn from the show, except a confirmation of their own stance. Because I doubt there was anything of substance that emerged - from either the questions or the answers - that was in any way enlightening.

Q&A had two non believers of Scripture debating. I would not pay a penny to see either of them. Pell was a disgrace in his denial of Scripture while Dawkins came across as totally foolish. I loved Dawkins idiotic explanation of nothing.NO doubt his disciples squirmed even though they put on a brave face. It was not as idiotic as Pells desire to have creation/evolution blended. What a jokers!

Dear Tony,
You ask how could we possibly observe something happening that occurred in prehistoric times, or words to that effect. To say that is impossible is precisely the point that I was trying to make (thanks for emphasising it.)

I was in fact responding to Grim who was placing a heavy emphasis on 'observation'. His useful examples given (Earth is flat, sun revolves around Earth) are precisely those that can be measured and observed in present time. So how and why does he (and other evolutionists) then  make the logical jump to include those things which can't be observed in present time?

When you bring in an examination of the fossils, that is a possible entrance into the discussion. Although 'time and time again' (to quote the words of Grim) we have creationists (who are also scientists, despite what Grim was asserting) who argue the opposite to what you just said. The fossils quite clearly do not show the necessary evolutionary changes over time: They do not evidence changes which include birds evolving from dinosaurs and people evolving from ape-like ancestors.

This is where the debate could begin. But you highlight why it won't easily be settled. Because these events allegedly occurred in prehistoric times (talk about convenient) and are therefore not to be observed (without time machines) and not to be repeated (which makes Grim's standard of 'testable' and 'predictable' quite the challenge.)

Grim,
When I asked should science be taught as dogma, that was a rhetorical question. Of course the answer is 'no'.

You say that you have read some creationist books. Could you show from where it is the creationists are saying. "Do not argue, do not discuss, just believe and shut up," as that is your earlier caricatured accusation.

Yabby & others,
It's hard to find the perfect match for Dawkins in attempting to get an interesting presentation between a theist and atheist. Dawkins' speciality is evolutionary theory. Pell's is theology. If you wanted to try and bring it into the same field, I know that there would have been ample numbers of qualified scientists of the Christian persuasion who would be willing to go up against Dawkins. It's the creationists that are the natural opponents of Dawkins in the wild, but unfortunately Dawkins presently refuses to share the stage with any of those, his natural adversaries.

I was surprised at Pell's interest in the attempts of science to explain the origins of the cosmos, questioning Lawrence Krauss' conviction in his own explanation in physics. Of course he jumped directly to attempts to discredit the physics, but at least he appeared to be some way across the subject, perhaps more than Dawkins is across aspects of theology.

On theology, if you start with the premise god doesn't exist then I guess the whole field can be dismissed immediately as much ado about nothing. It cannot be denied, however, that belief helps many people live their lives (which Dawkins sees only as a placebo effect), and that people have experiences of god that are real to them, even if to others this is wishful thinking (your miracle is my hallucination).

Squeers, I referred in my second last post to your comments I regard to having more to do with with a distaste for post-modernism's lack of focus on one truth rather than for liberalism. One can be a liberal without being a post-modernist. Any confusion over your criticisms, in my mind, comes from your conflation of these. We can all hold different truths outside the field of science (ie in the realm of non-falsifiable hypotheses/beliefs) but science is a hard master when we seek truth within it.

(cont'd