Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Science celeb Bill Nye vs. creation star Ken Ham debate: Live streaming put on hold

Share
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Flipboard
Print
Email

So they say:

Because of the huge media interest in the Bill Nye/Ken Ham debate at the Creation Museum on February 4 (seats sold out in two minutes online), as well as the general buzz that has been generated nationwide about the event, the live streaming option is being put on hold as we are looking into other exciting opportunities for people to watch the debate live. Ultimately, these other possible options would allow even more people to view this historic debate.

See here for background.

Do readers think it’ll happen on February 4 as planned? If not, who will back out? Why?

Update: Bill Nye talks about the debate and is receiving advice from a source who thinks he shouldn’t be doing it and offers critical debating points:

Evolutionary biology also underlies our medical practices. Comparative anatomy is part of the proof of evolution, and it is also the source of much of our understanding of human physiology. The study and treatment of infectious disease and epidemiology is based on evolutionary thinking. Before creationists complain about evolution they should talk to our medical professionals and inform them that the basis of their efforts to treat and prevent disease and medical disorders is all wrong.

Also: Tyler Francke, a god of undetermined rank at God of Evolution warns Bill Nye,

The old online adage “Don’t feed the trolls” is well-known within the evolution-creationism debate, though it’s worded a little differently: “Don’t debate with young-earth creationists.”

Richard Dawkins is well-known for his stubborn refusal to debate creationists, whether they be the extremist science deniers like Ray Comfort or the more moderate academics like William Lane Craig. Dawkins’ succinct reasoning for his repeated declinations is the same as the esteemed professor Robert May’s immortal riposte to a similar request for a public sparring: “That would look great on your CV, not so good on mine.”

and

Alas, the logic of all this is apparently lost on Bill Nye — the science educator best-known for his popular 90s-era children’s series on PBS — who has agreed to debate the great K-Ham at his own Creation Museum Feb. 4.

No disrespect at all intended to Nye, but I can’t conceive of why he would do such a thing. And though I won’t deny that I enjoyed joking about “Bill Nye the Science Guy vs. Ken Ham the Anti-Science Man,” I can’t help but feel he’s making a big mistake. And not just for the general reasons above.

Someone should fix the downspout. Who said it wouldn’t be good for Nye’s career, provided his supporters think he did well? Is he world famous? Who knew?

Return to regular programming later.

Follow UD News at Twitter!

