Mark Greene believes we all have to engage the debate that Bill Nye took on.
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I gotta hand it to Bill Nye. He respectfully presented a masterful case in support of science and evolution against “young earth” creationist Ken Ham, founder of the Creation Museum, the museum where they represent the biblical creation story as scientific fact. The subject of the debate: is creation a viable model of origin? Its clear that Ham promoted this debate in an attempt to legitimize his fundamentalist Biblical view of our origins. But I think he got more than he bargained for.
Doug Zeigler, Good Men Project editor had this to say about the upcoming debate:
‘Richard Dawkins had a great line about scientists debating believers. He said when you debate believers, you give them “the oxygen of credibility”. Basically, he thinks nothing fruitful can come of these kinds of debates.’
Does it give Ham credibility to be making the case for creationism on the same stage as Nye? Possibly, but I would argue that we’re past the point where creationism is being legitimized by a debate like this. Creationism has already made alarming inroads into our children’s textbooks. In our state houses and our public squares, young earth creationists continue to make the argument that creationism should be taught in our schools as a viable model of origin alongside evolution and other science based theories on the origin of man and the universe.
Bill Nye did a fantastic job. If you have an hour or so, watch the debate. The skill with which Nye makes the case for science and logic echoes the great Clarence Darrow and the Scopes Monkey Trial.
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And so, Nye’s choice to engage this debate is an important one.
If you have an hour or so, watch the debate. The skill with which Nye makes the case for a science based model of origin echoes the great Clarence Darrow and the Scopes Monkey Trial. It is truly inspiring. Nye went in and politely but firmly called out one of creationism’s strongest advocates and dismantled his argument.
And we need more of that. We have reached a crossroads. America has become a place where the line between faith and fact is being aggressively erased by people who hold that their religious beliefs provide an adequate foundation for any system of thought. Public policy. The environment. Geopolitics. Science. No matter what the area of discussion, they hold that the answer lies in theology. The result? These people are using faith based belief systems to set public policy on every single major issue of the day.
An interesting question that comes up time and time again from my progressive Christian friends is, “Why couldn’t God have created evolution?”
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And please note, there are millions of religious folks out there who are horrified by those who would seek to push a rigidly literal view of any religious book, Bible or otherwise on the modern world. The Taliban is the Taliban, under whatever religious banner it might march. An interesting question that comes up time and time again from my progressive Christian friends is, “Why couldn’t God have created evolution?” Indeed, why not?
The simple fact is, we all have to engage the debate that Bill Nye took on (and handled masterfully). And we have to do it with, dare I say, near religious fervor. Because we may be past the point where people like Mr. Ham need us to grant them credibility. The lack of our “oxygen of credibility” isn’t stopping the Ken Hams of the world. In fact, we may be ceding them the public stage by our absence, allowing them to own far too much of the public debate on values, gender, education policy and all the rest.
Ken Ham uses the term “historical science,” and in doing so seeks to split science into two parts, observational science which views existing events in real time (which Ham says lets us create our current technology) and historical science which is about things we can not observe because they occurred in the past.
In Ham’s opinion, we can not scientifically arrive at any conclusions about the past. Because, as he puts it over and over again, “we were not there.”Leaving, in Ham’s mind, the Bible as the only legitimate source for understanding the past. A past which he believes is only about six thousand years old.
So, now, those of us Christian or otherwise, who do not take the Bible literally, had all better start speaking out loud and clear in support of science, logic and reason. And we’d better start doing it soon. We should take Bill Nye’s lead and engage this debate with all the fervor we can muster because those who speak for young earth creationism are attempting to derail centuries of scientific knowledge and force their religious views on us all.
NPR has a remarkable timeline of the Scopes Monkey Trial which took place in July of 1925. Fundamentalist orator Williams Jenning Bryan and renowned defense attorney Clarence Darrow went toe to toe on evolution and religion.
You can view the Bill Nye/Ken Ham debate here:
http://www.wdrb.com/story/24634617/bill-nye-vs-ken-ham-at-the-creation-museum
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Debate all you want. Drug-resistant bacteria don’t care. They have evolved and continue to evolve in clearly Darwinian ways which make them deadlier and deadlier. They can still kill you whether you want to believe in natural selection or not. To paraphrase a classic theistic bumper sticker: You may not believe in natural selection, but it believes in you. The biggest irony is that creationists *will* probably win in the end, by paradoxically winning in a totally Darwinian fashion. Creationist types tend to have large numbers of children at young ages, large enough and young enough families that their failure… Read more »
P.S. The whole “created in seven days” thing is fine with me as far as creation stories go. It’s cute and simple, like Jack and the Beanstalk. When you get down to the first few nanoseconds of the Big Bang now, science gets pretty squirrelly too.
What creeps me the hell out is trying to figure out where Adam and Eve’s grandchildren came from. When you start with only two people, how do you reproduce without incest? Ick.
Bill Nye’s presentation and arguments were, in my view, spot-on, but this debate will never be “won”.
