There’s someone called Keith Dalton, aka "Mr. Deity," who appears in a series of self-made videos mocking religion. I was not previously familiar with him, but one example of his work comes in for praise today by Jerry Coyne at Why Evolution Is True. Dr. Coyne can be amusing (when writing about cute animals), but Keith Dalton’s video, intended to be "biting" (Coyne’s word) and humorous, is one of the most grating, unfunny, over-produced items I’ve seen in a while.

Watch it at the risk of utterly wasting ten minutes that you can never get back. Dalton spends that time going after radio host Dennis Prager, a good friend of ours, for a typically smart column Mr. Prager wrote back in March about the Bible’s Noah story, in anticipation of the misanthropic recent film. Coyne agrees with Dalton in disapproving of Prager: "Have a look, but only if your stomach is strong!"

Oh please. I commend Dennis’s writing to you as always, though ENV isn’t the place to go for discussions of the Bible. Isn’t it interesting, by the way, how we’re supposed to be the ones animated by religion, yet if you’re looking for multiple daily fulminations on religious (or anti-religious) themes you can pretty much rely on Darwinian evolutionist Dr. Coyne?

Anyway, what struck me is this observation by Prager, on the place of animals in nature:

All of creation, in the biblical view, was to ultimately prepare the way for the creation of man. But one does not need the Bible alone to hold this view. A purely scientific reading of the universe is in keeping with this view. Everything — every natural and physical law — is exquisitely tuned to produce life, and ultimately man, on earth.

And that, surely, is exactly right. The fine-tuning of the cosmos specifically for human life is the theme of work by Discovery Institute’s Jay Richards and Guillermo Gonzalez in The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos Is Designed for Discovery and Michael Denton in Nature’s Destiny: How the Laws of Biology Reveal Purpose in the Universe, and the forthcoming documentary based on Denton’s research and writing, Privileged Species.

For more, see Dr. Denton’s recent contributions to ENV:

• "Is Earth’s Apparent Design for Life Simply the ‘Most Severe Case of Observational Bias in the History of Science’?"

• "The Cold Trap: How It Works"

Anyone writing sincerely and thoughtfully about the Bible, as Dennis Prager does, opens himself up to mindless mockery by the likes of Keith Dalton. That’s a given. I would love to hear Dalton, or Coyne, address the scientific point that Mr. Prager, Dr. Richards, Dr. Gonzalez and Dr. Denton make. Don’t hold your breath. But do have a look at the trailer for Privileged Species, a fine antidote to what Dalton serves up.

I’m on Twitter. Find me @d_klinghoffer.