Here’s all but the snacks. Bring your own.
Bill Nye the science guy vs. Ken Ham the Genesis slam here at 7:00 pm EST. You can always drag the progress bar back if you arrive late.
Meanwhile, here’s the promo vid.
CNN’s Tom Foreman’s the moderator:
During key primary and caucus nights of the 2012 election cycle, Foreman conducted discussions with focus groups in key battleground states, and he lead the network’s fact checking initiative, for which he and his team were awarded the 2013 Walter Cronkite/Brooks Jackson Award.
Geek Goes Rogue is live blogging the debate.
Nye’s shoutout to fans:
Tuesday’s debate will be about whether Ham’s creation model is viable or useful for describing nature. We cannot use his model to predict the outcome of any experiment, design a tool, cure a disease or describe natural phenomena with mathematics.
These are all things that parents in the United States very much want their children to be able to do; everyone wants his or her kids to have common sense, to be able to reason clearly and to be able to succeed in the world.
The facts and process of science have enabled the United States to lead the world in technology and provide good health for an unprecedented number of our citizens. Science fuels our economy. Without it, our economic engine will slow and eventually stop.
Ham’s shoutout to fans:
Even though the two of us are not Ph.D. scientists, Mr. Nye and I clearly love science.
As a former science instructor, I have appreciated the useful television programs that he hosted and produced, especially when he practiced operational science in front of his audience.
He and I both recognize the wonderful benefits that observational, operational science has brought us, from cell phones to space shuttles. But operational science, which builds today’s technology, is not the same as presenting beliefs about the past, which cannot be tested in the laboratory.
For students, the evolution-creation discussion can be a useful exercise, for it can help develop their critical thinking skills.
Note: CNN’s “Piers Morgan Live” will host both Nye and Ham at 9 p.m. post-debate.
“also, plea to ID types: Be realistic”?: “Mainly ID” types like Steve Meyer are concerned that the media whoopfest will detract from science issues around design and information theory vs. Darwinism and materialism.
Fair enough, that’s a risk.
But would Meyer even have been quoted in a legacy outfit like NBC if all he has to offer is genuine knowledge of the Cambrian explosion? Far from it, NBC is probably hoping for fistfights in the stands, a shooting, an altar call, miracle claims, an exorcism, and a police raid, with criminal charges and big lawsuits to follow.
Even so: How many NBC viewers would know about Meyer, the Cambrian explosion, or Darwin’s Doubt but for this event? As a result of ambulance chasing, NBC ended up having to mention Meyer.
Hey, the breaks. If fifteen people start reading and thinking as a result of that, guys like Meyer will be better off. And it won’t have cost them anything but anxiety.
Again, you can watch the debate free online here.
Wow… a full two and half hours…
Debate Format
7:00 Welcome by moderator, Tom Foreman, CNN
7:05 Opening statements by debater #1
7:10 Opening statements by debater #2
7:15 Moderator comments
7:16 Presentation by debater #1
7:45 Moderator comments
7:50 Presentation by debater #2
8:20 Moderator gives rebuttal instructions
8:25 Rebuttal for debater #1
8:30 Rebuttal for debater #2
8:35 Counter-rebuttal for debater #1
8:40 Counter-rebuttal for debater #2
8:45 Q&A instructions by moderator
8:48 Moderator reads pre-submitted questions alternating between debaters
9:28 Moderator concludes debate
You can conduct your own debate/experiment at Costco as shown here:
https://ayearningforpublius.wordpress.com/2014/02/04/costco-and-the-creation-evolution-debate/
People really need to grow up and get over this charade that believing in Universal Common Ancestry is important to a child’s success in the sciences. What a complete joke. Whoever is promulgating this myth should be ashamed.
Nye will argue for deep time and Ham will argue for observational science?
Not that I am a YEC, but NYE, the science guy, loses on both counts. First, time, both short time or deep time, does not help Darwinian claims in the least (in fact the longer the time span appealed to the more contrary to Darwinian claims it becomes!):
The interesting thing about Darwinists appealing to deep time to work miracles is that time itself is found to be connected to entropy:
Yet irreversible entropy, despite the Darwinists vehement denials to the contrary (G. Sewell), is now, experimentally, found to be connected to the information inherent in the cell:
Yet this irreversible relationship of entropy to the information inherent in the cell is completely contrary to what Darwinists need for their theory to be true:
And this tendency of entropic processes of the universe to decrease information in a cell is overwhelmingly confirmed to be true from our laboratory work (observational evidence) covering the last four decades:
And this irreversible process is also born out in computer simulation over deep time:
Thus, Darwinists, in their appeal to deep time, are found to be postulating that the irreversible ‘random’ events of entropy of the universe, entropic events which explain time itself in the first place, are creating information when in fact it is now shown that these random entropic events in the cell, and of the universe, will do exactly the opposite of what Darwinists claim they can do. These ‘random’ entropic events are found to be consistently destroying the information in the cell rather than ever creating it. It is the equivalent in science of someone claiming that gravity can make things fall up instead of down, and that is not overstating the bizarre situation we find ourselves in in the least with Darwinists, since gravity itself is tied to time and entropy.
