My “Debate” with Professor Dave
Editor’s note: A YouTuber, angry atheist, and self-styled science educator, “Professor Dave” Farina came to our attention for the sole reason that his YouTube channel, “Professor Dave Explains,” has a significant following. With this in mind, Günter Bechly, Jonathan McLatchie, and others have responded to his videos about intelligent design. On Twitter, Dr. McLatchie took some time to engage in an exchange with Farina, which reflects the quality of the latter’s thinking, such as it is. The following has been edited mostly for clarity.
McLatchie: Here is part 3 of my ongoing Series responding to Mr. Dave Farina’s criticisms of Professor Mike Behe’s work.
Farina: Get ready for the top search result for your name on both Google and YouTube being me taking a big steamy dump all over your dumb science denying apologist face.
McLatchie: I’m quaking in my boots…
McLatchie: Are you willing to acknowledge any of your mistakes and misrepresentations in your video response to Behe?
Farina: I didn’t make any mistakes, and I didn’t read your dog**t blog posts. But don’t worry, later I’ll make a video going through your lies and humiliating you just like I did your other idiot colleagues. Enjoy!
McLatchie: I’m curious how you know that I’m wrong if you haven’t even read my blog posts yet?
Farina: Um, you’re a sh**bag apologist who works for a disgusting propaganda mill. You’re always wrong. All of you are always wrong. That’s literally your purpose in life. Just stop talking, dumba**.
McLatchie: In case anyone needed any further justification of why we don’t take @daveexplains very seriously…
Farina: This is why nobody takes YOU seriously, f***tard. You just whine about how mean I am instead of being able to refute anything I say. Enjoy continuing to be the laughing stock of the scientific community, dumba**.
McLatchie: I am happy to list several items that I take to be evidence for evolution and surprising on my perspective of ID. How many cases can you list of data points that tend to confirm ID and are surprising on evolution?
Farina: Nothing confirms ID, dumbass. It isn’t science. Get your life together.
McLatchie: Now what does that say about who of the two of us is adopting more of a scientific mindset and is persuadable by the evidence?
Farina: It says that I’m someone who acknowledges science and you’re a brainwashed loser upholding religious propaganda in the face of overwhelming evidence proving you wrong. How long do you wanna keep humiliating yourself here, moron?
McLatchie: A major red flag that confirmation bias plays a significant role in your reasoning is when you cannot concede the presence of any weaknesses in, or evidence against, your own position.
Farina: There is no evidence against evolution. You’re just brainwashed and stupid. Pretending that you aren’t a stooge for an anti-science propaganda organization is a major red flag. And you whine about confirmation bias.
McLatchie: You contend that you didn’t make any mistakes. Are you sure about that? E.g., you claim in your video that Behe asserts that malaria cannot achieve resistance to chloroquine. But in The Edge of Evolution, Behe states precisely the opposite. Would you like to correct yourself?
McLatchie: Do I hear crickets?
[CRICKETS]
McLatchie: I shall take the silence as a tacit admission that you made an error here. Let’s take another example. You cited a paper that you claimed showed the evolution of a flagellum under experimental conditions. But the paper doesn’t say this, as I show in my Article.
McLatchie: All that the researchers deleted was the flagellar master switch protein, FleQ, in Pseudomonas fluorescens. After a few days of incubating the bacterial cells on Petri dishes, they reacquired their ability to grow flagella.
McLatchie: Basically, another master switch protein, NtrC, that is a structurally similar homolog of FleQ already had the ability to cross-bind to the promoter usually bound by FleQ. When produced in excess, as a result of a broken regulator, NtrC was thus able to drive flagellar synthesis.
McLatchie: I was wondering whether you would be happy to concede that you misrepresented this paper?
[CRICKETS]
McLatchie: Unfortunately, @daveexplains doesn’t seem willing to respond when others, such as myself, document undisputable mistakes in his work. This is a really bad trait to have, particularly as one who promotes himself as a science educator.
[CRICKETS]
McLatchie: I am going to take your silence, again, as a tacit admission that you were in error on the above two points.
McLatchie: Here is the fourth and final installment of my Series responding to Mr. Dave Farina’s criticisms of Professor Mike Behe’s work.
Farina: I’m glad you got your little tantrum out! I look forward to the tenth DI errand boy pretending to debunk my video where I hand you’re a** to you. Gotta dunk on Bechly again first though, so sit tight for that, dumba**.
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