BILL NYE VS KEN HAM: TONIGHT AT 7 PM

[Mudhammam]

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 mean unlike the Bible?

[Minimalist]

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

[Mudhammam]

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

Oh, he was there?

[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.

[Chad32]

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?

Yes, I would have. That's where the evidence led. Of course they got some things wrong, but the scientific method changes according to the evidence people find. The more we search, the more we learn, and the more the world makes sense. It's just a tried and true method of learning about everything around us. Thinking we have all the answers, and should just trust in Vishnu to guide us to nirvanna won't help us grow as a species like the scientific method does.

[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.

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 don't subscribe to any god's nonexistence on an axiomatic level. Instead I take as an operating hypothesis that the causes we find determinative going forward were likewise determinative in the past arriving at the present. I know that may sound wild eyed on the face of it but there you have it. If future discoveries knock a wheel off my operating hypotheses I shall revise and continue.

It is a very different matter than claiming an axiom. I believe you if you say you believe the bible is from god. For the life of me I can't imagine why you think that. From the outside it sure looks as though the wishing and the believing amount to the same thing.

Still it just shows poor judgement to hold up as equal that which you believe axiomatically to what I believe as a working hypothesis. They really aren't the same. My way asks the world what it is, yours tells it what it is. My approach is inquiry, yours is declarative. Apples and oranges.

[Mudhammam]

What don't you follow Waldorf? Creationism's logic? Me neither. Creationists doubt science, I mean "historical" science, because nobody alive today existed 130+ years ago. Instead they trust in the Bible... because nobody alive today existed 130+ years ago.

[Assimilate]

I see a lot of talk about using junk science to debunk mainstream science. What I don't see is any credible and accepted science to build structure to a YEC view. I'd have no problem switching my view if the findings pointed that way. The truth is that they don't and that gap grows larger and larger. creationist arguments either become more simplistic or try to use new hypotheses that try to fight what they don't believe, instead of presenting sound science for what they do believe.

[popeyespappy]

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

Yes, they want him to be wrong.

What they want have no bearing on the soundness of Sanford’s conclusions. If his premises are false, and the evidence says they are, his conclusions are worthless. Besides it was Sanford who started out with the goal of proving a primary axiom (axioms apply to math not the theory of evolution) of evolution false. He is the one that started with a conclusion then constructed his evidence to fit the conclusion.

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.

Are you even familiar with Sanford’s work? Because it sure doesn’t sound like it. Sanford’s model Mendel's Accountant is no different than any other model in that if you put shit in you get shit out. The evidence says many of the assumptions that Sanford programed into his model are incorrect. That is what happens when you base your work on the decades old work of someone else. Many of Sanford’s assumptions were based on the 1970s work of Motoo Kimura and Tomoko Ohta. Many parts of their nearly neutral theory of molecular evolution has long since been shown to be false by newer research. Unfortunately for Sanford some of those incorrect conclusions were used as assumptions in his model.

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.

I pointed out general areas where assumptions made by Sanford are known to be incorrect. Would you like specific examples? More importantly, if I provide specific examples showing his assumptions to be wrong will you accept that the work is flawed?

[Mothonis]

This makes me sad, and frustrated:

22 Messages from creationists to people who believe in evolution

5,10,22 Made me laugh my ass off

Lets see if waldorf can prove the existance of angels,talking snakes, and prove to me that my lord Talos didnt create the world.