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.
![[Image: extraordinarywoo-sig.jpg]](https://i.postimg.cc/zf86M5L7/extraordinarywoo-sig.jpg)