Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
While I was in Washington DC this past weekend, many of my friends were in Pennsylvania for the annual Dover trial reunion hosted by Lauri Lebo. After going last year and having a blast, this year's reunion fell on the same date as the Americans United conference and I was forced to choose between them. As much fun as I had in DC, I'm not sure I made the right choice.
One of the people who was there has posted a report on the event, with pictures. Not only did the group get to hear Lauri's very talented husband Jeff sing this year, they also got treated to a performance by a rap artist who raps the Origins of Species. How could that not be cool?
And you know what else I missed last weekend? Anthony Bourdain was speaking in Ann Arbor! And I missed it! I need a doppleganger.
Comments
Bourdain cost $45 a ticket though.
Posted by: Matt | November 14, 2009 10:13 AM
I continue to believe the Dover trial was a seminal event in exposing the dishonesty and hypocrisy of creationists/IDCs, social conservatives, and their leaders. So I'm glad to see this event continues to be celebrated.
I highly recommend Ms. Lebo's book The Devil in Dover: An Insider's Story of Dogma v. Darwin in Small-town America in order to capture a historical moment in the war between superstition and enlightenment, and blind ideology vs. genuine efforts to approach knowing objective truth.
In addition and also because Ms. Lebo mostly avoids the technical arguments or wading too deep into expert testimony, reading several of the witness trial transcripts were as riveting as anything I've ever read. The ones that still resonate for me were Ken Miller's, Rob Pennock's, Michael Behe's, Bill Buckingham, Alan Bonsell but especially Barbara Forrest who used the creationist movement's own words and writings to expose them as the frauds and con men they truly are. She also smacked-down the cross like me playing one-on-one against Michael Jordan. There was also a lady who was on the Board that also testified who proved perfectly ignorant yet still committed to promoting her religious beliefs rather than science, unfortunately her name escapes me.
For me, the Dover trial convincingly revealed the creationist movement to be populated almost exclusively with people with absolutely zero desire to actually seek truth but instead promote their falsified world view with no regard to the damage this would cause to students or society if we enabled or promoted their falsified religious views as objective "Truth".
Posted by: Michael Heath | November 14, 2009 10:33 AM
Jeffrey Shallit also posted on the reunion.
Posted by: Herod the Freemason | November 14, 2009 2:07 PM
You should ask PZ to hook you up with a clone or two. He recently said that's how he finds all the time to do his stuff.
Posted by: Jeremy S | November 14, 2009 7:39 PM
Ed said " I need a doppleganger ".
Now Ed; what in the hell are you going to do with a weather radar ?
Posted by: Vic Vanity | November 14, 2009 8:13 PM