I Was a Fool, Said the Evolutionist, after Debating the Creationist

“How am I going to face my wife?”

One night last month, Jerry Falwell matched the best defender of creationism he could find against the best defender of evolution he could find. By all accounts, the creationist won hands down.

But you can judge for yourself: Falwell will spend up to a half-million dollars to broadcast the debate on television.

The evolutionist was Russell Doolittle, a protein chemist from the University of California. The creationist was Duane Gish, a biochemist from the Institute for Creation Research. The debate took place at Falwell’s Liberty Baptist College in Lynchburg, Virginia.

Admittedly, Doolittle did not have the home field advantage, as he tried to argue for evolutionism in Lynchburg. Still, by his own admission, he lost badly. “I’m devastated,” he said after the debate. “This was so important. How am I going to face my wife after making such a fool of myself?” His comments were carried in a Washington Post account of the event.

Doolittle, who has debated on behalf of evolution previously, tripped himself up by not paying attention to the clock. He, like Gish, had 18 minutes to make an opening statement, but spent so much time reading from a creationist text about dinosaurs, and criticizing it, that he failed to get through a slide presentation that offered evidence for evolution.

Instead of a well-fashioned argument for his view, the conclusion of Doolittle’s statement, according to a transcript, went this way: “I’m running out of time. It’s incredible. Well, I have to go very quickly here. May I, in fact, quickly now just go through my slides? I just saw what I think is a 30-second flash here. These have been the fastest 18 minutes of my life. And as I’m now on my last slide—Oop! I’ve been squeezed out. My last slide just went by. I’m out of gas, and I think that …” At that point Falwell told Doolittle his time was up.

Gish, also an experienced debater, pummeled the theory of evolution with argument after argument, and finished on time.

Doolittle received $5,000 for debating Gish, and in spite of offering that much money, Falwell still had a difficult time enticing an evolutionist to Lynchburg. Astronomer Carl Sagan turned him down, as did noted anthropologists Ashley Montagu and Stephen Jay Gould.

According to the Post, Doolittle said after the debate, “For the $5,000 fee, they could pay some numbskull to come in and make a fool of himself. As it turns out, that’s exactly what they got.”

In his opening remarks, Doolittle said he came because he is worried about the future of American education, given the new laws in Arkansas and Mississippi requiring the presentation of creationism in science classes if evolution is taught. “To me this is a travesty,” said Doolittle.

The debate will be broadcast by Falwell’s “Old Time Gospel Hour” organization at varying times and locations around the country during late November and early December, depending upon when the Falwell people can purchase time on local stations. (People interested in viewing the program should watch local television listings as well as for newspaper advertisements for the program.)

Among the arguments Doolittle made for evolution was the fact that most scientists agree the earth is much older than the age that is allowed by “young earth” proponents, including many, although not all, creationists.

Doolittle said various means of dating rocks all agree that the earth is 4.6 billion years old. Confirmation was made when astronauts brought back moon rocks, he said, and the age of those rocks matched other measurements.

In his rebuttal to Gish, Doolittle asked, why, if origins of the earth are supposed to be supernatural, must they conform to the Christian view, rather than the views of competing religions? Just because science cannot now explain some aspects of origins does not mean it will never uncover the answers, he said.

Rebutting Doolittle, Gish argued that age calculations of moon rocks did not consistently show an age corresponding to the estimated age of the earth. Rather, he said, those calculations varied widely.

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