Boy, what a soap opera this has turned out to be. Late last week, linguist and conservative pundit John McWhorter recorded a segment for bloggingheads.tv (bhTV) with Michael “Irreducible Complexity” Behe. A credulous–even gushing–McWhorter, who is a self-admitted nonbeliever, began by heaping praise on Behe’s most recent book The Edge of Evolution. The 44-minute conversation is unremarkable, given that a linguist isn’t exactly the best conversational partner to pair up with a guy like Behe, and doesn’t break new ground on the supposed controversy of Intelligent Design.
The comments section at bloggingheads.tv exploded, mostly with viewers scoffing at Behe’s theories and disappointed with McWhorter’s unwillingness (or inability) to challenge him. Within hours, bloggingheads.tv withdrew the video at McWhorter’s request! Behe took note of the incident at his blog Uncommon Descent (see “Bloggingheads and me“); of course, this retroactive censorship on the part of bhTV will be nothing but fodder for the “we’re persecuted” conspiracy theorists within the ID community.
All this happened while Robert Wright, editor-in-chief for bloggingheads.tv and author of the controversial book The Evolution of God, was off the grid for a meditation retreat, where among other things he fell in love with a weed and a lizard (I kid, Bob!). Wright, correctly in my opinion, ordered the removed video reinstated. Watch and judge for yourself.
Tags: bloggingheads.tv, edge of evolution, evolution, intelligent design, irreducible complexity, john mcwhorter, michael behe, robert wright
[...] as I reported a couple of days ago, lots of people in the science side of the fence have been in an uproar because bloggingheads.tv [...]
[...] science journalist George Johnson, in which Wright offers a very detailed explanation of how the Michael Behe/John McWhorter diavlog got posted, then removed, then re-posted. In the aftermath of the incident, a handful of [...]