Does David Klinghoffer really want to have an exchange of ideas?
UPDATE: July 8, 2022. David Klinghoffer has now posted a link to my reply to William Dembski's review of my book. He even encourages people to buy the book. Thanks!
On July 5, at 4:09 pm, Eastern time, I received the following email from the Discovery Institute's David Klinghoffer:
Dear Jason, Your new book caught the attention of my Discovery Institute colleague Bill Dembski. We have been publishing his review of it serially at Evolution News, which I edit. Now that that’s done, as your time permits, I wanted to cordially invite you to respond to his review in the same forum, at whatever length you think is appropriate, without editorial interference. Since Dembski’s work is covered and critiqued extensively in your book, as he notes, I hope you will accept the offer, while giving me a reply to the invitation that I can share with our readers, whom I’ve alerted about this prospect for dialogue. I look forward to hearing from you. David
Normally I would not publish a private email without the sender's permission, but in this case I think it's OK to do so. You see, Klinghoffer was so pleased with this email that he posted it himself at the Discovery Institute's blog. The title of the post was: Invitation to Jason Rosenhouse: Respond to Dembski. He concluded the post with, "Now let's find out what he will say."
At 4:17 pm, just eight minutes later, I sent the following reply to Klinghoffer:
Hi David. Thank you for the invitation. I have recently posted a reply to Dembski at the Panda's Thumb. I intend for that to be my last word on the subject. Jason
As I write this, close to two days have passed, but Klinghoffer has not updated his original post to let his readers know that I had replied to Dembski. Nor did he post something new indicating that I had done so. One minute he's looking forward to hearing from me and musing about the prospects for dialogue, but the next it's crickets.
It's almost as if he didn't really want to have an exchange of ideas, but was instead just preening for his readers. He now knows "what he will say", but seems afraid to let his readers in on it. Why do you suppose that is?
(Click on the title of this PT post to see comments).