Comments
JG: Looks like someone whistling by the graveyard in the dark regarding implications of statistical thermodynamics and related matters, as well as fine tuning of the physics of a cosmos fitting it for C-chemistry, aqueous medium cell based life on rare/privileged terrestrial planets. Even through the YEC issues on Big Bang cosmology, the duppies leaning on the fence are taking bets and swopping high-fives as to how high he will jump when three of them go visible in front of him and cry, BOO! Shriek! Foot, weh yuh deh? Zoom! Dust cloud in the wake. KFkairosfocus
January 11, 2014
January
01
Jan
11
11
2014
01:14 AM
1
01
14
AM
PDT
Seqenenre. Oh... boy... lol Where did you dig up that gem? lol I'd hope we wouldn't have to explain the fallacies in that quote to anyone reading it.JGuy
January 11, 2014
January
01
Jan
11
11
2014
12:11 AM
12
12
11
AM
PDT
Ken Ham will easily win the debate simply because evolution does not make any sense and provides no bases or motivation for learning--unless of course you fell compelled to believe that nothing, at some point in the distant past, for no reason became matter, energy, light, space, and time as precisely the same moment. The matter part then self combusted itself with such force that it spread itself though out the now known universe and again self organized itself (defying the 2nd Law of Thermo dynamics) to become the extremely beautiful and complex universe we observe today. The secular evolutionist high priests will respond by censoring the debate results to as many people as possible and will devout all their attention to how they can prevent the free exchange of ideas in the future with the intent of minimizing as much future exposure as possible. Actually, the aftermath will be virtually identical to the Chief Priests response to the simple message of Jesus Christ when He walk the shores the Sea of Galilee.rairsys
January 10, 2014
January
01
Jan
10
10
2014
06:19 PM
6
06
19
PM
PDT
What about this one from Greg Laden? "The physics that help us understand evolutionary change over time is the same science that the United States military uses to develop and maintain our all-important Nuclear Navy. It is the same physics that underlies the development of an important part of our power grid, the nuclear power plants. It is the same physics that underlies the development of the not-so-pleasant nuclear arsenal. Before creationists complain to biologists that the science of nuclear physics is wrong, they should take their case to the Military and the nuclear power industry, because if nuclear physics is wrong, we are all in a great deal of trouble."Seqenenre
January 10, 2014
January
01
Jan
10
10
2014
06:15 AM
6
06
15
AM
PDT
p.s. chapter (7) is titled "You'd Think Darwin Created The Internet"JGuy
January 10, 2014
January
01
Jan
10
10
2014
12:14 AM
12
12
14
AM
PDT
Anyone can go to using 'google books' section, and search for Jonathan Wells book: The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design. The entire chapter 7 is pretty much available. It's interesting as it pertains to the topic of evolution supposedly making sense of biology..etc..JGuy
January 10, 2014
January
01
Jan
10
10
2014
12:14 AM
12
12
14
AM
PDT
as to his last claim:
Before creationists complain about evolution they should talk to our medical professionals and inform them that the basis of their efforts to treat and prevent disease and medical disorders is all wrong.
All I can ask him is, 'If you were sick, would you rather go to a doctor, who was an atheist, who thought that your life had no ultimate meaning and purpose in the grand scheme of things, and that you were expendable as far as he was concerned, or would you rather go to a doctor who thought that your life had true value and purpose because you were made in the image of God? To me the answer is not even close: Supplemental note:
Atheism and health A meta-analysis of all studies, both published and unpublished, relating to religious involvement and longevity was carried out in 2000. Forty-two studies were included, involving some 126,000 subjects. Active religious involvement increased the chance of living longer by some 29%, and participation in public religious practices, such as church attendance, increased the chance of living longer by 43%.[4][5] http://www.conservapedia.com/Atheism_and_health
Music and Verse:
Pieces - Meredith Andrews http://myktis.com/songs/pieces/ Job 12:10 In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.
bornagain77
January 9, 2014
January
01
Jan
9
09
2014
05:01 PM
5
05
01
PM
PDT
as to his next claim:
The study and treatment of infectious disease and epidemiology is based on evolutionary thinking
Actually the 'study' of infectious disease led Dr. Behe to posit an extremely limited 'Edge of Evolution':
