Livecast: RJ's Evolution Hour

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

Continuing the discussion from The Rise of the Podcasts:

This Wednesday (10/3/2018) at 7:30pm CST, I am doing @rjdownard’s live cast. You will be able to listen in on youtube as it happens. I’m sure questions from the stream will come up. I’ll also be following this thread too if you want to participate that way. This should be an entertaining exchange.

@swamidass

RJ’s Evolution Hour

James “RJ” Downard (@rjdownard) is a very devoted defender of evolutionary science, who runs a very extensive blog of anti-anti-evolution arguments (https://tortucan.wordpress.com/ and has a YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRdnABwU9uUJw1k40LGYcQA ) He found out of about @NLENTS and myself through the exchange with DI, and invited me to participate. He explains the goals of Evolution Hour:

The goal is to discuss evolution in all its ramifications, and particularly how antievolutionists interact with it. I am not religious, so that aspect does come up.

A couple distinctives I noted about his cast:

1. It seems to me that he is non-religious but not anti-religious , much like many of those on this forum.
2. This is done as a LiveCast, so questions can be submitted in real time in the chat alongside the youtube video as it is happening.
3. They do not shy away from technical details, so we do not have reduce things down here. I’m expecting a helpful exchange on the technical aspects.

These three things should make for a very entertaining conversation. I will, of course, be announcing the podcast here when a date is set, so everyone can join the fun.

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

@rjdownard, where can they tune in?

[rjdownard (James Downard)]

On my YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRdnABwU9uUJw1k40LGYcQA/videos (I’m still a novice at this). For Twitter users, I’ll be posting the link as soon as I have it set up, likely by 4PM on Wed, and you’ll have the links sent to you so you can spread them to your networks as well. As always, we go live at 5PM Pacific time.

As I did with my chat with Nathan Lents, I’ll likely have someone in the live feed as a silent monitor to keep track of the live chat comments, so we can interact with questions and comments there.

I am looking forward to a spirited and informative discussion, Joshua.

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

This will be starting less than an hour for now. I’ll post a link here when we get started. Hope to see many of you online.

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

And here’s the main video YouTube viewing page:

And here’s the popout link for the live chat: https://www.youtube.com/live_chat?v=HcXVXHmfi-g&is_popout=1

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

I’m on now! Come ask some questions and listen in.

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

@rjdownard great conversation with you. We have a lot of common values. I’m looking forward to continuing the conversation.

[rjdownard (James Downard)]

I heartily agree, Joshua

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

What did you think was the best part of it? What do you think we should go deeper on some time?

[rjdownard (James Downard)]

I think that we were having a friendly discussion was a big plus right there. I wanted to avoid diving into matters theological (even if not a few in the live chat would have relished that fireworks), even as it teetered on the brink at times, so I avoided sliding into that too much because I wanted to keep it focused on the data field side of it, a source methods issue that too easily gets lost in the shuffle (the need for any view, religious or not, to explain the data). Every one of the subjects that came up could be delved into at more depth, from the science end to the religion end. Whether Evolution Hour will become a useful venue where people of disparate views can have a dialogue (but not a place for diatribe platforming) only time will tell. But I’m game.