Monday, June 6, 2011

PZ Myers vs. Hamza Tzortzis in Dublin



This is a very strange debate in terms of setup (spontaneous confrontation on a Dublin street) but I still have to count it in because of the stature of the two debaters in terms of their following in their respective communities.

PZ leads off by trashing an Islamic pamphlet, which prompts Hamza to start in on the KCA for a bit, but PZ quickly changes the subject to emphasize evidential arguments rather than philosophical arguments grounded in everyday metaphysical and causal intuitions. They dabble in rudimentary epistemology for a bit, and eventually Hamza starts in on the glorious revelation that is the Quran, with emphasis on the specifics of embryology. They go on about this for quite awhile, with the Muslims making the usual argument that the Koran is just too advanced to be the product of their founding prophet writing without the benefit of divine revelation.

Overall, this one was pretty fun to watch, if not particularly groundbreaking. I'd love it if this sort of thing happened every Friday night in Bricktown.