And if Ham really wanted to press observational evidence home, he could point out Leggett’s Inequality to Nye in which the ‘observer’ is central to the experiment:
Verse and Music:
…ah…. nye opts for the [bulgarian] bow-tie variation debating tactic!
Yes but Meyer is not a YEC. He believes that the Cambrian explosion happened many hundreds of millions of years ago, not a few thousand years. I would much rather see Bill Nye debate Meyer. Why doesn’t he ask to debate Meyer? I guess it’s easier to make fun of YECs.
Not to flex my bias, but it does Ham seems to have invoked a very clever strategy using video’s of actual creationist scientists that have contributed to real science and technology. It will be difficult for Nye to explain how those creationist scientists don’t contribute much less exist. 😛
I must say, Ham is fairly impressive, much more so than I was expecting. He’s hitting on all the points anyone who’s ever dealt with Darwinists has faced.
Nye? Not so much.
First, he attacks the concept of historical science, yet goes on to describe a method of science which is precisely what historical science is (indirectly inferring past events based on present evidence). Clearly, Mr. Science Guy doesn’t know what the term historical science means.
Secondly, he’s making far too extreme of a claim in saying that people who believe in young Earth creationism can’t do valid science. Ken Ham absolutely destroyed him on this by showing scientists, several orders of magnitude more accomplished than Nye (who’s a pop scientist, nothing more), who found great success working from the young-Earth-creationist mindset.
Bill Nye needs to stick to his echo chambers and TV shows. He’s not smart enough for an open dialogue
I’m not watching the debate, but Nye seems to have blundered badly if the OP is anything to go by. Talking about the importance of science when it comes to American success? If that’s his strategy against Ham, and Ham is sharp – which he sounds to be given the comments – Ham will eviscerate him.
He simply has to A) point out the creationist scientists of present and past, and B) ask what useful science evolutionary theory has provided. Considering Ham’s problem isn’t with things like ‘bacterial resistance’ but things like common descent, Nye would be choked if he walks that route.
But I suppose we’ll see.
Watching live: Wow. I’m enjoying Nye’s opening presentation… he has apparently not read the creationist literature, and this demonstrates this is all that they’ve got. It’s as if he’s setting arguments on tee’s for Ham to knock out of the park.
So far Nye sounds like a Reddit atheist troll, not a scientist. Granted, Nye isn’t a scientist.
Just got in on the debate. Nye is really arguing distant starlight? All Ken Ham has to do is talk about the fossil record and DNA. Maybe throw in the probability of creating a single protein under Nye’s scenario and Ken will win. Has Nye said “God of the gaps” yet? Haha.
It’s a good thing Nye uses the phrase “Ken Ham’s creation model”. I am a creationist but I am not a YEC and I certainly do not subscribe to Ham’s creation model.
I do admit that Ham comes across as a good speaker though.
LOL. Nye’s rebuttal is just HILARIOUS! “Are fish sinners? …Because light and junk! You’re looking into the past! So you can observe the past!”
How does that apply to Ham’s comment? His comments are naive at best. He’s making little sense, aside from his insults.
It’s bothering me how Nye is co-opting the importance of science and engineers as a whole (which is true) to legitimize the evolutionary paradigm.
“Engineers make things and solve problems.” Yes, that’s true. And how does evolutionary thought encourage/improve this?
I agree. Nye is constantly appealing to emotion (and at times by way of patriotism which is frustrating as it spits in the face of actual patriotism) to dodge questions.
I think Nye is missing the point here when posed with the question “how does consciousness come from matter?”
You can give an answer such as “that’s the great mystery! we don’t know, but it’s the hope of discovery that drives us!”, but it ignores the metaphysical assumption: that consciousness must arrive from matter, and the implications that has if it were true
David Klinghoffer over on ENV is a little upset that this is a debate between two viewpoints that start with presuppositions, and fit the science to match, as opposed to the ID approach which “[follows] the evidence where it leads”.
