Tomorrow (Friday) is the big day: the debate with William Lane Craig at the Greer-Heard Forum, as I previously mentioned. And of course the event continues Saturday, with contributions from Tim Maudlin, Alex Rosenberg, Robin Collins, and James Sinclair.
I know what you’re asking: will it be live-streamed? Yes indeed!
[Update: Here is the video.]
Fun starts at 8pm Eastern, 5pm Pacific. (Corrected from earlier goof.) The format is an opening 20-minute speech by WLC and me (in that order), followed by 12-minute rebuttals, and then 8-minute closing statements, and concluding with 40 minutes of audience questions. Official Twitter hashtag is #GreerHeard14, which I believe you can use to submit questions for the Q&A. I wouldn’t lie to you: I think this will be worth watching.
You can find some of WLC’s thoughts on the upcoming event at his Reasonable Faith website. One important correction I would make to what you will read there: Craig and his interlocutor Kevin Harris interpret my statement that “my goal here is not to win the debate” as a strategy to avoid dealing with WLC’s arguments, or as “a way to lower expectations.” Neither is remotely true. I want to make the case for naturalism, and to do that it’s obviously necessary to counter any objections that get raised. Moreover, I think that expectations (for me) should be set ridiculously high. The case I hope to make for naturalism will be so impressively, mind-bogglingly, breathtakingly strong that it should be nearly impossible for any reasonable person to hear it and not be immediately convinced. Honestly, I’ll be disappointed if there are any theists left in the audience once the whole thing is over.
Feel free to organize viewing parties, celebrations, discussion groups, what have you. There should definitely be a drinking game involved (it’ll be happy hour on the West Coast, you lightweights), but I’ll leave the details to you. Suggested starting points: drink every time WLC uses a syllogism, or every time I show an equation. But be sure to have something to eat, first.
If it seems worthwhile, I will follow-up with thoughts after the debate, and try to answer questions. Let’s have some fun.
Wow, that was really good! I thought Carroll made Craig look pretty silly. But maybe that’s just because Craig is getting old. It seems he’s finally beginning to show his age. That’s too bad.
But yeah, Carroll rocked. Very nice debate performance.
I think what most impressed me was the scientific language in which he framed his objection to the first premise of the KCA. We really don’t have any reason to think that everything that begins to exist has a cause. But it was refreshing to hear this objection phrased in terms of scientific models. Once you have a self-contained scientific model which explains the observed data, why do you need more? Craig was unable to answer this in the same language.
Never seen Craig taken to the cleaners like that before.
I suspected it might be the case, and I wonder why he took on a debate topic that was so skewed toward his opponent. Having said that, I thought Sean did a fine job all around, not just when he was correcting Craig’s misunderstandings of cosmology.
Bringing in Alan Guth was a memorable move.
Good job Sean! Your explanations were simpler and more coherent than WLC’s logic chopping. I think you also did a good job of “reaching out”. Most religious people will just blank out on this level of discussion but I’ll wager that among those who listen any net shift will be in your direction.
“You think Sean’s comments are irrational because you don’t have an elementary understanding of quantum mechanics, just like Craig” I agree Craig does not have an elementary understanding of quantum mechanics – he has a very sophisticated understanding of QM, SR and GR. That is way he has authored books on the philosophy of time, and the philosophy of physics published by Springer, Kluwer and Routledge.
Where did Craig go of subject? It was Sean who brought in the Bible, and began to waste time on general (and very poor) arguments for atheism. Craig stayed on the subject at hand at all times. It was very telling that Sean offered no reply to Craig in his third talk.
Sean — I think you dominated the debate tonight and I don’t make that statement lightly. Although I am an atheist, I am usually critical of the performances of Craig’s debate opponents. You should be very proud of your performance tonight.
big relief! Sean not pummeled, far from it. I feel Craig did not do as well as Sean, and leave it to Luke Barnes to explain how Craig won even this time. I now understand Sean’s comment of “not come here to win”. My frustration at this comment in the previous post was misplaced. Very well done, and especially the ending where Sean exposed Craig’s failure to respond to most of his major points and take the time to speak to theists directly, I think was a great ecumenical moment, a mantle that Craig can never claim.
But Craig brought up one issue that I agree with and have previously thought about much. There may not be a cause of the universe (even if it had a beginning), but the whole goal of physics is to find a cause. Not knowing doesn’t imply that we give up, but we keep looking.
About Guth holding ipad, that was a gimmick, but I think one very well done. Something from Vilenkin would have sealed the deal.
Sean exposed Craig’s failure to respond to most of his major points
What point did Craig fail to respond to?
Well done Sean. I think you got your message across very well.
I have watched more Craig debates than anyone sane would admit to and I have to say, this was one of the best. Right up there with the Kagan-Craig debate. Sean you did a fantastic job and were a great ambassador for science. Thanks
Fantastic job, Sean! Big thumbs-up from the happy-hour bunch here!
There’s no point in talking to someone who is looking for a fight on a website full of rational and educated people. You get down-rated because everyone already knows the waste of time it will be to talk to you. So please go away, old man (no offense to old men, I’m one myself.)
I couldn’t watch the debate live. I was streaming it a couple of hours after it happened and suddenly the video stops and YouTube says “This video is private. Sorry about that”. I wonder if the hosts were so embarrassed by the theists’ arguments that they pulled the video. Any alternative ways to watch it?
