Ray Comfort starting handing out his bastardization of the Origin today. A day earlier than expected.
If any of our readers witnessed it, please feel free to describe your experiences in a comment.
Comfort’s Tract Meet
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Didn’t see a thing on the University of Illinois campus.
There are lots of reports from around the country now posted on Pharyngula. Of course, others can be added here. In many cases Crazy Comfort’s opponents scooped up as many copies as possible. At the University of Oklahoma faculty, graduate students and indergraduates from biology departments rushed out and got at least several dozen before they gave out of copies and left. The distributors (two men) also got some verbal arguments in opposition.
Being an Australian I must admit to having mixed emotions over not being able to experience Mr. Comfort’s offer first hand. On the one hand I’m most gratified that the creationist agenda is not at all popular here, but then I do regret that I can’t get a free copy of Darwin’s Origin (cut down and with additional dubious intro) courtesy of Mr. Comfort’s ministry. I don’t suppose anyone over there (in the US) would be kind enough to send me a copy? I’d be happy to pay the postage. ;-)
There were about 10 middle-aged individuals handing out stacks of books in the most busily-trafficked area of USC. They had set up a big table right underneath Tommy Trojan (the school’s most important monument), and stood at each entrance point in the quad/intersection. They must have had at least a thousand copies, and weren’t stingy with handing them out - I got two! A little later they started handing out Christian evangelism pamphlets disguised as USC trivia.
My daughter called and said they were handing them out at Northern Arizona University today, so we went over to the union for lunch and went past several times, collecting 13 copies in all. I plan on giving them to a few friends that could not get there and a few in other towns. Apparently a local church bought a truckload (It looked like they had two suburbans full of boxes of the books) to hand out. I did not even know they would be distributed here, and the earlier date prevented me from showing up with the NCSE bookmarks.
Berkeley had several people from LivingWaters Ministries, and several additional volunteers (locals?) handing out books.
The word went out pretty instantaneously and we had 6+ evolution grad students and a bunch of undergrads from a skeptics group handing out NCSE bookmarks, fliers, etc., and challenging the Comfort-ites. It went on for several hours, I talked with 4 or 5 different creationists, the longest time to one woman’s four homeschooled kids, who tried all sorts of arguments on me – no transitional fossils, why are there shells on top of mountains if there was no Flood, etc.
The weird thing was how, once they realized you were a scientist, they would shift the topic over to sin, final judgment, and repetence/belief in Jesus – I got this 3 or 4 times independently. One had to make an effort to drag the conversation back to science – a good tactic was, “Hey, that’s great that you’re promoting your religious view, it’s a free country. But I’m curious, why do you think it helps your evangelism mission to tie it to a bunch of uninformed, ridiculous creationist pseudoscience? That will only turn off everyone here at Berkeley who has learned science and knows that you guys don’t know what you’re talking about.” Then the arguments start coming about transitional fossils and the like, which inevitably turns into a “but where did *THAT* come from??” chain of questions, which eventually gets all the way back to atom nucleosynthesis in the stars. Fortunately I can cover all these bases, so eventually they gave up or got bored, seeking more susceptible prey I guess.
If I’d been thinking I would have had a copy of the Bible and of Don Prothero’s fossils book with me, but all in all it went well. Thanks to everyone who came out!
Looks like they had the most fun at UCLA: http://bruinskeptics.org/2009/11/18[…]irk-cameron/
Ah, the ol’ college alma mater. Go BASS go!
They’re still using that one? *blink blink*.
I biked around Penn State campus around 1 pm, but apparently the distributors had already headed home.
My alma mater! Where I took Anatomy by Braille. (long story)
Has Comfort & Company ever used a new argument? Aside from crocoducks and bananas (which are really rehashes of old arguments anyway)?
Nick, did they say if they will be back today (Thursday) at UC Berkeley, and if so where on campus might they be? I’m a postdoc there, and I would really LOVE a copy.