Unfortunately, this lack of commitment to any particular all-encompassing story is the very reason why evolutionists (or creationists, for that matter, although there is less motivation to do so there) refuse to debate ID-ists – ID makes very few claims beyond stating that evolution is wrong. What is an evolutionist to respond with – “no, we aren’t wrong”? What is the potential victory proposition for the evolutionist?
I’d love to see an evolutionist/IDist debate, because I’d like to see all evolution’s ugly flaws exposed, but I can understand why an evolutionist would not find the idea of spending an entire game on defense very appealing.
Oh boy, the good ol’ “the energy comes from the sun” answer for the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics problem (his summary of which, by the way, was pretty bad…I wonder if that was intentional)
Here is the paper Ham presented in his first presentation:
Genome sequencing highlights the dynamic early history of Dogs – 2014
Excerpt Discussion: We provide several lines of evidence supporting a single origin for dogs, and disfavoring alternative models in which dog lineages arise separately from geographically distinct wolf populations (Figures 4–5, Table S10),,
Our analysis suggests that none of the sampled wolf populations is more closely related to dogs than any of the others, and that dogs diverged from wolves at about the same time that the sampled wolf populations diverged from each other (Figures 5A, 5C).
http://www.plosgenetics.org/ar.....en.1004016
Oh I certainly agree. Ham, while I’m sure quite competent has made certain missteps. Though, it appears reactionary to Nye’s attacking of The Bible. I simply would have preferred less bloviating from both parties and more scientific discussion.
Nye’s points were a joke for someone considered a public science personality, however Ham’s remarks weren’t all satisfactory. There’s nothing I hate more, and I am a Christian, than when someone responds to a criticism with, “It says in The Bible!”
The debate became about the age of the Earth, rather than on evolution’s place as a scientific theory worth teaching.
I guess I could be an agnostic when it comes to the Earth’s age with leanings of OEC. I should say, I tend to accept the old-age model, however adequate evidence could change my mind. What that is? I dunno. But I guess I’ll know it when I see it.
That being said, I would be Ham’s choir to which he was preaching, and even I found his argument as a whole wanting. He certainly came out on top over Nye, but only because Nye’s showing was absolutely dreadful.
Right!? I thought I was watching SNL for a minute there. He looked completely inept.
OK. I have a new found respect for both Mr. Nye and Mr. Ham. That being said, I think they are both fundamentally wrong. Mr. Ham refuses to admit that his interpretation of the Bible could be wrong and Mr. Nye believes that science cannot answer any question about God. In other words, the debate was interesting but, in the end, we learned nothing new.
Goodness grief, could you imagine how much worse it would have been for Nye had he stepped in the ring with Dr. Craig or Dr. Meyers? They would have taken him apart the moment he mentioned the Big Bang.
Shoot even some Christians can make far better atheistic arguments than he did:
The Atheist Challenge – Sean McDowell, PhD – video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNql36qIExA
I agree. However, young earth creationism is a complete joke, both Biblically and scientifically speaking, and this is the reason that Bill Nye chose to debate a YEC like Ken Ham.
Nye made it his primary goal in the debate to keep attacking Ham’s young earth interpretation of Genesis and he did an excellent job, IMO. Ham, for his part, showed that species vary over the years but they stay within their kinds and he, too, did an excellent job.
Having said that, someone like Stephen Meyer would have torn Nye a new orifice because Nye’s age-of-the-earth talking points would have been useless and pointless against Meyer.
I also like the fact that Ken Ham showed that one does not have to be an atheist or evolutionist to do great science. I wish Ham would reconsider his stance on young earth because he seems too intelligent to really believe in this nonsense.
It would serve Ham a world of good to research the basis of his interpretation as carefully and diligently as he goes about trying to prove that the earth is only 6000 years old. I guess when one’s career and livelihood depend on repeated doctrine and dogma, there’s no point in changing it. Sad.
Mapou:
And it’s a safe bet that it is an interpretation of a biased translation.
If each Creation day was an epoch as opposed to 24 hours, just that allowance alone would do wonders for Ken Ham. But he would have to give up thinking that “no death before the original sin” applied to the Earth pre-Adam & Lilith and then Eve.
Which is funny because Newton saw science as a way of understanding God’s handy work- there wasn’t any question about God.
Ken Ham did a fantastic job for entry level people on many points.
I was impressed by him. He was civil even though Nye insisted creationists are against science and stuff from it.
How obviously lame is that approach.
They wandered a bit and too many points and facts. A few errors for ham.
Nye didn’t do a good job. he just repeated old data things.
They need a better evolutionist to have a better debate.
I would like to know how many watched or repeats of it.
