Lawrence Krauss and Michael Shermer are at it again in this tag-team effort pitting the super-atheists against the stubbornly religious Dinesh D’Souza and Ian Hutchinson.
Thanks to my sometimes Youtube debating partner Francesco Galle for sending me the link to the debate.
Krauss and Shermer stumble embarrassingly when trying to argue that science can account for ‘right and wrong’, morality and values.
At 56:39, Krauss says “I think science does tell us what is right and wrong in a real way” . He then lists a couple facts that he claims science introduced to the world, attaches them to moral judgements about animal welfare and human rights – without ever describing the mechanism that explains how evaluations of morality arise from these brute facts.
When he is caught out by Hutchinson on his atrocious reasoning, Krauss and Shermer deflect from having to substantiate their own metaphysical claim by using the oldest rhetorical debating trick in the book – they throw the question back at the other side by asking “Well where do you get them(morals)from then?”
It is fascinating how the very basis for the atheist/materialist condemnation of religious thinking is the believer’s willingness to believe things without empirical evidence – yet for some reason, the very same behavior doesn’t qualify as an equal indictment of atheist/materialist credibility when they do it themselves.
Here is the link to the debate: ‘Debate: Atheists vs Christians (Krauss + Shermer vs D’Souza + Hutchinson)’
Let me know what you think.
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