Now more than ever, science needs defending, so thank God for Bill Nye, who’ll take time out of his busy Science Guy schedule to publicly debate Ken Ham, founder of Kentucky’s Creation museum, on the subject of evolution vs. creationism.
As Ken Ham writes on his website:
Most of you will recall Mr. Nye as the bow-tied host of the popular children’s TV program Bill Nye the Science Guy. On his TV program, watched by millions of children over the years both on TV and as videos in science classrooms, Nye promoted evolutionary ideas. In recent times he has often been seen on TV interview shows and YouTube videos, where he has defended evolution. Nye was the “2010 Humanist of the Year” as awarded by the American Humanist Association. Because our ministry theme for 2013 and for 2014 is “Standing Our Ground, Rescuing Our Kids,” our staff thought that a debate on creation vs. evolution with a man who has influenced so many children to believe in evolution would be a good idea. Now, those of you who know me realize that I don’t relish public debates, so please pray for me.
Via Dangerous Minds, here’s the video of Bill Nye criticizing creationism that inspired Ken Ham to make this retort video and led to the Nye vs. Ham debate, which will take place on Feb 4.
I’ll keep you posted on how to see/hear the debate. In the meantime, another impressive sentence from Ken Ham (bolds mine):
[T]his debate will help highlight the fact that so many young people are dismissing the Bible because of evolution, and even many young people who had grown up in the church decided to leave the church because they saw evolution as showing the Bible could not be trusted.
Okay. (Meanwhile, wingnut Bryan Fischer thinks no one who believes in evolution should be allowed to hold public office.)
What’s funny about young people dismissing the Bible because of evolution is that the main reason they’re doing so is because of jackasses like Ham and Fischer saying that you have to choose between the two.
Many Christians easily reconcile evolution, homosexuality, or whatever other issues make them supposedly horrible people with their beliefs. It’s the jagoffs that force people to choose between common sense and religion that drive their believers away, not the evil scientists.
I know it’s stupid to click on this stuff, but that Ham retort video is just priceless, end to end.
Bill Nye is pro fluoridation, BTW. In either case, deniers are ridiculous, simple people who will claim victory after their stupid spokesperson says anything. Don’t hold your breath for creationists to grasp how thoroughly Nye hands them their asses.
It’s nothing but pure advertisement for the Creation Institute. They are the ones making the money off of this and they are the only ones in control of the distribution. It remains to be seen whether the debate will be distributed at all after Nye demolishes the creationist guy.
Nye is pro-fluoridation because, like evolution, the science supports it. The anti-fluoridation arguments are as specious as the creationist arguments, or the anti-vaccination arguments, or the climate denialism arguments.
Some questions for a chaotic and friendly debate, is there evolution if there is no time? How will evolutionary biology meet new physical paradigms about time, space and so on? Will new conceptual changes deny evolution? Or on the contrary, will it become a more extraordinary process, full of astonishing implications? If so, will human being and the rest of life beings become different as science progresses? Will the image in the mirror of theories change? After all, is life, its origin and evolution, something fix-finite-defined? That is, can one understand it with its peculiar brain and its limited words? Will science add indefinitely without understanding completely? Anyway, is it possible to understand something totally? Along these lines, there is a different book, a preview in goo.gl/rfVqw6 Just another suggestion
Because our ministry theme for 2013 and 2014 is “Standing Our Ground, Rescuing Our Kids,” our staff thought that enticing Mr. Nye to an enclosed space under false pretenses and then shooting him again and again would be a good idea.
http://ken-ham-v-bill-nye.wikispaces.com/My+advice+to+Bill
“Is Creation A Viable Model of Origins?”
Agree on Debating Conditions.
It is a pity that the debate is not to be held at a neutral venue with a representative audience, but there we are. Remember, we are not dealing with people who have the slightest sense of truthfulness, honesty and decency.
http://johnscorner.blogspot.fr/2009/02/honesty-its-such-lonely-word.html
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/02/02/ken-ham-doesnt-believe-his-own-lies/
Allowing them full control of the conditions will be asking to be ripped to shreds.
I suggest you ask Ken Ham to engage with you in writing, in public, to come to an agreement on the conditions under which you will debate. I suggest the following:
You agree the format, giving each equal time to present your arguments and to respond to one another’s arguments.
You agree not to interrupt one another.
You agree on what presentation technology you can each use.
You agree to restrict your arguments to those which are directly relevant to the debate topic.
You agree on definitions pertaining to the debate proposal.
You agree to have several independent people/organizations record and publish the debate in full.
If Ken Ham refuses to engage with you over conditions, and you still wish to go ahead, bring the fact up in the debate.
Re. definitions, “creation” should be tied down to Ham’s own notion of creation – everything created in six literal 24 hour days some 6,000 – 10,000 years ago. “Origins” can mean origins of the universe, of life, of species, of geological strata, of scripture, or any agreed combination. This is very important, to preempt any weaseling over definitions when backed into a corner, as creationists so often try to do.
Strategy
If you can keep the debate to a discussion of the proposal, you can have Ken Ham on the defensive all the time. You are not there to defend biology, cosmology, astronomy, geology and origin of life research. Any mention of these, and you can rightly accuse Ham from straying from the subject of the debate. He is there to defend creationism as a viable model of origins.
You are there to point out why creationism is not a viable model of origins. Use the evidence, but not in defense of the sciences that creationists abhor. Use the evidence to point out precisely what creationism cannot explain. An explanation makes it clear why things are one way and not some other way. This is creationism’s greatest weakness. It cannot do that. Here are some of my favorite topics that illustrate the point:
Orthologous endogenous retroviruses. Creationists have no explanation for them. It makes no sense for a creator to place unnecessary, false traces of retroviral integrations in our genomes. See http://www.evolutionarymodel.com/ervs.htm
Astronomy – esp. supernovae and pulsars, which cannot be explained within a young earth scenario. See http://infidels.org/library/modern/dave_matson/young-earth/additional_topics/supernova.html
Consilient dating methods. Why do so many lines of evidence lead to “wrong” results, but happen to agree with one another? See http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:SmiJ8MY1BkkJ:razd.evcforum.net/Age_Dating.htm+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk
In each of these cases, from the creationist viewpoint, God has planted fake evidence unnecessarily. They cannot explain any necessity for it. This is what destroys its viability.
By the way, I mentioned the origin of scripture above. Is creation a viable model for it? Most Biblical scholars would disagree, and would present very good evidence for their position – but maybe that is straying too much onto Ham’s turf.
My advice – pick a few topics that you are very familiar with where creationism cannot explain the evidence – topics that include, from a creationist’s point of view, fake evidence for which they cannot provide any explanation. Search the net for any attempts at ‘explanation’ or damage limitation by creationists. Become familiar with them and with rebuttals of them.
If you want to discuss this with me, please get in touch. My email is my first name, a dot, my second name, at gmail dot com.
Good luck! 🙂
Barry Desborough