Its a great win for YEC creationism tonight. It truly was another victory in head to head confrontation.
Perhaps they will see they need a better evolutionist and have a bigger event on one of the networks.
If Nye didn’t obliterate Ham, then Nye lost. And I’m not a YEC, nor do I have much sympathy for them.
I recall something Dinesh D’Souza once said in a debate with an new atheist (I forget who). It was along the lines of how the NAs had invested themselves in treating any kind of belief in God as so utterly silly, that it made debating them easy – all someone like Dinesh had to do was pull even, and he won. Because if your opponent’s position is obviously ridiculous, ‘pulling even’ shouldn’t be possible.
As a card carrying YEC ( paid about $35 for my membership in Creation Research Society), I thought NYE won the debate but not hands down.
He posed the question, “Is Ken Ham’s model viable?” the answer imho, is “not yet” which is as good as “no”. It was clear in the Q&A not even some YECs would agree with the model Ham had in mind, and in fact Ham waffled. “The Bible said it” is not a model.
Ham however probably elevated the dignity of creationists by showing the media is distorting evidence and that creationists can do good operational science and that secularists are hijacking the definition of science.
Nye made some mis-steps most notable claiming the adequacy of natural selection, and he fumbled over the 2nd law (and I could have given a better answer than the confused answer he gave), simply by saying “the 2nd law states…” “creationists mistake organization with entropy, entropy helps you estimate energy available to do useful work, you need entropy to be alive, if you remove all the entropy in your body (say by freezing to absolute zero) you die. Duane Gish was horribly wrong and that’s an example of creationism teaching bad science.”
Some scientists who aren’t creationists don’t think the universe is expanding nor that the Big Bang is correct. Another forgivable misstep.
Ham, when asked about the dinosaurs and carbon dating didn’t use the opening! He could have said “we find carbon 14 in dinos, ambers, and the entire carboniferous era of supposedly 300 million years ago, and then this casts doubt on the interpretation of other radiometric methods, and by the way other clocks indicate youth. Distant starlight would be a problem if the transmission of light over time and space is constant, and if one or both vary the speed of light, then it’s not a problem and that is a testable prediction” But he waffled and just waxed philosophical and theological.
As both Dr. Sheldon and myself point out, we are skeptical of the existence of Dark Energy and Nye laid out the claim of dark energy as being real.
Ham did a good job of using the notion of “the orchard” of life vs. trees. I’m not comfortable saying there is no increase of information, there is no significant increase in information, but I’m glad he had Fabich speak for him. And I was really glad Distinguished professor of astronomy Danny Faulkner spoke and advocated young universe.
But is the model viable. “Not yet” in my opinion, and that is as good as “no” for the sake of science. But that’s not complete fair because we should also ask is the Darwinian model viable, “NO WAY, and never”, not even based on the terms of science Nye laid out.
Both performed well, and it wasn’t the blowout of Ham destroying Nye, Nye won the fundamental question even if he had to use some falsehoods to win the debate. His criticism of Noah’s ark was powerful.
What’s an example of a rout aside from the Seatle Seahawks crushing the Denver Broncos in the superbowl? Stephen Meyer vs. Peter Ward. That’s where the ID side completely obliterated the Darwinian side.
Credit Ham for mentioning the Lord Jesus Christ and pointing out that we may have joy now to discover, but what will it mean for us when we are dead.
Scordova.
NO!! Ham was way ahead in argument, articulation, and summing things up.
Nye lost everywhere he roamed.
The model thing is satisified by YEC claims. Including criticisms of evolutionists etc.
The Noah thing was not well done.
Too many points to be answered.
I’m sure this will be seen by YEC as a excellent presentation and clobbering of the opposition. As usual.
As a another poster said Ham coming out even is a defeat for evolutionists.
He came out far ahead as I see it.
Scordova.
NO!! Ham was way ahead in argument, articulation, and summing things up.
Nye lost everywhere he roamed.
The model thing is satisified by YEC claims. Including criticisms of evolutionists etc.
The Noah thing was not well done.
Too many points to be answered.
I’m sure this will be seen by YEC as a excellent presentation and clobbering of the opposition. As usual.
As a another poster said Ham coming out even is a defeat for evolutionists.
He came out far ahead as I see it.
I think Ham was far better prepared in his presentation, but wobbled in rebuttal and the little Q&A that I could tolerate. Nye was as methodical as a sand flea with a flurry of attacks against YEC from every known science in random order. Ham would have needed “millions of years” to rebut every point. Good tactic by Nye.