What was the subject that Craig was trying to debate? The best I can gather, his argument was something like this: big bang and value of cosmological constant give more credence to theism than if the established theory was say steady state theory and \Lambda = 0. This is a very low ball claim, and akin to arguing that presents under a Christmas tree give more credence to the existence of Santa, than if there were no presents.
Also Craig refuted claims he has himself made in other debates that God is the best explanation for observed universe. Wasn’t that the topic of the debate with Kraus?
Sean, I liked that you used the idea: “This is not a dress rehearsal, this is the performance.” That line has a lot of resonance with people. I like to add: “And a performance well done can never be erased from existence.”
Craig failed to reconcile fine tuning with an omnipotent god, as was dismissed by Hans Halvorson (a theist) and Sean brought up. What Craig indirectly said in a different context is that god did it so as to provide evidence of its existence. Really!!! This is the same guy who has argued that god is hidden and mysterious and does not provide evidence for its existence because otherwise people will be forced to believe in god thus undermining free will.
Also bicycles popping out of nothing was a meaningless argument. Since we live inside the universe we have no experience of nothing (since they have already rejected Kraus’s vacuum as a candidate for nothing), so can’t make any claims if bicycles are or are not popping out of nothing.
Glad that the stream got working again quickly. Well done, Doc.
Sean — excellent job tonight! You and Sam Harris are the only WLC opponents who I (as an atheist) think succeeded in beating his arguments (and I’ve watched probably a dozen of his debates). You were very right to spend more time defending naturalism than refuting his complaints.
Sean,
First off, fantastic job! I’ve always thought you caried yourself with the prudency, humility, and yet strong engagement due such debates. Here’s some highlights from my own thoughts if interested:
1) Thank you, thank you, thank you for speaking in clearer, more organized manner than Craig. Normally one would expect the scientists to be the ones tossing about the jargon, but I felt you took the consideration needed of your audience. Meanwhile, I could barely ascertain Craig’s main points or the rational of his rebuttals personally.
2) I was worried you would get hung up in Craig trying to bait you to defend your own cosmoligical model, but I was exuberant to see you moved right along. That openness of other interpretations allowed you much more freedome of debate and shows some awesomeness on your part.
3) In your final statements, I’m glad you took the detour you did to “talk to the audience” so to speak. Craig’s rebuttals and closing were seemingly redundant, if not in the least caught up in a messy web of technical and picky counterpoints, so to indulge much further would have been an exercise in just “talking past eachother” which isn’t helpful for us listeners. The down-to-earth discussion you had at the end is a very useful rhetorical tool as well, allowing an otherwise differing audience to gain some empathy with your views. Throwing the audience the bone that religion has good things worth championing was also even further likely to garnish an open ear to your views.
4) My only real critique is on the questioning at the end regarding whether or not the universe should need an initial cause. I thought your responses were logical and consitent, but they forgot the audience a bit. For your everyday person, and even myself, a universe without intelligible “first cause” can sound preposterous if not insane (regardless of what the truth is). I think this could have used a little bit more deliberation in trying to soften or explain the philosophical wackyness of what may be a philosophical necessity. I also think some credence could be given to the idea that, although the universe may not have an “initial explanation,” as scientists we do keep looking and refining. This might be a good moment to simply note that theism is content with giving up and presupposing that explaination.
Thanks for an entertainingly intellectual night! I think you’ll have got some people thinking.
To Michael: The debate consisted of a lot of one side saying “I think the science is like this” and the other side saying ‘no, I think the science is like this…” They flat out disagreed on many scientific claims. Who are we to believe about the scientific claims, the scientist or the philosopher? You might argue that WLC has written books on this stuff, but his books are irrelevant. Want to know how I know that? Because they don’t contain meaningful mathematics. If you can’t do serious math, you can’t do serious physics. That’s just the way it is. As a lay person, unfortunately, you have to just believe in one of the two speakers, and you’re better off believe in the one who understands mathematics. (I, however am not a lay person, I’m a mathematician with a physics background, which is why I claim to know this is true.)
A simple example of WLC not understanding basic mathematics is when he complained that Carroll’s model had time pointing off in two directions, and interpreted that as two parallel universes, both evolving forward in time with a common beginning. This is laughable, and demonstrates quite clearly how mathematically challenged Craig is. The time parameter in that model ranges from negative infinity to positive infinity. Period. Drawing a double arrow for an infinite axis is common practice. Moreover, I think Carroll specifically drew it that way to show that entropy increased in both directions. That, however, is irrelevant to the fact that the model starts at past infinity and carries on to positive infinity. This is but one of countless examples of Craig’s incompetency with anything technical. The funniest, of course, is his claim that actual infinities are impossible.
Damn — I missed it and the video is now “private”. From this and PZ’s liveblogging it sounds like Sean did a stellar job. I was not very satisfied with the Halvorsen conversation because he was barely a theist at all and would like to have seen Sean debate a red-blooded theist.
Can anyone provide a working link to the debate on YouTube? Thanks.
Sean was his usual entertaining, insightful self and didn’t speak above his audience, a skill more people in his field ought to learn when they want to be understood by the unwashed masses. WLC was predictable and predictably grating. I’m not sure he really understands what he’s trying to convince everyone else about. He seemed to either be rushing through his presentation or just filling it with as much “science sounding” stuff to fool the audience into thinking it was more credible than it was.
For someone who wasn’t trying to win a debate, Sean, you did it anyway. It was the only thing you failed at.
Sean — Can you please post your slides?
Will there be Youtube of the exchange?