thinktoomuch.net

Hat tip to Auke for his transcript.
{ } description of non-verbal events, actions.
[ ] time stamp, minutes:seconds, from Auke’s audio recording.
< > word unclear, sounds like.
Bold: my additions/corrections.
Please keep in mind this is a transcript of a live talk, not something Dr Batten thoughtfully and carefully wrote himself.

[11:13] Well what about biology, we got a lot [...]

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I’m going on holiday, so I’m now posting daily sections of the talk with only brief comments in between. Think of this as audience participation time. (Hopefully not audience speculation time though, I’d love it if my comments remained the least informed of the lot. )
Hat tip to Auke for his transcript. Key:
{ } [...]

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Stephen Jay Gould (September 10, 1941 — May 20, 2002) was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. He was also one of the most influential and widely read writers of popular science of his generation. (Wikipedia) He and Niles Eldredge developed the theory of punctuated equilibrium, a theory that states that phenotypic [...]

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Hat tip to Auke, who transcribed the recent creationism seminar:
Creationist rubbish: read all about it
Posted 2008 March 14 @ 22:54 - filed under Bullshit.
On March 05, Dr D. J. Batten (B.Sc., Hons., Ph.D.), who is affiliated with Creation Ministeries International, came to spew nonsense on the campus of the University of Stellenbosch. He was introduced [...]

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In last week’s Creationism seminar, Donald James Batten, B.Sc.Agr. (Hons 1), Ph.D. ended his talk with a calculation showing how unlikely it is that a particular protein would form via random chance alone. I did not verify all the numbers in his calculation. I see no need to, because his calculation was completely unrelated to [...]

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Creationists believe that, prior to Adam taking a bite out of the forbidden fruit, Lions, and all other predators including Tyrannosaurus Rex, ate plants. They believe this because they believe “there was no death before the fall”. When Adam took a bite of the forbidden fruit, the digestive systems of all predators spontaneously (or gradually?) [...]

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On Wednesday there was another creationism seminar in the Neelsie, presented by a Donald James Batten, B.Sc.Agr. (Hons 1), Ph.D. In my subjective experience, the talk seemed like less of a circus than the seminar presented last year. By that, I mean the nefarious content was a little less obvious to the lay person. A [...]

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Rumour has it CMI (Creation Ministries International) is visiting Stellenbosch Campus again.
Topic: Evolution: a dark age for science and society?
Date: 5 March 2008
Venue: Sanlam Hall, Neelsie Student Centre
Time: 13:00-14:00
Expect a response on this blog within 72 hours of the event. If anyone would like to contribute, let me know.
(The photo of a poster was contributed [...]

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I met a whole bunch of people yesterday. In the evening, I had drinks with Bertus! (from Saligerus) and two of his friends — someone from Kletskerk, and another blogger blogging from within the Dutch Reformed church. (I’m intentionally keeping the details vague. If I’m talking about you, and you would like yourself named, by [...]

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It is time for the first example of a straw man argument, presented by Gary Bates from Creation Ministries International (CMI) on 29 September in the Neelsie, on Stellenbosch Campus:
Fossils take millions of years to form.
What an incredibly cute straw man.

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