Last Monday evening (3-3-08) I had the great pleasure of meeting one of my colleagues in the battle with antievolutionists, Dr. Barbara Forrest of Southeastern Louisiana University. She is the co-author of Creationism’s Trojan Horse: The wedge of Intelligent Design (2004), and more recently an expert witness in the Intelligent Design trial; Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District (2005).

Dr. Forrest was giving a talk at Cal State Fullerton titled “Evil, Evil Woman” about what it was like being the only female witness in Kitzmiller trial and the sort of (mis)treatment she has been subjected to at the hands of the Intelligent Design crowd before, during and after the trial.

For example they’ve called her such things as a “cyber-stalker” and put out fake interviews of her in which she is referred to as “Dr. Barking Forrest“. Very high brow stuff indeed.

The defense tried desperately to keep her from testifying in the trial (because they knew some of what she would say) but to no avail. Her testimony was some of the most damning because she was able to show the true (religious) motivation of people behind the ID movement by using their own words. It is no wonder they were (and are) terrified of her. It was her use of their own words against them that lead newspaper columnist Mike Argento to, tongue-in-cheek, refer to her as an “evil, evil, woman” and hence the title of her talk.

Her talk didn’t hold a lot of surprises for me personally given how closely I follow the CvE issue, but it was still very entertaining and definitely very informative for those not as steeped in the subject as I am; and it was a lot of fun getting to meet Barbara in person after having known her for some time through internet interactions.

If you have a chance to hear her speak I highly recommend doing so. For lots of good stuff by Dr. Forrest see her web site Creationism’s Trojan Horse.

As an aside I have to make note of my latest dinosaur shirt (seen in the photo above) made for me by my mother as a Christmas (2007) gift (thanks Mom!).

Update:

‘Evil, Evil Woman’ speaks at CSU By John Synco, an article on Dr. Forrest’s talk in the school’s paper.