Nye did make good points about the reasonableness of some of the mathematics of Genesis, although he was apparently unable to grasp Ham’s presentation of the “orchard” model, and the profoundly expanded genetic variability in earlier organisms such as is apparently preserved in dogs was lost on Nye. The genetic variability dogs would enable them to easily form hundreds of “species” in a short amount of time.
That Nye presented the inflationary model in one breath, and the fixed distance of stars in the next was as remarkable as Ham’s ignorance of the currently accepted understanding that the universe inflated faster than the speed of light, which means that a star that’s 6,000 light years distant could have been 1 light year distant a few seconds ago, as is thought to have happened at some point.
Particularly appalling was Ham’s inability to come up with a single prediction based on YEC, or a reason why anyone could possibly be interested in Cosmology when the Bible already tells you that “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth.” Apparently, Ham’s curiosity is very easily sated. Nye’s attempt to enforce the imaginary separation between “scientists and engineers” from Christians pretty much failed in light of Ham’s presentation.
Overall, Ham did a better job, but not by much, and I’m sorry to say that the encounter was reminiscent of a battle between a blind cobra (Nye) and a crippled mongoose (Ham).
-Q
Ham did point out the racism in early textbooks based on Darwin, I forgot to mention that. That was a good jab.
Nye stated a falsehood, but one he obviously believes, that about Natrual Selection.
Maybe I just found Nye more charming. Ham began to resort to implicit circular reasoning without justifying his reverence for the Bible, he just accepts it.
It’s commendable that someone accepts the Bible, but with an audience watching to hear why you accept it and no answer is given except, “I believe it”, I find that off putting. Not once did Ham say why he believes it, he just states it without any support, which doesn’t look much better than saying “the book of the flying spaghetti monster answers all your questions….it answers the questions of …..” It comes across as closed-minded and out of touch and perhaps gullible. Exactly the qualities you don’t really want to see in someone, especially a scientist.
Nye was being extremely diplomatic in not directly attacking the Bible, so he let up when he could have really abused Ken Ham. Nye could have said, “In the Bible, God commanded the children of Israel to kill women and children like the Amalekites. Do you agree that this was a good thing to do. If God asked you to do that, Ken, would you have done it?” Thankfully the debate didn’t get to such mud slinging…
But personally I don’t care what individual has won the debate. The facts have decided, and the facts are the judge in the end (well, God is the judge in the end). So the facts win the debate.
ID is true, and whether the case of YEC will ever be convincing from the data remains to be seen, but for now, I can only merely accept it personally, on faith, but I will admit, not all the available observations are friendly to YEC, there are unresolved serious problems. I know that, the best YEC scientists that I meet in conferences know that.
Darwinism is dead, ID is alive, and YEC is still in the hospital bed.
Ham answered a question that went something like, “if you had evidence that the world was old, would you still believe in God and Jesus Christ?”
Ham basically answered that would be impossible since God’s word is true, which is nothing more than an assertion, and shows he will not follow physical evidence where it leads.
I would have said, “Yes I would still believe in God and Jesus Christ. I’d believe in God because of the evidence of design even in an Old Universe, and I believe in Jesus Christ because of the blood of the martyrs and the changed lives, not the least of which is mine. If you can provide convincing proof that life can arise without intelligence, that would make me doubt, if you can provide proof that Jesus was not a historical person as well overturning the well-attested martyrdoms of the early Christians, I might have even more doubt, but you can’t say He hasn’t changed lives nor hasn’t answered prayers. But one thing is clear, there is no salvation in Charles Darwin nor eternal hope for a soul after death through science.”
Why do I believe world is young? Half the scientific clocks say it is, half don’t. So it is inconclusive on evidential grounds. A natural reading of the Bible suggests it, so that makes it promising enough for me to believe it. If ALL the clocks said the world is old, then I don’t think I could accept YEC.
Anyone know where I could read a transcript of the debate?
Sixthbook,
I don’t know where, but you can watch it again (with the slides and videos which is important) at:
http://debatelive.org/
Sal
scordova:
Come on. Bill Nye obliterated Ham’s YEC stance by bringing up the evidence of ice samples, tree rings and the formation of geological layers and various rocks. YEC has absolutely no scientific leg to stand on. The notion that processes could have occurred faster in the past is pure nonsense.
Besides, Ham did not once explain why his interpretation of the book of Genesis is as solid as he makes believe. His global deluge nonsense is just that, nonsense. Others, including scholars trained in the ancient texts and the original languages, have different interpretations. If God’s power is infinite as Ham claims (something that Yahweh never once claimed for himself), why even create the universe in six days? Why not in a nanosecond? Heck, with infinite power, God could have created everything an hour ago and nobody would notice. We would be like a bunch of virtual objects in a computer simulation.