A review of The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism The numbers of Plasmodium and HIV in the last 50 years greatly exceeds the total number of mammals since their supposed evolutionary origin (several hundred million years ago), yet little has been achieved by evolution. This suggests that mammals could have “invented” little in their time frame. Behe: ‘Our experience with HIV gives good reason to think that Darwinism doesn’t do much—even with billions of years and all the cells in that world at its disposal’ (p. 155). http://creation.com/review-michael-behe-edge-of-evolution “The immediate, most important implication is that complexes with more than two different binding sites-ones that require three or more proteins-are beyond the edge of evolution, past what is biologically reasonable to expect Darwinian evolution to have accomplished in all of life in all of the billion-year history of the world. The reasoning is straightforward. The odds of getting two independent things right are the multiple of the odds of getting each right by itself. So, other things being equal, the likelihood of developing two binding sites in a protein complex would be the square of the probability for getting one: a double CCC, 10^20 times 10^20, which is 10^40. There have likely been fewer than 10^40 cells in the world in the last 4 billion years, so the odds are against a single event of this variety in the history of life. It is biologically unreasonable.” - Michael Behe – The Edge of Evolution – page 146 Michael Behe, The Edge of Evolution, pg. 162 Swine Flu, Viruses, and the Edge of Evolution “Indeed, the work on malaria and AIDS demonstrates that after all possible unintelligent processes in the cell–both ones we’ve discovered so far and ones we haven’t–at best extremely limited benefit, since no such process was able to do much of anything. It’s critical to notice that no artificial limitations were placed on the kinds of mutations or processes the microorganisms could undergo in nature. Nothing–neither point mutation, deletion, insertion, gene duplication, transposition, genome duplication, self-organization nor any other process yet undiscovered–was of much use.” http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/05/swine_flu_viruses_and_the_edge020071.html
Of related note:
What Does Evolution Have to Do With Immunology? Not Much - April 2011 http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/entry/2011-04-06T11_39_03-07_00
Whereas the 'treatment' of infectious diseases is, contrary to what this person may presuppose, also not guided by evolutionary thinking:
"Certainly, my own research with antibiotics during World War II received no guidance from insights provided by Darwinian evolution. Nor did Alexander Fleming's discovery of bacterial inhibition by penicillin. I recently asked more than 70 eminent researchers if they would have done their work differently if they had thought Darwin's theory was wrong. The responses were all the same: No.,,, In the peer-reviewed literature, the word "evolution" often occurs as a sort of coda to academic papers in experimental biology. Is the term integral or superfluous to the substance of these papers? To find out, I substituted for "evolution" some other word – "Buddhism," "Aztec cosmology," or even "creationism." I found that the substitution never touched the paper's core. This did not surprise me. From my conversations with leading researchers it had became clear that modern experimental biology gains its strength from the availability of new instruments and methodologies, not from an immersion in historical biology." Philip S. Skell - (the late) Emeritus Evan Pugh Professor at Pennsylvania State University, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. http://www.discovery.org/a/2816 "In fact, over the last 100 years, almost all of biology has proceeded independent of evolution, except evolutionary biology itself. Molecular biology, biochemistry, and physiology, have not taken evolution into account at all." Marc Kirschner, Boston Globe, Oct. 23, 2005 "While the great majority of biologists would probably agree with Theodosius Dobzhansky’s dictum that “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution”, most can conduct their work quite happily without particular reference to evolutionary ideas. Evolution would appear to be the indispensable unifying idea and, at the same time, a highly superflous one.” A.S. Wilkins, editor of the journal BioEssays, Introduction to "Evolutionary Processes" - (2000). Evolution (Not) Crucial in Antibiotics Breakthrough: How Science is Actually Done - Cornelius Hunter - Sept. 2012 http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2012/09/evolution-not-crucial-in-antibiotics.html
Nor is evolutionary thinking used in the diagnosis of infectious disease:
Darwinian Medicine and Proximate and Evolutionary Explanations - Michael Egnor - neurosurgeon - June 2011 http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/06/darwinian_medicine_and_proxima047701.html
In fact, as to the somewhat minor extent evolutionary reasoning has influenced medical diagnostics, it has led to much ‘medical malpractice’ in the past:
