In the Spring of 2010, evangelical Bible scholar Bruce Waltke, in speaking about the overwhelming evidence for evolution, said “To deny that reality will make us a cult, some odd group that is not really interacting with the real world.”
In response to this, Ken Ham, president of Kentucky’s Creation Museum, commented, “What he is saying ultimately undermines the authority of God’s word.”
Both statements seem to be true. (I don’t think you necessarily need to have faith in a god to accept the basic logic of Ham’s statement.) Also, that’s really all you need to know about young earth creationism. It is God’s word, and the FAQ on the matter is the Bible.
Last night, science communicator Bill Nye debated Ken Ham at Ham’s Creation Museum in Kentucky. This debate came about because of a statement Bill Nye made not long ago suggesting that creationism, and in particular efforts to force creationism into textbooks and, via other means, into classrooms, does harm to children and ultimately to society. Ham took that statement as a cue to challenge Nye to a debate, and Nye accepted.
Many people, myself included, objected to Bill Nye’s acceptance of this challenge. The reasons for that objection are outlined here, and here. I need not repeat them.
The debate happened last night. When it comes to creationism, I admit that I am not an objective observer, but I can try. I think Ken Ham did fine in that debate. He spoke before his own audience. A remarkably white but gender and age diverse gathering of followers of the Bible and believers in creationism seem to have responded well to Ham. His rhetoric was consistent. We know everything, we understand the most important issues of origins, creation, and evolution, and all of this information comes mainly from the Bible. There are a few other details.
At the same time, however, Bill Nye also did well in this debate, objectively speaking. He presented science, science, science and more science. He presented the science clearly, convincingly, chose his examples well, personalized the discussion wherever possible even to the point of doing a Lewis Black moment (pulling out a fossil he had picked up earlier in the week!). During the few moments when we were allowed to see the evangelical audience during Bill Nye’s presentation they looked, frankly, charmed. And how could they not be, Bill Nye is a charming guy!
In my view, again biased in favor of science because, well, because it’s the correct view, Bill Nye won the debate by a large margin. Friends on Twitter and Facebook equated the debate to the Superbowl, with Bill Nye being the Seahawks and Ken Ham being Denver. Apt. Perhaps even an understatement. Even a poll on a Christian web site gave a strong win to Nye
One could say that it was easy. Bill Nye made it look easy. He focused on the science, as I mentioned, but he also frequently applied that science to Ken Ham’s young earth creationism. One might wonder if Noah’s Ark could have stayed afloat during the great flood, with all those animals on it, for as long as the Bible says it did. But during this debate, Bill Nye sunk that Ark again and again. In addition to an excellent and convincing high altitude view of evolutionary science, and effective deconstruction of young earth creationism, Nye also made frequent and engaging references to the amazing outcome of unfettered scientific study and technology, which I think helps people appreciate and personalized science. He even made an argument from patriotism (not a scientific argument for evolution, but an argument for honest pursuit of knowledge).
Ken Ham’s argument for the young age of the Earth was unassailable. The Bible tells us the age of the Earth, period. Ham claims all of the dating methods are fallible, none are as good as eye witness evidence. (That would be God.) This is unassailable because it is untestable, but based on good science, we can say it is wrong. But you can’t really do much about a religious belief. Ham presented counter evidence contrary to the generally accepted science, but it was the usual bogus, incorrect, easily dismissed set of arguments. For example, some really old stuff was dated to really old (as it is) with the potassium argon method but to only 40-something thousand years using radiocarbon dating. The reason for that, of course, is that radiocarbon dating generally does not function beyond 40-something thousand years old, so all older material produces a young date with that particular method. If you measure the height of a great mountain with a ruler, the mountain will come out to be one foot tall, unless you get a bigger ruler. Also, somewhere in there I think Ken Ham made the argument that we should not wear clothes. Yet he was wearing clothes. Please explain.
An edited version of this debate, with just the Bill Nye parts, will make an excellent overview of why evolutionary biology is the way to go and young earth creationism is not.