“You can give a blind man the candle of reason, and though he may feel the heat, he will never see the light.” -bw
Viewing it as a debate Bill Nye “won”(I use quotation marks because the debate did not set up to declare a winner or loser), he simply better followed the norms and rules of a sophisticated debate. His points were on target and actually answered the question. He relied on facts and figures and not conjecture. Ham didn’t fare so well. He spent far too much time trying to redefine terms in ways that not many are willing to accept. The majority of his arguments were of the form “your measurement/fact could be wrong” without giving any real explanation of why.… Read more »
I too am a Christian but not a young earth creationist. I’ve always found it confusing why evolution and creation can no go hand in hand. Honestly, God is all powerful. So why can’t his 1 day equal an earthly millions of years? Why does believing in one have to disprove the other? And, God made everything…since the Bible speaks of making man from the dust…why can the dust not have been that 1 cell that God started the whole process with? Christian, it’s nice to see your comment as my husband and I are the only folks we know… Read more »
There is much more merit to me, an atheist, in hearing a Christian apologist try to wrap a “hand of God” argument around natural processes, such as solar and planetary formation, evolution, and science mysteries like “dark energy”, rather than trotting out that ol’ time magic. But you have to agree that it diminishes the power of God to say he didn’t set the Earth in place, fully-formed, and to have magically created plants, animals, and humans from nothing. To say he was just the force (of divinity) behind the force (of nature), well, is also a bit contrary to… Read more »
So, Bastion, I take it you don’t believe in Bishop Ussher’s calculation made 400 years ago that the universe began on the evening before October 23rd, 4004 BC? Party pooper. : – ) I’m an atheist-leaning agnostic, but I like to think I understand the potential usefulness and potential beauty of religion. (Being an atheist doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate religion. Fairy tales can be quite entertaining and beautiful. They don’t need to be true whatsoever.) It actually undermines the power of the Bible when people try to prove that the narrative part of it is literally, logically, and scientifically… Read more »
P.S. The whole “created in seven days” thing is fine with me as far as creation stories go. It’s cute and simple, like Jack and the Beanstalk.
What creeps me the hell out is trying to figure out where Adam and Eve’s grandchildren came from. When you start with only two people, how do you reproduce without incest? Ick.
My problem, from what Ham has said so far, is to explain SOOOO much of their “science” on “the flood”. EVERYTHING “changed” because of the flood. What is this based on? Really? The continents were spread out because of the flood — rapidly. A “catastrophic” event of continental drift. Where in the Bible does it say that? No, the flood was about wiping out ALL life except for what Noah could save. As punishment. What in the world would making lions (and others) carnivores have to do with that? What would spreading out the continents have to do with that?… Read more »
It’s the prediction part where the rubber meets the road. There are lives saved every day because of the theory of natural selection (annual flu shots). There are people who die every day because of ignorance of natural selection (misuse of antibiotics, leading to drug-resistant diseases). Being a creationist is a wonderful luxury. If you’re a creationist, enjoy it. You’re fortunate to be able to see the world that way. It’s a perfectly fine way to see the universe. As long as you’re not working with real-world problems in health care, biology, the space program, wildlife conservation, animal husbandry, veterinary… Read more »
Ham’s beard is Levitically Non-Conforming.
It means that it’s okay to ignore his own book of literal prescriptive facts.
As much as I hate to say it: I think Bill Nye is going to have his ass handed to him.
Debates aren’t about fact as much as they’re about rhetoric, and religion has thousands of years of practice with rhetoric. All the facts in the world can’t beat something like a Gish gallop.
Bill Nye is doing great. I have to say, he’s fantastic. This is going down as the new Scopes Monkey Trial. I kid you not.
Religion also has a trump card that scientists don’t – the “I’m offended” tactic. Creationists can claim that Nye has insulted their religion or failed to respect their beliefs. Scientists usually don’t get to avoid criticism by reacting like that. Scientists generally don’t get personally affronted when people poke fun at science, but religious creationists do when people make fun of creationism. Having a sense of humor about yourself when the other side doesn’t is actually a disadvantage. That difference in the shrill factor gives creationists a political advantage. (Nowhere did I say creationism was accurate, just powerful.)
Actually, not really thousands of years of practice. Christians have only been trying to prove the Bible is scientifically true for a few hundred years. That whole thing where it’s word-for-word literally true and has to be proven with scientific research is actually a very recent thing. “Fundamentalist” was first coined by American Christian ministers in the 1920’s, for example.
Unfortunately, creationism has already infiltrated the way many people think when they claim to think scientifically. In American popular ideas about natural selection, evolution and creationism have fused together. A lot of the way people think of evolution is still corrupted by creationist ideas. For example, you can see this on the Discovery Channel shows and on Animal Planet – “sharks have evolved a shape perfectly designed to move through the water.” So, the shark has been designed AND has evolved, which lets creationists and evolutionary theory both have their way. Many people who claim to believe in evolution have… Read more »
Fascinating comments, I’ll be sure to keep them in mind when I watch.