Amazingly, during his initial presentation, Ham uses a cartoonish picture of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden with a talking snake hovering in a tree above them. How childish is that?
Sal, I agree with you. I think Nye won the debate. Ham did a good job of present the creation model and showing how it does agree with some scientific finds. He did a great job of explaining the difference between historical and experimental science.
Nye seemed to have real troubles grasping this. He claimed to get the point, but later on in his talking points, he continued to conflate the two.
Someone above made this observation:
It seems he just couldn’t bear to give up this false dichotomy in his arguments.
However, Nye did show how historical science is like CSI. We take the evidence, use operational science to evaluate it, and then make conclusions based on that evidence. He gave a lot of good illustrations of why we believe in an old earth. I felt Ham did not have either the ability or the time to properly answer these points which made it seem like Nye was right. I think there are answers for many of these points, being a YEC myself, but he wasn’t able to answer them. I felt this unfortunately gave Nye the edge.
I wish Ham would have brought up the dinosaur red blood cell thing and DNA like Sal mentioned. What a big chance was lost there! I feel like he should have made a bigger point of the information problem and origin of life problem for evolutionists. I guess time constraints were the biggest problem and given those constraints, Ham was at a clear disadvantage from the start.
Nye harped on him for not being able to make predictions based on the creationist model. I doubt evolutionists can make many predictions either. But Junk DNA and vestigial organ claims being falsified certainly fits the creationist model better than the evolutionist model.
Here is a very interesting prediction that Russell Humphries made using YEC principles concerning Uranus:
He could have brought up the RATE findings as well, but that might have taken too long to explain it properly.
http://www.icr.org/article/you.....e-zircons/I give the debate win to Nye reluctantly, but Ham gave it a good shot and I hope it won’t be a total loss.
I’m sure they will put up a transcript of the debate on their website and support Ham’s claims with links to articles on their website to more fully explain his thoughts. They will supplement the points he did not have time to answer and I’m sure they will put links to the dino DNA in that explanation. So hopefully, people who take a look at that will get the needed information to make a more fully informed decision.
Sal @ 30
I’m going to have to disagree. Ham won the debate. The debate was: “Is creationism a viable model of origins in the modern scientific era?”
It wasn’t is Ken Ham’s model. That was as Nye oft stated – even after being corrected by Ham mid-debate.
As I understand the debate question, this asks simply: “Can a scientist presume biblical creation (young earth creation) and progress scientific knowledge in modern day using that model of origins.”
The answer is a clear yes. And to be honest, though Ken Ham was wise to provide video’s of scientists that do that very thing, this debate should not have been necessary to make that case.
Keep in mind… this debate originates with Nye’s assertion that we need engineers in America for the future, and somehow tying creationism as a threat to that. In fact, that he thought it was harming children.
Ham proved his case right out of the gate. The debate should not be given to who through the smelliest red herring.
What dino DNA? Everything I have read about dinosaur DNA says it is a myth.
Jurassic Park Won’t Happen: Dino DNA Dead
If I were just going with the swings..and not the topic of the debate.. I’d say Ham decisively won the opening debate, but only edged out in the rebuttals since Nye kept throwing out very specific this’s and that’s… things which you can find answered on AIG’s website… but as such, not being able to answer a million questions thrown may have left Ham appearing to scramble – though it had little to do with the debate question, imo.
Ken Ken Ken! … lol…
710,311 views of the debate on youtube!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6kgvhG3AkI#t=6
Ham did great in the opening. But I think in the rebuttals, Jonathan Sarfati would have been better… maybe a tag-team debate for any next time… I wonder who Nye would have as a tag-team partner.
Ken Ham fared very well, articulated better. Important point he made in the beginning of the debate about ‘science’ being hijacked by secularists/naturalists was well made. In the end it was very clear that Darwinists come from a worldview that has no more scientific merit than any other worldview. Nye failed to answer the question on the origins , on the other hand Ken made it very clear that nothing comes in the way of a bible believing Christian when it comes to actively participating in the field of science.
Continue to be blessed by reading posts from BA77, KF, Q and others like them.
See David Coppedge’s evaluation of the debate over at crev dot info:
http://crev.info/2014/02/bill-.....mment-5405
Insightful and it highlights how much better Ham could have done if he had been on top of his game.
Mapou, here is some information on Dino DNA, red blood cells, etc. Such a shame Ham didn’t drive this point home! What a missed opportunity!
http://creation.com/dinosaur-soft-tissueC:
Thanks for kind words.