Evolution's "vestigial organ" argument debunked Excerpt: "The appendix, like the once 'vestigial' tonsils and adenoids, is a lymphoid organ (part of the body's immune system) which makes antibodies against infections in the digestive system. Believing it to be a useless evolutionary 'left over,' many surgeons once removed even the healthy appendix whenever they were in the abdominal cavity. Today, removal of a healthy appendix under most circumstances would be considered medical malpractice" (David Menton, Ph.D., "The Human Tail, and Other Tales of Evolution," St. Louis MetroVoice , January 1994, Vol. 4, No. 1). "Doctors once thought tonsils were simply useless evolutionary leftovers and took them out thinking that it could do no harm. Today there is considerable evidence that there are more troubles in the upper respiratory tract after tonsil removal than before, and doctors generally agree that simple enlargement of tonsils is hardly an indication for surgery" (J.D. Ratcliff, Your Body and How it Works, 1975, p. 137). The tailbone, properly known as the coccyx, is another supposed example of a vestigial structure that has been found to have a valuable function—especially regarding the ability to sit comfortably. Many people who have had this bone removed have great difficulty sitting. http://www.ucg.org/science/god-science-and-bible-evolutions-vestigial-organ-argument-debunked/
Moreover, trying to implement the 'preventive medicine' of evolutionary reasoning (Eugenics) has had horrendous consequences for humans:
The Eugenic Impulse By Nathaniel Comfort - Nov. 12, 2012 Excerpt: The ultimate ideal sought," wrote Harvey Ernest Jordan in 1912, "is a perfect society constituted of perfect individuals." Jordan, who would later be dean of medicine at the University of Virginia, was speaking to the importance of eugenics in medicine—­a subject that might seem tasteless and obsolete today. Yet nearly a century later, in 2008, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, the biomedical research institute on Long Island's north shore, published a book titled Davenport's Dream, which shows that eugenic visions persist. http://chronicle.com/article/The-Eugenic-Impulse/135612/ Hitler's debt to America - 2004 Excerpt: Germany had certainly developed its own body of eugenic knowledge and library of publications. Yet German readers still closely followed American eugenic accomplishments as the model: biological courts, forced sterilisation, detention for the socially inadequate, debates on euthanasia. As America's elite were describing the socially worthless and the ancestrally unfit as "bacteria," "vermin," "mongrels" and "subhuman", a superior race of Nordics was increasingly seen as the answer to the globe's eugenic problems. US laws, eugenic investigations and ideology became blueprints for Germany's rising tide of race biologists and race-based hatemongers. http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/feb/06/race.usa
bornagain77
January 9, 2014
January
01
Jan
9
09
2014
05:00 PM
5
05
00
PM
PDT
As to this comment:
Evolutionary biology also underlies our medical practices. Comparative anatomy is part of the proof of evolution, and it is also the source of much of our understanding of human physiology. The study and treatment of infectious disease and epidemiology is based on evolutionary thinking. Before creationists complain about evolution they should talk to our medical professionals and inform them that the basis of their efforts to treat and prevent disease and medical disorders is all wrong.
There is just so much to this comment that is 'not even wrong'. First:
Comparative anatomy is part of the proof of evolution,
Actually comparative anatomy is very antagonistic to neo-Darwinian claims. In fact so great are the anatomical differences between humans and chimps that a Darwinist actually proposed that a chimp and pig mated with each other and that is what ultimately gave rise to humans: anatomy:
A chimp-pig hybrid origin for humans? - July 3, 2013 Excerpt: Dr. Eugene McCarthy,, has amassed an impressive body of evidence suggesting that human origins can be best explained by hybridization between pigs and chimpanzees. Extraordinary theories require extraordinary evidence and McCarthy does not disappoint. Rather than relying on genetic sequence comparisons, he instead offers extensive anatomical comparisons, each of which may be individually assailable, but startling when taken together.,,, The list of anatomical specializations we may have gained from porcine philandering is too long to detail here. Suffice it to say, similarities in the face, skin and organ microstructure alone is hard to explain away. A short list of differential features, for example, would include, multipyramidal kidney structure, presence of dermal melanocytes, melanoma, absence of a primate baculum (penis bone), surface lipid and carbohydrate composition of cell membranes, vocal cord structure, laryngeal sacs, diverticuli of the fetal stomach, intestinal "valves of Kerkring," heart chamber symmetry, skin and cranial vasculature and method of cooling, and tooth structure. Other features occasionally seen in humans, like bicornuate uteruses and supernumerary nipples, would also be difficult to incorporate into a purely primate tree. http://phys.org/news/2013-07-chimp-pig-hybrid-humans.html
