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| In July 08 we wrote to the British Humanist Association
and the National Secular Society asking them to put forward nominations
from amongst their membership and associates. We also said we would also
welcome independent responses from suitable individuals. Our preference
was for a well-known scientist, but failing a suitable volunteer, prominent
humanists with other backgrounds would have been considered.
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| By the end of September the only response we had to our
letters to the BHA and NSS was a note from Polly Toynbee, President of
the BHA, saying that she personally was unwilling to participate.
Given this silence, at the beginning of October we wrote to a number of prominent scientist who are known for their atheism, with individual invitations to debate John Mackay next year. These were: Professor Steve Jones, Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, University College London Professor Peter Atkins, Lincoln College, Oxford Professor Lewis Wolpert, Research Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, University College London We also wrote to Professor Martin Rees, the President of the Royal Society, suggesting that he invite one of atheists who had called for Professor Michael Reiss’s resignation to debate John Mackay. This was following his suggestion at a conference in Liverpool that science teachers should be willing to discuss creation in class if it was raised by their pupils. It has to be noted that Reiss is an evolutionist who believes it is very easy to show that creation has no scientific basis. We disagree with him on that, but unlike Sir Harry Kroto and others who strongly objected to what he said, believe he raised an important point in his remarks. Finally we invited Sir David Attenborough, well
known for his evolutionist programmes on the BBC, even though some years
ago he declined to debate John Mackay.
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| We had responses from:
Sir David Attenborough: Sir David is to be congratulated for his consistency in that he continues to refuse to debate John Mackay. He did say that he believed evolution was the best explanation of where life came from, which is at least a refreshing level of honesty. Professor Lewis Wolpert phoned to decline our invitation. He gave the reason that nothing about creation research made sense (or was that Creation Research?). Professor Peter Atkins emailed to say he has another
engagement on Feb. 14th.
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| Why we did not write to Richard Dawkins.
In November 2007 campaigning atheist Richard Dawkins of Oxford University interviewed John Mackay, who personally invited Prof. Dawkins to accept the challenge to debate him at the time of Darwin's bicentenary in 2009. Dawkins declined and John's feelings afterwards were that his reluctance to debate is because, “he does not seem to be the world's best at thinking fast on his feet. He has a set line and if you depart from it he seems to get stuck.” In August 2008 the programme featuring the above interview
was broadcast on Channel 4 (UK). It was the third and final episode of
"The Genius of Charles Darwin" and was presented by Richard Dawkins. Actually
it was more of an advert for atheism than a serious look at Darwin's science
- perhaps that was his real genius. One day we may find the time to comment
on the series as a whole, but for now our response to the segment featuring
John Mackay is available here.
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| We did get two volunteers from the wider ranks of atheists, but both were unknown to the general public. John was willing to debate either of them if they could obtain the backing of one of the national atheist groups such as the BHA or NSS. Admittedly time was limited for them to obtain this, but neither were successful, so late in December we decided that John will give a presentation on that evening. |
Was Darwin Right? |