BILL NYE VS KEN HAM: TONIGHT AT 7 PM

[Minimalist]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/02/05...tail=email

A modern day miracle: Ken Ham delivered the decisive blow in the creationism debate

So I would say that Ken Ham, even more than Bill Nye, delivered the decisive answer in last night's debate: no, creationism is not science. It is a belief system based on a literal reading of select parts of a scientifically inaccurate book. Nothing less and certainly nothing more.

[Jacob(smooth)]

Downloading it to listen to on my way to work tomorrow.

[Angrboda]

Given how boring the debate was, I think I'd call it a draw. None of the zingers of a Hitchens or Fry. Nothing to make a believer or unbeliever go home with an uncomfortable feeling inside.

[truthBtold]

Downloading it to listen to on my way to work tomorrow.

Do not...I repeat do not listen to it and drive at the same time.. very dangerous.... UNLESS!! u let JESUS TAKE THE WHEEL!!!!!

[Rampant.A.I.]

No, the prove is playing out right in front of you. In fact, you have experienced it and you are a proof in itself.

I know nothing about science? How do you know what I know?

Judging by your posts, ad hominem attacks and how to not to raise valid points.

[Clueless Morgan]

By the way, I think Bill surpassing everyone's expectations in terms of his debating skills properly made up for this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJEqQWgbNV8

Hahahahahahaha! What were they thinking??? At least he looked like he was having (fairly stiff) fun :p

C'mon, y'all, he had completely fucked up his knee the week before and had a knee brace on.

He wasn't a very good dancer, though; he would have been gone by week 5 anyway.

[Statler Waldorf]

Ham choked on the question of what would it take to convince him he was wrong, from an audience member. And with that, the seed of doubt is sown.

The question displayed a fundamental misunderstanding of Ham’s position, which is interesting considering that he was very clear through out his presentation that portions of his position are axiomatic in nature. The question was nonsensical.

I just had an idea about what would go a long way in burying this creationist bullshit. I would watch a debate between Ham and let's say William Lane Craig or a scientist from the Vatican regarding creationsim.

No it wouldn’t because Ham would simply have to point out there inconsistencies between their espoused views of inerrancy and their view on the age of the Earth. Old-Earth creationism is not a defensible position.

When Ham said that there are parts of the bible that are meant to be literal and other bits that are just poetry, I wanted Nye to ask him how he could tell which bits are meant to be which. He did tease him for a while but then let him off the hook.

It’s not difficult to do in Hebrew, Genesis is written as historical narrative while books like Job are written as poetry. Biblical literalism simply means you interpret them according to their literary style.

I found it striking that Ham essentially claimed that we can disregard Israelite law, a purely human activity despite the claim that some of it came from God, but that the ideas of creation of these same people is somehow unassailable.

Mosaic Law was abrogated when Christ fulfilled it and ushered in the New Covenant; that has nothing to do with believing in creation.

Basically Ham thinks that the earth works in his own way because he says so, the bible means what he means because he says so.

No, he believes the Bible is what it says it is (imagine that, a Christian who believes in the Bible). It’s funny the fact he is so consistent bothers you all so much.

Divine regulation would imply tacit approval of the practice.

How?

Ham name drops God; Nye name drops Sagan = Nye wins.

No, Ham appeals to infallibility, Nye appeals to fallibility= Ham wins.

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".

Your wife invokes logical fallacies too? Well birds of a feather...

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.

If you want Christians to actually take you seriously you are going to have to cease with this sort of hyperbole. Disagreeing on the age of the Earth is endangering nobody.

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.

I’ve had several correspondences with Ken and he’s a genuine guy who believes what he says (which does not mean he’s delusional) and loves what he does. He’s not my favorite creationist because I think there are numerous others who have more education and are better at defending their position but for debating someone like Bill Nye he’s more than adequate to do the job.

There are good reasons Sanford's conclusions on genetic entropy have little support with his peers.

Yes, they want him to be wrong.

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.

I think you’re getting your arguments confused. That is not his point at all, entropy is entropy and something can only undergo a certain amount of it before it’s completely corrupted.

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 have no idea because you have done nothing to even address the idea much less show anything to be false.

His museum is falling on hard times. I read a story somewhere, they are losing money, because no repeat customers.

Source?

Why would they have repeat customers? They've already assumed they have all the answers, so there's no research being done, no discoveries being made, and no new exhibits coming in. There's no vitality in the creation museum, because the thing that fuels real museums, discovery, has been discarded in favor of self aggrandizing back patting.

No research being done? That’s funny, I thought there was something called the Answers Research Journal…..

Ah... sometimes, being european isn't all that good...

Sometimes?

Oh, welcome back Stat. How did that surgery go?

Great, still healing up so taking it kind of easy on here. I just wanted to see what the heathens had to say about the debate They did not disappoint, very long on personal attacks and short on specifics.

Didn't I once give you a proper paper detailing that deleterious genetic mutations are filtered out in some 20 generations, on average? I thought you had understood it.