Moreover, Physorg published a subsequent article showing that the pig-chimp hybrid theory for human origins is much harder to shoot down than many Darwinists had at first supposed it would be to shoot down:
Human hybrids: a closer look at the theory and evidence - July 25, 2013 Excerpt: There was considerable fallout, both positive and negative, from our first story covering the radical pig-chimp hybrid theory put forth by Dr. Eugene McCarthy,,,By and large, those coming out against the theory had surprisingly little science to offer in their sometimes personal attacks against McCarthy. ,,,Under the alternative hypothesis (humans are not pig-chimp hybrids), the assumption is that humans and chimpanzees are equally distant from pigs. You would therefore expect chimp traits not seen in humans to be present in pigs at about the same rate as are human traits not found in chimps. However, when he searched the literature for traits that distinguish humans and chimps, and compiled a lengthy list of such traits, he found that it was always humans who were similar to pigs with respect to these traits. This finding is inconsistent with the possibility that humans are not pig-chimp hybrids, that is, it rejects that hypothesis.,,, http://phys.org/news/2013-07-human-hybrids-closer-theory-evidence.html
The bottom line is that the anatomy between chimps and humans is far different than most people imagine it to be:
Although humans and chimpanzees are rather similar in the structure of the thorax and arms, they differ substantially not only in brain size but also in the anatomy of the pelvis, foot, and jaws, as well as in relative lengths of limbs and digits (38). Humans and chimpanzees also differ significantly in many other anatomical respects, to the extent that nearly every bone in the body of a chimpanzee is readily distinguishable in shape or size from its human counterpart (38). Associated with these anatomical differences there are, of course, major differences in posture (see cover picture), mode of locomotion, methods of procuring food, and means of communication. Because of these major differences in anatomy and way of life, biologists place the two species not just in separate genera but in separate families (39). David Berlinski – The Devil’s Delusion – Page 162&163 The Red Ape – Cornelius Hunter – August 2009 Excerpt: “There remains, however, a paradoxical problem lurking within the wealth of DNA data: our morphology and physiology have very little, if anything, uniquely in common with chimpanzees to corroborate a unique common ancestor. Most of the characters we do share with chimpanzees also occur in other primates, and in sexual biology and reproduction we could hardly be more different. It would be an understatement to think of this as an evolutionary puzzle.” http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2009/08/red-ape.html Mona Lisa smile: The morphological enigma of human and great ape evolution – 2006 Excerpt: The quality and scope of published documentation and verification of morphological features suggests there is very little in morphology to support a unique common ancestor for humans and chimpanzees.,,, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ar.b.20107/abstract
In fact contrary to evolutionary reasoning, many (most?) medicines have very different effects on what are suppose to be closely related evolutionarily speaking:
Animal Testing Is Bad Science: Point/Counterpoint Excerpt: The only reason people are under the misconception that animal experiments help humans is because the media, experimenters, universities and lobbying groups exaggerate the potential of animal experiments to lead to new cures and the role they have played in past medical advances.,,, The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has noted that 92 percent of all drugs that are shown to be safe and effective in animal tests fail in human trials because they don’t work or are dangerous.,,, Physiological reactions to drugs vary enormously from species to species. Penicillin kills guinea pigs but is inactive in rabbits; aspirin kills cats and causes birth defects in rats, mice, guinea pigs, dogs, and monkeys; and morphine, a depressant in humans, stimulates goats, cats, and horses. http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-experimentation/animal-testing-bad-science.aspx
And there are good reasons why medicines don't react as expected by Darwinian thinking:
