It was a great debut event Saturday night for Stephen Meyer’s New York Times bestseller Darwin’s Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design, at the Seattle Art Museum. About 200 people turned out to celebrate — including Steve Meyer’s high school biology teacher, who won the raffle for a free copy of Darwin’s Doubt. On hearing, he stood up in surprise and held up a copy of the book, “But I already have one!”

Though billed as a book party, the main event was an outstandingly clear and compelling presentation by Dr. Meyer of the book’s core argument, which critics are still refusing on the whole to grapple with squarely. See, for example, this interview — which is actually hilarious — with Thom Hartmann, “host of America’s Number 1 Progressive Radio Show.”

Hartmann begins by wondering, “Well what’s with this unending assault on science?” He goes on to suggest — as if this were obvious, just child’s play! — that an increase in oxygen in the pre-Cambrian atmosphere somehow generated the novel genetic coding needed to build the Cambrian animals.

Hartmann’s critique kind of deteriorates from there. Anyway, congratulations to Stephen Meyer on a fine night and a fine premier of an amazing book!