There were definitely several moment where I wish I could have jumped on the stage and given Bill’s answer for him. For example, Ham scored a point by deconstructing functional interpretations of mammalian dental anatomy, in relation to the question of whether all the animals were vegetarians during Ark-times. I could have crushed that response in a way that would introduce even more evidence for evolution. But Bill Nye is an expert in other areas. Moreover, Bill Nye did the right thing by not responding to most of Ham’s specific points, but rather, continuing to return to his own main points. Nye, in a sense, provided a slower and more ponderous, and well done, science version of the Gish Gallop. He had a number of powerful points and stuck to them, and mostly avoided going off track.
The fact that Bill Nye did very well in this debate does not mean that we should all start debating creationists, especially at events with a door charge that goes to support an entity like the Creation Museum. Put a different way: Bill Nye is a professional. DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. But the widespread concern, including that expressed by yours truly, for this particular debate was wrong. I will be happily be dining on crow today at lunch.
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Reason 10
Earth’s Tilt of Axis
We are on a 23 degree tilt
Any thing more or less and surface temperatures would be far too great to support life.
Lessons the chancees even more that this all just “happened”.
Number nine
Lightening
Too much – too much fire destruction
Too little – not enough nitrogen in the soil.
I have too little time to give you approximately 122 of these chance items.
You can ignore the science if you want – it is up to you. Hugh Ross (look him up) – an Astrophysicist has given the chances of all this happening is one chance in 10 to the 138th power.
I frankly do not have that much faith as those that believe in chance to think that this all “just happened”. I guess I just don’t have the needed faith to believe in evolution like those of us here that wave that banner.
How can you seriously suggest that all this happened by chance when there’s virtually zero probability that all of the 100-plus constants would be as they are in the absence of intelligence. I am sure it is not easy for any of you. You must really have to give chance more of a chance in order to believe this wild speculation.
In the words of Geisler and Turek I am sorry – I don’t have enough faith to be an Atheist.
I have truly enjoyed playing in your sandbox. I must go.
BTW = by the way
Easy enough to find using this nifty thing called Google…
Sigh. Stephen Burgor denies the FACT of the unnecessary detour of the recurrent laryngeal nerves (which are known for about 19 CENTURIES already, thanks to Galen).
The above demonstrates Nietzsche was right.
“A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.”
(Friedrich Nietzsche / 1844-1900)
“Faith: not wanting to know what is true.”
(Friedrich Nietzsche / 1844-1900)
Burgor
Marco wrote:
Now Burgor, consider what that means for a giraffe. Now if you had bothered exposing yourself to any of the literature that I have cited above, in particular Dawkins and Coyne, you would already be aware of this.
Any creator who designed things like this should, and would, be sacked. Imagine if the fuel feed to your car engine came forward and then went back around the tank before finally being routed to the engine. Even with pumps at tank and injector inlet there are likely to be airlocks and fuel starvation bringing you to a halt in the middle of the motorway, aka freeway. Good eh!
Burgor:
As in the lightening holes designed into e.g. aircraft structures.
But I figure you mean lightning.
What’s up, out of reasons for blind faith?
Is there anything there that makes sense? You clearly have no idea of what you’re talking about.
1) You’ve avoided answering the first order of business between us, which is the matter of the names that you alleged I called you.
2) Your “scientific reasoning of why [you] believe there is a Divine Creator” has not been the subject of any discussion between us until now, so I have had no reason to address it.
3) There is no “scientific reasoning” in your belief in a divine creator. Your belief is based on wishful thinking and faulty inductive reasoning, which is not scientific. And Lionel’s already pointed you toward the Anthropic Principle.
You obviously do not understand the scientific method then, nor the history of the formulation of the scientific theory of evolution.
I say this with intimate familiarity of the way Christian Creationists think: your warped understanding of “improbability” is based on a desire to minimise the science, which in turn arises from your desire to not believe it because it challenges your faith. Amongst several errors of thinking this is essentially an argument from incredulity, which is a logical fallacy.
To address your issue with “improbabilities” and “chance”, the simple fact is that there are billions of stars in the universe, with billions of planets and with many permutations of distances between, sizes of, chemical compositions of, and ages of these respective celestial bodies that will on the balance of probabilities as we can calculate them not give rise to complex life, but that on the same balance of probabilities as we can calculate them give rise to complex life in at least some locations in the universe.