Our Microbes, Ourselves: Billions of Bacteria Within, Essential for Immune Function, Are Ours Alone - ScienceDaily (June 21, 2012) Excerpt: Chung repeated the experiment, only this time populating a third group of mice with microbes common to rats. This new group showed the same immune system deficiency as the humanized mice. "I was very surprised to see that," Chung said. "Naturally, I would have expected more of a half-way response." http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120621130643.htm The mouse is not enough - February 2011 Excerpt: Richard Behringer, who studies mammalian embryogenesis at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas said, “There is no ‘correct’ system. Each species is unique and uses its own tailored mechanisms to achieve development. By only studying one species (eg, the mouse), naive scientists believe that it represents all mammals.” http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/57986/
As to this claim:
and it (Darwinism) is also the source of much of our understanding of human physiology.
Actually, contrary to what this person may believe, physiology has had a very antagonistic relationship towards neo-Darwinism:
,, In the following video, Denis Noble, President of the International Union of Physiological Sciences, states that around 1900 there was the integration of Mendelian (discrete) inheritance with evolutionary theory, and about the same time Weismann established what was called the Weismann barrier, which is the idea that germ cells and their genetic materials are not in anyway influenced by the organism itself or by the environment. And then about 40 years later, circa 1940, a variety of people, Julian Huxley, R.A. Fisher, J.B.S. Haldane, and Sewell Wright, put things together to call it ‘The Modern Synthesis’. So what exactly is the ‘The Modern Synthesis’? It is sometimes called neo-Darwinism, and it was popularized in the book by Richard Dawkins, ‘The Selfish Gene’ in 1976. It’s main assumptions are, first of all, is that it is a gene centered view of natural selection. The process of evolution can therefore be characterized entirely by what is happening to the genome. It would be a process in which there would be accumulation of random mutations, followed by selection. (Now an important point to make here is that if that process is genuinely random, then there is nothing that physiology, or physiologists, can say about that process. That is a very important point.) The second aspect of neo-Darwinism was the impossibility of acquired characteristics (mis-called “Larmarckism”). And there is a very important distinction in Dawkins’ book ‘The Selfish Gene’ between the replicator, that is the genes, and the vehicle that carries the replicator, that is the organism or phenotype. And of course that idea was not only buttressed and supported by the Weissman barrier idea, but later on by the ‘Central Dogma’ of molecular biology. Then Dr. Nobel pauses to emphasize his point and states “All these rules have been broken!”. - Modern Synthesis Of Neo-Darwinism Is False – Denis Nobel – video http://www.metacafe.com/w/10395212 “The genome is an ‘organ of the cell’, not its dictator” - Denis Nobel – President of the International Union of Physiological Sciences Physiology is rocking the foundations of evolutionary biology - Denis Noble - resource page - 2013 Excerpt: The ‘Modern Synthesis’ (Neo-Darwinism) is a mid-20th century gene-centric view of evolution, based on random mutations accumulating to produce gradual change through natural selection.,,, We now know that genetic change is far from random and often not gradual.,,, http://musicoflife.co.uk/pdfs/Answers-new1.pdf Physiology moves back onto centre stage: a new synthesis with evolutionary biology – Denis Nobel – July 2013 – video - on youtube
bornagain77
January 9, 2014
January
01
Jan
9
09
2014
04:58 PM
4
04
58
PM
PDT
@JGuy and then when those same children grow up, they need to read books and attend classes on how to build their self esteem.RexTugwell
January 9, 2014
January
01
Jan
9
09
2014
01:54 PM
1
01
54
PM
PDT
Those talking points are pure hogwash. I think that Dr. Michael Egnor has pointed out many times that evolution is not a consideration in the field of medicine. As for the treatment of disease vis-a-vis antibiotics, we all know about adaptation and resistance in bacteria. We all also know that adaptation has absolutely nothing to do with the alleged rise of goo-to-you.OldArmy94
January 9, 2014
January
01
Jan
9
09
2014
12:27 PM
12
12
27
PM
PDT
Debate Topic: Is creation a viable model of origins in today’s modern scientific era? ----------- Nye said teaching creation was not appropriate for children. I thought he compared it to child abuse. Is that correct? ...but... it won't be a debate to question how teaching evolution is child abuse. Teaching children they are descendants of pond scum, and that they are 99% ape.... strongly implicit that their is no ultimate meaning. Hmm...go figure when they then use this to justify acting like apes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY9Z5LRkjkkJGuy
January 9, 2014
January
01
Jan
9
09
2014
11:55 AM
11
11
55
AM
PDT

Leave a Reply