I do not recall that, perhaps it was someone else? I’d be interested in reading it if you still have it even though I think it’s a different issue than the one I am addressing since in higher organisms, up to 90% of all deleterious mutations would be un-selectable.

I got the impression that the debate was secondary to Nye's main objective. Which was to push the value of objective science to the Christian audience. But at least some of them would have finally gotten a view of evolution and the universe undistorted by the lies of the likes of Ham, Hovind et al.

What do you mean by objective science?

Oh, it was a truly awesome rebuttal, buttressed with unassailable facts and filled with brilliant, never-before thought of observations. Currently, it's rocked the scientific community which is now in the process of completely reconsidering everything we think we know about Biology. It inspired me to run down to the nearest church where I fell upon my knees and begged the Lord Jesus for forgiveness in ever doubting the revealed word.

Praise the sweet name of Jesus.

...

...

No, not really.

What facts did Nye give?

I would have liked to see Nye go after Ham's absurd distinction between science done in the present versus science regarding the past.

I realize Darwinists hate that distinction because it really weakens their argument and false equivocations, but it’s a real distinction. Empirical science can only be done in the present. I found it amusing that Ham ended up having a stricter definition of science than Nye did, classic.

From what I did see, though, it seemed like Ham's tactics were to redefine words to suit himself, make distinctions where no distinctions are made (observational versus historical science? WTF?), and to repeat key words and ideas in order to reinforce to his audience what they already think: science is a religion, scientists are trying to indoctrinate children into the religion of science, etc.

Or was Nye trying to redefine words to suit himself (i.e. science), cover up important distinctions (observational versus historical science?), and to repeat key words and ideas in order to reinforce to his audience what he and his ilk already think: creation science is a religion, creationists are trying to indoctrinate children into the religion of Christianity, etc?

See what I did there?

I also felt really bad for Nye; that was a flagrantly hostile audience and even his lamest "this always gets at least a chuckle" type jokes fell flat.

I actually thought that was funny.

I think he said there isn't really a distinction, because the things we observe today are the same things that happened in the past, but he didn't go into great detail about it.

How do you know what we observe today is what happened in the past? That was Ham’s entire point, you cannot know that, therefore you cannot know how old the Earth is.

You regard not including bullshit in science textbooks as censorship?

No, I regard hiding opposing viewpoints from inquiring minds as censorship.

You don't see that they're both science? Really?

They are, that’s why they both have the word science in them. One is simply a lot stronger form of science than the other.

I thought it was funny when he showed Family Felidae as 'cat kind'. It includes civets and hyenas.

Why is that funny?

He was referring to 'dog kind', which apparently includes foxes and jackals.

At least someone was somewhat paying attention.

For that matter, how do we know that testing hypotheses in the present will lead to reliable technology in the future

You’re poking holes in your own conceptual scheme now? You cannot know that if you’re a naturalist which was precisely Ham’s point.

I'm only 15 minutes into the debate and already I think Ken Ham's use of other people (via videos) is poor form. There is absolutely no need to do it. If Ham wanted to name scientists who are creationists, he could have just done so (like the way he originally named the guy who invented the MRI).

I mean, if this was an agreed format by both people, then fair enough, but in my opinion when you go to see a debate between two people, you expect only those two people to be doing the talking.

I agree with this. I know why he was doing it, (because there are actually idiots who think no creationist has a PhD and no creationist has ever had work published in a secular journal), but it was not relevant to the topic at hand so it took away valuable speaking time. Similarly I thought that Nye did the very same thing by bringing up technology and the need for science funding ad nauseam.

At the end of the day I thought that Nye’s 30 minute opening presentation was better than Ham’s. I felt that the five minute rebuttals were ridiculously short and therefore pointless. A rebuttal period should always be at least half the length of the opening statement. The short rebuttal periods allowed both men the opportunity to hurl elephants at the other and then ask why their questions were never addressed. I would have preferred to have seen at least one if not two periods of cross examination because this is where the real debate occurs. I thought the interrogative was too broad; creation is a much broader theory than any other I can think of so they should have simply addressed one or two aspects of it. Ham did a much better job in the question and answer time than Nye did. I was rather disappointed with people’s comments in this thread, it’s easy to call the opposing side names and belittle them but it actually takes work and thought to refute their arguments. I would have preferred to see some attempts at the latter and less of the former. Overall I found it very enjoyable and am looking forward to future debates on the subject matter.

Should I spend the time to address DP’s and Pocaracas’ responses to the 22 questions?...After reading the questions….no.

[Whateverist]

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.

[Chad32]

[qiote=Chad]I think he said there isn't really a distinction, because the things we observe today are the same things that happened in the past, but he didn't go into great detail about it.[/quote]

How do you know what we observe today is what happened in the past? That was Ham’s entire point, you cannot know that, therefore you cannot know how old the Earth is.

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.

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.

[Whateverist]

How do you know what we observe today is what happened in the past? That was Ham’s entire point, you cannot know that, therefore you cannot know how old the Earth is.

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.

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?

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