Part of the problem with such a debate is, that things are deeply polarised that there are wedge issue problems and very diverse perceptions will be held.
What is clear is that KH from the outset achieved his primary goal, showing by direct counter example that real world operational — world as a going concern — science can be done from a YEC perspective. Something that should not ever have been in question. That millions including spokesmen such as Nye think it is, does not speak well about the integrity and concern for fairness of those who have dominated Darwinist activist groups and their media and education policy allies.
Let us set the record plain from Newton’s General Scholium to Principia, the most significant work of modern science:
What a contrast we find in this to Lewontin, echoing and responding to Sagan in his well known Jan 1997 NYRB review:
It is time for truth in science education, truth informed by an accurate, fair summary of the history of science informed by worldview considerations and by ethics.
KF
Though I’ve touched on this many times before, I would, since Nye thinks science is best conducted under the auspices of the naturalistic/materialistic worldview, and that it is hampered by Christian Theism, point out that modern science was, contrary to what Nye and other atheists would expect, brought to maturity by men of deep Judeo-Christian beliefs with a poverty of men of atheistic persuasion being present:
But why should this be so if, as Nye and other atheists hold, Christianity is counter-productive to modern science? Well it turns out that the belief that universe might be governed by ‘transcendent’ universal mathematical laws first requires the belief in a ‘transcendent’ universal lawgiver, i.e. God:
It is only in this epistemological conviction that God had ordered the universe in a rational way, and had given man, since he is made in God’s image, the ability to master it, that modern science could flourish as it did and has:
If fact, despite what Nye may believe about mathematics, mathematics is not friendly to naturalistic/materialistic presuppositions. Berlinski puts it this way:
Which is quite convincing when you consider statements like the following:
on discovering the laws of planetary motion, Johann Kepler declared:
Copernicus’s following quote is almost as ‘unscientific’ as Kepler’s was:
Newton, not to be outdone, stated:
Moreover the mathematical laws, in many instances, assume a simple and elegant form that is easily grasped by the human mind (thus further underlining the conviction that God made the universe and gave humans the ability to understand it)
Quote from preceding video:
In fact it has been persuasively argued that the applicability of mathematics to the universe is proof of God:
As well as proof that man has a transcendent mind and soul:
Whereas, contrary to what Nye and his fellow atheists would prefer to believe, naturalism is very antagonistic to the to this belief in universal mathematical laws. In fact if an atheist were ever to be truly consistent in his thinking (which would be a miracle in its own right) he would have to admit that he should a-priori expect ‘random’ variance in the universal laws and constants, like this following astronomer did:
Einstein himself expressed wonder at the ‘epistemological miracle’ that the constants should not vary (which is not surprising given that he believed in what can be rightly termed ‘Spinoza’s abstract god’):
Verse and Music:
Supplemental notes:
As to Nye’s refutation of Noah’s flood, I think it may be premature to think atheists have an upper-hand on this.
Notes to that effect:
In this following video lecture (on the ‘table of nations’), at around the 6:00 minute mark, we find that the first ‘advanced’ human civilization, (with the oldest archeological evidence of metallurgy, agriculture, wine making, etc…), flourished near, or at, the Ankara area,,,(The Ankara area is called Anatolia in the video), which is close to where Noah’s Ark is said to have come to rest on a mountaintop:
Tracing your Ancestors through History – Paul James-Griffiths
http://edinburghcreationgroup.org/video/1
Ankara
Excerpt: Centrally located in Anatolia, Ankara is an important commercial and industrial city.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ankara
Though, because of his Young Earth Biblical view, Paul James-Griffiths did not give the dating of the area, the dating of the first ‘advanced’ human civilization, around that area, is 12,000 years before the present:
Stone Age Temple May Be Birthplace of Civilization
Excerpt: The elaborate temple at Gobelki Tepe in southeastern Turkey, near the Syrian border, is staggeringly ancient: 11,500 years old, from a time just before humans learned to farm grains and domesticate animals. According to the German archaeologist in charge of excavations at the site, it might be the birthplace of agriculture, of organized religion — of civilization itself.
http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/gobeklitepe/index
Here is a very interesting geographical finding which corroborates the archeological finding for the first human civilization at Ankara:
The Center of the Earth by Henry Morris, Ph.D.
Excerpt: The problem is basically to determine that point on the earth’s surface, the average distance from which to all other points on the earth’s land surfaces is a minimum. This point is defined as the earth’s geographical center.
(1) Divide all the earth’s land areas into small, equal, unit areas.
(2) Select one of these unit areas as a possible location of the earth’s center.
