why ray comfort got the ncse treatment

When last we caught up with Banana Boy and his sidekick, religion reporter Dan Gilgoff was hosting a back and forth between him and Dr. Eugene Scott of the NCSE about the televangelist’s attempt to slap all sorts of half-baked tripe on Charles Darwin’s signature work, The Origin of Species. And now, on top of debating with the mustachioed airhead, the NCSE decided to bring out the big guns and established the Don’t Diss Darwin Institute website which features detailed, point by point rebuttals of every last inanity parroted by Ray and Kirk Cameron in their “special introduction” to the defiled edition. But is this all really necessary? And why would a scientific organization seem to invest so much time and effort into someone who’s scientific knowledge could easily be bested by your average middle school student who completed at least one decent biology class?

Now I’m not saying that Ray is necessarily the dimmest bulb in the box, but compared to him, Bill Dembski’s long-winded pontifications sound almost scientific. However, because he invokes the Bible, he gets far too much time, money and media attention. So when he sent out a press release about his intended mangling of Darwin’s seminal tome, the aforementioned Dan Gilgoff pretty much ran it as is, throwing in a brief link to the rather obscure idea that The Origin was motivated by Christian abolitionism. To make sure that Comfort didn’t get off easy, the NCSE’s communication director, Robert Luhn, contacted Gilgoff and asked that the scientific point of view be given equal time, especially on something as incendiary as Ray’s stunt. Gilgoff agreed and to ensure equal time to both science and anti-science. hosted a debate between a real scientist and a guy who has trouble understanding such things as gravity and genders. Or as Mr. Luhn generously put it…

We just wanted to make sure that there isn’t just one side of the story out there and people would be armed with the facts. All we’re trying to say is that we have a mountain of evidence for evolution. There are hundreds of peer reviewed papers on the subject being published every year so from where we’re coming from, the evidence is pretty strong.

Then, just to make sure that when Ray and Kirk start spreading their contaminated edition of The Origin those who get a copy will know why this edition is tainted and how, the NCSE set up the Don’t Diss Darwin site with a satirical PSA which involves a chef chopping bananas and a point by point refutation of the inanity contained within the introduction. As I was told, project director Steve Newton spent a fair bit of time going through more than one version of Ray’s pained attempts at science, history and theology to create the counter-arguments in the fact sheet. (Rest assured, I’ll be forwarding my condolences to Mr. Newton very shortly. Whew, talk about taking one for the team…) Of course, Comfort’s ardent fans will think that the NCSE’s campaign is just a sign of how afraid they are of Banana Boy and how the theory of evolution is crumbling before their eyes, but since the scientific backing for the theory is over half a million peer reviewed investigations strong and the very best creationists can offer is ignorance and slander, they’ll be very, very wrong about that.

What rattles me most about about this incident though, is not the sheer ignorance and arrogance of a random televangelist hungry for attention. In fact, that’s to be expected. No, what leaves a bad taste in my mouth is the idea of a reporter treating an ignoramus waiving an ancient book as someone suited to debate a scholar who spent many years researching biology. If you were to read the Egyptian Book of the Dead and try your hand at debating neurologists, you’d probably be laughed off as a know-nothing. But substitute the Book of the Dead for a Bible and suddenly, the fact that you have no technical expertise in anything but finding the right quote in what amounts to a collection of ancient religious punditry, doesn’t matter. Suddenly, Bill Dembski can misuse and abuse computer science to prove his nonsensical blathering which gets the same media attention as an actual expert in computers. And a living, breathing brick wall like Ray, who has the critical thinking skills of your average preschooler, suddenly gets showered in money and attention.