Sean’s goal to “make my point of view a little clearer to a group of people who don’t already agree with me” is certainly achievable. Whether it is a good one to strive for (by whatever metric of goodness) is less clear.
Good catch, thanks—Craig is not in fact a creationist.
Going back to the original question, though, I think such viewpoint-cracking is what Carroll is going for. I wouldn’t like to guess his chances of success—Craig is really good in public debating—but I do think that’s his intended effect, and that he thinks it’s worth it.
While it’s about Nye-Ham rather than Carroll-Craig, anti-creationist activist Zack Copplin thinks the Nye-Ham debate is worth it for this. David McMillan, who was raised in fundamentalism and later learned science, considers that “In a debate like this one, demonstrating even the most elementary facts about evolution and the age of the universe would be a great success” in order to put cracks in the hermetic world view of the faithful.
Edit: As Jayson notes below, this comparison isn’t quite fair—though an ardent apologist, Craig is not in fact a creationist.
Does Craig actually deny “elementary facts about evolution” or disagree with mainstream cosmologists about the “age of the universe”?
Good catch, thanks—Craig is not in fact a creationist.
Going back to the original question, though, I think such viewpoint-cracking is what Carroll is going for. I wouldn’t like to guess his chances of success—Craig is really good in public debating—but I do think that’s his intended effect, and that he thinks it’s worth it.