(3) Measure the distance along the earth’s surface from this reference area to each of the other unit areas, all over the earth.
(4) Add up all these distances and divide the total by the number of individual distances measured. The result is the average distance from the reference area to all the other unit areas around the world.
(5) Repeat the entire process in steps (1) through (4) above for each one of all the other unit areas around the world.
(6) Compare the “average distances” so calculated for all the different unit areas. The one for which the average distance turns out to be the smallest is the earth’s geographical center.
Actually, the calculation becomes feasible only if it can be programmed on a high speed computer. To accomplish the latter requires a knowledge of spherical trigonometry, geodesy, calculus, and computer science. In addition, there must be available accurate data on the earth’s land and water areas, arranged in a grid network tied to latitude and longitude. With these factors present, the computation then becomes quite feasible.
RESULTS
,,, The exact center of the earth, insofar as Mr. Woods’ calculations could determine, was found to be near Ankara, the present capital of Turkey, at latitude 39° and longitude 34°, on the same latitude as Mount Ararat and essentially the same longitude as Jerusalem.,,,
http://www.icr.org/article/50/
Now this is very interesting!,,, That the first archeological evidence for a ‘advanced’ human civilization, with metallurgy, wine making, agriculture, would be very near, or even at, the ‘geographic center of the earth’ is a very ‘spooky’ thing for modern science to find! Pondering all the many places where the beginning of advanced human civilization ‘could have’ happened, instead of where it actually ‘did happen’, should make any reasonable person scratch their head in wonder!
Moreover, besides the 12,000 years before present starting point for the beginning of ‘advanced’ human civilization at ‘the center of the world’, geographically speaking, there is now mounting evidence for global catastrophic flooding 13,000 years before the present:
Humanpast.net
Excerpt: Worldwide, we know that the period of 14,000 to 13,000 years ago, which coincides with the peak of abundant monsoonal rains over India, was marked by violent oceanic flooding – in fact, the first of the three great episodes of global superfloods that dominated the meltdown of the Ice Age. The flooding was fed not merely by rain but by the cataclysmic synchronous collapse of large ice-masses on several different continents and by gigantic inundations of meltwater pouring down river systems into the oceans. (124)
What happened, at around 13,000 years ago, was that the long period of uninterrupted warming that the world had just passed through (and that had greatly intensified, according to some studies, between 15,000 years ago and 13,000 years ago) was instantly brought to a halt – all at once, everywhere – by a global cold event known to palaeo climatologists as the ‘Younger Dryas’ or ‘Dryas III’. In many ways mysterious and unexplained, this was an almost unbelievably fast climatic reversion – from conditions that are calculated to have been warmer and wetter than today’s 13,000 years ago, to conditions that were colder and drier than those at the Last Glacial Maximum, not much more than a thousand years later. From that moment, around 12,800 years ago, it was as though an enchantment of ice had gripped the earth. In many areas that had been approaching terminal meltdown full glacial conditions were restored with breathtaking rapidity and all the gains that had been made since the LGM were simply stripped away…(124)
A great, sudden extinction took place on the planet, perhaps as recently as 11,500 years ago (usually attributed to the end of that last ice age), in which hundreds of mammal and plant species disappeared from the face of the earth, driven into deep caverns and charred muck piles the world over. Modern science, with all its powers and prejudices, has been unable to adequately explain this event. (83)
http://humanpast.net/environme.....ent11k.htm
Further assorted notes on Global Flooding 13,000 years before present:
Various Catastrophic Mega-Floods 13,000 years before present from around the world
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sXjqFo9osUO4pWfxsx3Brb565KvqfVIaP1vtDGa95tg/edit
The following videos outline some more surprisingly strong geological evidences for a global flood that will make any honest person scratch their head in wonder:
Startling Evidence That Noah’s Flood Really Happened – video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGeULHljDn8
I think the following explorer has a pretty strong case, including chemical lab work, that his team may have actually discovered the actual remains of Noah’s Ark. Judge for yourself:
Arch Bonnema – ‘Possible’ Petrified Noah’s Ark Remains – video
http://vimeo.com/23641811
On hindsight, I didn’t like Ham’s phrasing of Darwinism: “from molecules to man”. It suggests that molecules can fully explain man.
For one thing molecules cannot explain reason.
Box- Acoording to materialism living organisms emerged from the interactions of atoms and molecules by using any available energy. Then blah, blah, blah, man. And today’s materialist rejects Haldane out-of-hand, for obvious reasons.
Joe: rejection out of hand is not a cogent answer, of course. It is a reaction, not a well grounded reason. Cf. here on. KF