They were passing them out near the Tate Student Center at the University of Georgia yesterday (Nov. 18). When I got my copy I commented that I had heard that their edition omitted some fo the Origin. The guy passing them out insisted that it was an earlier edition; he said that this was complete. He didn’t want to talk with me any further, so I continued on my way.
I attend Penn State University, in University Park. In my opinion, the day was surprisingly uneventful. It was certainly not the grand debate scene I had imagined. There were several of Ray Comfort’s colleagues at PSU. I was kind of annoyed at the fact that they came a day early. It seemed a little underhanded on their part. Anway, the creationists stayed across the street from our campus, on what is known as College Avenue. Apparently, they had been chased off of Lock Haven because they did not have a permit, and they assumed that a permit would be necessary at PSU (it isn’t, but I’d rather keep them off-campus anyway).
Several professors and a group of students had planned to hand out “Don’t Diss Darwin” flyers on Thursday, and we were almost unprepared for their early arrival. Actually, for most of the day, I had no idea that they were there. Fortunately, were able to get the bookmarks, and started passing out as many as possible. It didn’t seem like there were many huge debates, I think these guys were tired of arguing with all of the other colleges. Still, they used the usual, easily-refuted nonsense that is contained in Comfort’s introduction.
I did get into a discussion with one of the creationists. He asked me if I was a Christian. I told him “Yes, but I am in no way a Young Earth Creationist!” He responded very kindly, saying that “God reveals different things to different Christians” and that acceptance or denial of evolution really has no bearing on salvation. He admitted that he did not know everything, but he just believes what seems true to him, and he could not expect me to believe things that seem false to me. I did not expect such a reply, since I’ve been called a heretic and false convert by less-civil creationists. But, like I said, they didn’t seem to be in the mood to argue, they just wanted to hand out their books and talk about Jesus.
I seriously doubt they made any dent in the beliefs of Penn State students. The entire biology program is saturated with evolution, and most of the students are smart enough to realize that Comfort’s introduction is full of falsehoods. Well, at least I got a free copy of Darwin’s book, even if it’s stained with creationism.
Lucky you Telamon !
I’ve had similar experiences over on Premier Radio’s discussion forum though. I’m frequently told I’m an Atheist, or that I’m going to Hell along with all the other “evilutionists”, and that I have to repent (of evolution or science ?). Par for the course amoung most YECs I’m afraid.
Telamon quoted some guy:
“God reveals different things to different Christians” and that acceptance or denial of evolution really has no bearing on salvation.”
Finally, someone who actually reads their Bible. We need to get this guy to talk to some of the trolls around here.
Thanks for the info Telamon.
I had planned on taking the day off today to join the counter demonstration on the UC Davis campus, and to receive my much anticipated copy of The Origin. Ray’s dishonesty put the kibosh on those plans however. My wife went over to the distribution site where the Campus Crusade was handing out the book. They were so vocal and so intense with their proselytizing that she was too creeped out to approach them to get my copy. Apparently many others felt the same as she saw no one even go near them. I’m still disappointed that I didn’t get a copy of Ray’s Origin of the Species, though.
Has anyone checked to see if the version they are handing out is faithful (except for the “Special Introduction”)? That is, are we sure that Comfort did not change anything in the book itself?
Does it matter? In some ways their strategy is clever: if you have in hand a 350- or 450-page book written in Victorian English (long sentences with lots of subclauses), and a modern-sounding Introduction, which will you spend your time on? What fraction of the people who receive the copy will study it closely and be influenced by the fact that some material is missing?
Biologists like to overpraise Darwin’s writing style; for its day it was good, but like everyone else of his era his prose had a bad case of Victorianism. Unless you are a biologist who has reason to be very interested, it can be quite soporific (I know firsthand: it had that effect on me when I was assigned to read it as a student).
The publicity for Comfort and the bullshit introduction are the whole story here. I think the plagiarism of material in the Introduction will be a much better debating point than the question of whether a chapter or two of Darwin was left out.
The University of Central Missouri wasn’t infected, at least as far as I can tell.