Online video of Pennock's UCSD lecture

The video is here. This is a controversial lecture that started a blog war. The issue that started the blog war was the controversy over whether UCSD required the attendance of all freshmen or just the Sixth College freshmen, who are regularly required to attend the Convocation lectures. The lecture, which lasted about one hour, included the usual Darwinist propaganda. Here are some highlights from the lecture, along with some comments from me:

(1) -- Intelligent design is a Christian concept.

ID is not supposed to be a religious concept at all, and it is supported by Christians, Jews, Moslems, atheists, agnostics, etc..

(2) -- the issue was "teaching" intelligent design.

Only evolution was actually taught in the Dover public schools.

(3) -- refusal to read the ID statement was an act of courage by the Dover science teachers.

I don't know how many science teachers were involved, but there is strength in numbers. Also, these teachers knew that they would be hard to replace, since Dover pay rates were low for the area.

(4) -- Pennock called ID "breathtaking inanity," one of Judge Jones' hallmark expressions.

Even Jones did not use that term to describe ID -- he just used it to describe the actions of the Dover school board members.

(5) -- the lecture, like the Dover trial, focused excessively on the book Of Pandas and People.

The trial was supposed to be about ID, not about a particular book about ID (there are many books about ID).

(6) -- the usual quote mine of Pope John Paul II -- his statement that evolution is more than just a hypothesis.

(7) -- ID is not antithetical to religion.

That depends on one's religious beliefs.

(8) -- ID is not testable.

Evolution theory is not testable either.

(9) -- a distortion of Behe's comparison of ID to astrology