BILL NYE VS KEN HAM: TONIGHT AT 7 PM

[Statler Waldorf]

Quite the ambitious reply. But all that aside what do you yourself believe to be the case regarding the age of the universe and the origins of man. Do you yourself seriously believe the earth is so young and that evolution so limited as Ham believes. Frankly I don't think so.

Young in comparison to what? I believe that if you start with the axiom that God does not exist you will arrive at an age for the Earth somewhere around 4.5 billion years (for now, this number will probably eclipse five billion soon). On the other hand, if you start with the axiom that God does exist and that the Bible is what it claims to be (as I do) then you will arrive at the conclusion that the Earth is just over 6,000 years old. Same evidence; two very different conclusions. Both of these positions are far more consistent than a Christian who believes it is billions of years old or a materialist who believes it is thousands of years old.

I actually believe the Darwinian mechanisms are more powerful than most Darwinists do in a sense.

It sounds like trying to say micro and macro evolution is different. It isn't. The only difference is time. Physics don't change over time. The universe works the same now as it has always been. We come closer and closer to understanding everything all the time, as long as we continue to use the scientific method.

You seem to be skipping a few steps. If you believe that all that exists is matter in motion and there is no transcendent governing agent then how can you possibly know that the Universe operates the same now as it did in the past?

I will trust science over thinking that there's a firmament over the world, which rests on pillars, and has a throne on top where the lord sits. Or at least he did until Noah's flood came, as Ken Ham believes.

Trust science? You would have trusted science in the 1920s when Steady State Theory was the accepted theory? Would you have trusted science prior to Darwin? What about prior to Pasteur? Newton? Einstein?

Well fine then I concede that knowledge about how old the earth is in any precise sense is a fool's enterprise. So on some nit picky level we can agree to remain agnostic about the precise age of the earth.

Yet you laugh at those who disagree with you on the matter?

But how far do you wish to take it? Would you in the same way insist the earth might be less than 25 minutes old since an all-powerful genie could make anything happen?

If such a conceptual scheme could make sense of reality, I do not believe it can however.

The available evidence for the age of the earth is more than sufficient to rule out an age of 25 minutes - with whatever caveat you find necessary to cover mischievous genies or brains in vats.

We agree, the Earth is not 25 minutes old.

The evidence is equally compelling to rule out an age of 6000 years.

Only if the Bible is false, that’s my point.

Silly stuff aside, extrapolating what what we observe going forward to what has preceded the observable we can be quite sure the earth is billions of years old.

I still think you are jumping steps here. As a materialist what’s your reason for believing in past and future uniformity of natural laws? I see no basis for it within the realm of atheism.

You mean unlike the Bible?

I am not following you. Explain?

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Obviously waldork thinks whoever wrote the fucking bible was looking over 'god's' shoulder when he created the earth!

No, I believe God wrote the Bible silly old man (2 Tim 3:16).

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Oh, he was there?

No, but Min is old enough to have been. He's got tubes of Bengay older than me.