Barker vs. D'Souza (Barker wins)
I went to a debate between Dan Barker and Dinesh D'Souza last night. D'Souza did not come off well -- he relied heavily on cheap debater's tricks, like saying "scientists say the universe is rational, but how can something without a mind be rational?", which belies a profound misunderstanding of A. cosmology, and B. the word "rational". He made quite a number of absurd claims, like "Jesus invented democracy" and "science depends on faith". For much of the first half of the debate, I had the impression he was wedging well-rehearsed spiels into his responses, regardless of the actual question; by the end, he was bringing out what I'm told are his go-to bits -- "I don't believe in unicorns, but then I haven't written any books called The End of Unicorns, Unicorns are Not Great, or The Unicorn Delusion" is one such piece of wit.
For the most part his arguments were difficult to follow not because of their complexity but because of their incompleteness. D'Souza clearly does not understand physics or biology nearly as well as he thinks he does -- his description of the Big Bang was ludicrous, and his understanding of animal behavior would have been old-fashioned before Darwin. (Seriously, he was arguing that no other species engages in altruistic behavior and that we cannot therefore be "Darwinian primates". Seriously.) He also does not understand Christianity as well as Barker, who is a former fundamentalist minister; Barker didn't really make too much of this point, but he did correct D'Souza on a biblical point at least once.
D'Souza also kept trying to push the debate into hostile waters. He had some bizarre analogy involving Barker stomping a dog to death, and another where Barker broke into D'Souza's house, killed him, raped his wife, and stole his stuff. Even worse, he said these things with a smirk, like he knew deep in his heart what an effective rhetorical tool this is, the real killing blow. He came off, basically, like a second-rate blowhard who confuses being loud and controversial with being persuasive. When he commented on how he was "beating up on Dan" in the debate, I think he really believed he was.
Conversely, I was impressed by Barker, who I hadn't heard of before the debate. He called out D'Souza multiple times for his tendency to equivocate and avoid questions, and made a clear, coherent statement of what it means to be a moral person who does not happen to be a theist. His responses tended to be concise, and usually made his entire point in the time allowed. He came off as a decent, intelligent guy who advocates what he thinks is a reasonable way to approach life, and he does so persuasively.
Edit: I just found this description of a debate between Christopher Hitchens and D'Souza. Everything said there about D'Souza applied to last night's debate as well, with the single exception of his remark about feeling like a mosquito in a nudist colony. Otherwise, D'Souza must think he's found a one-size-smites-all-heathens argument that he recycles, down to the preachy stories about Mother Teresa hugging lepers.
For the most part his arguments were difficult to follow not because of their complexity but because of their incompleteness. D'Souza clearly does not understand physics or biology nearly as well as he thinks he does -- his description of the Big Bang was ludicrous, and his understanding of animal behavior would have been old-fashioned before Darwin. (Seriously, he was arguing that no other species engages in altruistic behavior and that we cannot therefore be "Darwinian primates". Seriously.) He also does not understand Christianity as well as Barker, who is a former fundamentalist minister; Barker didn't really make too much of this point, but he did correct D'Souza on a biblical point at least once.
D'Souza also kept trying to push the debate into hostile waters. He had some bizarre analogy involving Barker stomping a dog to death, and another where Barker broke into D'Souza's house, killed him, raped his wife, and stole his stuff. Even worse, he said these things with a smirk, like he knew deep in his heart what an effective rhetorical tool this is, the real killing blow. He came off, basically, like a second-rate blowhard who confuses being loud and controversial with being persuasive. When he commented on how he was "beating up on Dan" in the debate, I think he really believed he was.
Conversely, I was impressed by Barker, who I hadn't heard of before the debate. He called out D'Souza multiple times for his tendency to equivocate and avoid questions, and made a clear, coherent statement of what it means to be a moral person who does not happen to be a theist. His responses tended to be concise, and usually made his entire point in the time allowed. He came off as a decent, intelligent guy who advocates what he thinks is a reasonable way to approach life, and he does so persuasively.
Edit: I just found this description of a debate between Christopher Hitchens and D'Souza. Everything said there about D'Souza applied to last night's debate as well, with the single exception of his remark about feeling like a mosquito in a nudist colony. Otherwise, D'Souza must think he's found a one-size-smites-all-heathens argument that he recycles, down to the preachy stories about Mother Teresa hugging lepers.
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