The satire mill is up and running:

"As I've been saying, there's a book. I don't know any other book that tells you the origin of life, the origin of darkness .... (it goes on forever)"


....


Delusional for sure. Nobody, not even a creationist, should think that is a good argument.

I don't think Ham did all that badly. One conventional strategem is to let your opponent have the first swing, so that you're responding to the known rather than the unknown. Ham, for his part, chose to start by trying to set the terms of debate, and I don't think Nye ever convincingly rejected that opening. For his part, Nye was engaged in a bit of a Gish gallop in the first half, which Ham simply ignored, and continued deploying set pieces. Only later in the debate did Nye winnow his points down to key blocking moves, and his repetition of the same themes tended to blunt their effectiveness. Overall, there was very little interaction, neither went very far off script, so there was very little that was an actual debate, and mostly just each giving a lecture from their point of view. In that sense, Ham is the clear winner, as that style of debate will never change minds, but it will energize the faithful. Those who agree with Nye aren't going to do anything different after tonight's debate. But those that agree with Ham very well might. The success for Nye would be in seeding doubt or changing minds, and I don't think he was very effective at either.

I think the defining moment was when Bill turned on Ham personally, not so much for the actual attack but for the message which needs to be hammered into the heasds of fundy literalists: that their bronze-age beliefs are in danger of stunting the future of society.

(February 4, 2014 at 10:34 pm)DeistPaladin Wrote: So, here's the question my wife asked which I think is worth discussing:

Ken Ham:
Delusional or Con Artist?

We both think "con artist" but we're open to arguments for "delusional".

I truly think delusional. He genuinely seems to believe his BS.

Now Ray Comfort, I think, is a con-man.

I just extended 20+ invitations to Creationists dullards on Ken Ham's FB page. How much you wanna bet not a single one shows up?

Intellectually dishonest to the max, I swear those people.

(February 4, 2014 at 11:33 pm)Beccs Wrote:

(February 4, 2014 at 10:34 pm)DeistPaladin Wrote: So, here's the question my wife asked which I think is worth discussing:

Ken Ham:
Delusional or Con Artist?

We both think "con artist" but we're open to arguments for "delusional".

I truly think delusional. He genuinely seems to believe his BS.

Now Ray Comfort, I think, is a con-man.

Beccs,
I had almost the same thought, but framed it this way: based on limited information I would have no problem with my 4 year old grandson spending a day with Ken at his museum. Fuck, at 4, he'd probably dig it. On the other hand, I wouldn't let my grandson near Ray Comfort with armed escorts. Ken comes across as a lovable, but slightly off kilter relative. Ray comes across as someone that would rent out his mother's cunt.

(February 4, 2014 at 9:44 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote: As I already pointed out, there’s a limit to how many generations you can have just like there is a limitation to how long I can live.

No Statler you asserted a limit to generations due to genetic entropy.

There are good reasons Sanford's conclusions on genetic entropy have little support with his peers. Those reasons include unsupported assertions such as the ratios and fixation rates of deleterious versus beneficial mutations and the few beneficial mutations that do occur are nearly neutral. Some of his claims are such as geneticists never see beneficial mutations have just flat out been proven wrong through observation.

Of course I wouldn't expect the fact that a hypothesis which you see as supporting your position doesn't hold water would stop you from clinging to it even after it was shown to be false.

I want to know just how much $$$$ Ham's organisations ( museum and website) have gained from this and the potential sales of the debate and also how much was Nye paid to give his three hour "Science for dummies" lecture?

I am going to watch it on youtube while at work.

I do miss the states!