We are such a location. We simply won the lottery, which is entirely different to the assertion that it is impossible to win a lottery.
And as to the nature of the “fine tuning” of fundamental forces, the premise that “if they were a little different” is predicated that they could be different. In a hypothetical multiverse that may well be the case, but in our own universe it is not, and we simply come again to the tautology of the anthropic principle.
Nor should you – when you actually do so.
Unfortunately you’ve shown little evidence of having done so to date, beyond the gathering of rote-listings of memes that are a bulwark of fallacious logic against the science that threatens your blind faith.
“Is there anything there that makes sense?”
Maybe for graduates of the Professor Irwin Corey School of Exposition.
People who so desperately wish they will not have to answer to GOD when they die, willing to believe such fanciful fables are to be prayed for. That the GOD of Mercy will open their eyes to the folly that is their lives. In the moments after death these people will make one final decision to reject GOD, in so doing they will have condemned themselves to an eternity of being absent from Him. Some call that place Hell.
“Some call that place Hell.”
I call it the place where morons don’t TYPE with caps in random locations.
Jim Taylor:
“What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.” – Christopher Hitchens
I just read this and realized as soon as I came to the reference to the Christian website giving Nye the win, Laden just lied through his teeth. I didn’t read much of the rest of the comments to see if anyone caught this outrageous lie. Laden said a Christian website even gave Nye the win…Tons of truth there, not really. Freethougthblog is by PZ Myers, a very well known atheist. Laden is a LIAR, LIAR, LIAR. And the people that frequent this site said NOTHING about his misrepresentation. WHY?????? You want truth but snuff it out with pervasive lies as soon as you can. Great job mainstream science, teching our children the truth. Bunch of LIARS.
James, I don’t know whether you are too stupid or too lazy to check, but the link here goes to Meyers’ site, and there is a link there to the Christian site with the poll. There was no dishonesty, only (apparently) too much complexity for you.
Nothing blinds men like self-righteousness…
@342.Jim Taylor
And apparently preached at over the internet too because that helps?
Which God btw? Inti The Incan Sun God? Vishnu? Huitzilopchtli*? Allah? John Frum**? Catholic?Orthodox -Russian or Greek or Armenian or .. umpteen gazillionty others?
Hell is a lunar crater in the south of the Moon’s near side, within the western half of the enormous walled plain Deslandres. It’s also a place in California, Michigan and the Grand Cayman island. Those are places which people call Hell accurately. The myth of a realm where people are tortured for an eternity by a hateful Deity not so much.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huitzilopochtli
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Frum
*** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell_(disambiguation)
That is not the same link as yesterday. Say what you will Dean, but that did not go to the same page as yesterday. And who cares what a click on poll says anyway? Only you.
And BTW, Dean, take a look at the comments 50, 51 and 52 on your link. They sum it up nicely, Trust in PZ all you want.
“Say what you will Dean, but that did not go to the same page as yesterday”
I don’t believe you. And who cares about the poll – you brought it up.
If you can’t be honest about something this simple I suggest you go back and look at your bible. You might some words about the advisability of lying. (Heck, it might be the first time you’ve ever read it.)
That’s fine, Dean. I don’t care if you believe me. I don’t think you’re that honest either.
The first thing you resort to in ad hominem. Typical atheist response.
Yeah, yeah, I know. Lots of Christians do the same. Right there. But that’s a small minority. I huge majority of atheist’s resort to the slander and libel immediately.
Dawkins saw to that years ago.
Remember though, Laden and Myers brought up the poll way before I did.
Do your own homework and don’t quote the Bible to me. I know what it says about lying. Evidently you don’t think lying is all that bad. Or maybe you do know it is and don’t care.
“Even a poll on a Christian web site gave a strong win to Nye”
that’s what Greg Laden wrote.
Was the poll on a Christian website? YES!
Did it give a strong win to Nye? YES!
Did Greg Laden thus lie? NO!
In other words, James, you falsely accused Greg Laden of lying.
No ad hominem at all. I called you a liar, which is what you are James.
Your little hissy fit doesn’t change that.