Ham Vs. Nye

[Philip]

What a sideshow!

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2014/02/ ... p=features

A totally false either /or, taken on the road for a nice, money-making tour. Seems like they need a few other viewpoints on the stage? But then that would mean ruining the script that is almost as choreographed as professional wrestling match. But it sells tickets, give media something to yak about. Sad.

[Danieltwotwenty]

Yea I watched it and it was boring, Nye did well for not being a professional debtor.

Ham just recycled all the old arguments.

I wasted 3 hours of my life.

About the only thing that was good was that Ham said other Christians who don't believe like him are still Christians but I am sure if he was prodded further there would be some caveats pinned to that statement, he looked like he wanted to add more but held back on it.

[RickD]

Daniel wrote:
Yea I watched it and it was boring, Nye did well for not being a professional debtor.

What's a professional debtor? Someone who makes a living at owing people money?

Oh, you mean professional debater.

[Danieltwotwenty]

Daniel wrote:
Yea I watched it and it was boring, Nye did well for not being a professional debtor.

What's a professional debtor? Someone who makes a living at owing people money?

Oh, you mean professional debater.

Auto correct for the loss.

I like also that Bill Nye always referred to it as Ken Ham's creation theory and said that there are millions of other Christians that don't subscribe to Ken Ham's creation theory. I really think Bill Nye did the best he could and did it in a fair way so that all Christians were not viewed as subscribing to the same ideas.

[RickD]

Daniel wrote:
I wasted 3 hours of my life.

Daniel, I find your post lacking fruit.

[Danieltwotwenty]

Daniel wrote:
I wasted 3 hours of my life.

Daniel, I find your post lacking fruit.

I am not biting, taking the higher road if you will.

That's why I have ceased posting on those threads.

[RickD]

Did I miss it? Is there a link to the debate somewhere?

[Danieltwotwenty]

Did I miss it? Is there a link to the debate somewhere?

I got no idea whats going on or who means what anymore, still adjusting to being back at work after a long break.

If I sound a little lost on what your meaning, now you know why.

[Ivellious]

Did I miss it? Is there a link to the debate somewhere?

Here's a link to the debate:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6kgvhG3AkI

I haven't watched the whole thing yet, but from what I have seen, there is nothing earth-shattering about either side to be seen. Ham was less interested in evidence for YEC, instead choosing to appeal to the Bible and some clips of scientists who happen to share his views. Nye chose to argue that Ham's view of science was distorted, and that creationism as Ham sees it is completely anti-science, and therefore should not be treated equally with evolution in a science setting.

[RickD]

2 hours and 45 minutes...looks like I'm gonna sit this one out.

[Philip]

Yeah, Rick - a real snooze-fest! What really bugs me is that the media always seizes upon the old reliable "YEC vs. the Evolutionist" stories. You never see the media cover the other aspects, like Progressive Creation Views, Theistic Evolution, or assertions that this is, mostly, a bogus argument, as (especially) Genesis 1 was not written to address the science or time duration of the "days" of Creation. The media hates complexity and nuances that might take a bit of work to adequately explain or develop more depth to. We just end up with such cartoon-like stories like Ham vs. Nye, often designed to stereotype all Christians as being ignorant of science, to the point of looking like simpletons.

[Danieltwotwenty]

Yeah, Rick - a real snooze-fest! What really bugs me is that the media always seizes upon the old reliable "YEC vs. the Evolutionist" stories. You never see the media cover the other aspects, like Progressive Creation Views, Theistic Evolution, or assertions that this is, mostly, a bogus argument, as (especially) Genesis 1 was not written to address the science or time duration of the "days" of Creation. The media hates complexity and nuances that might take a bit of work to adequately explain or develop more depth to. We just end up with such cartoon-like stories like Ham vs. Nye, often designed to stereotype all Christians as being ignorant of science, to the point of looking like simpletons.

I would like to applaud Bill Nye for actually bringing this up several times in the debate, that not all Christian believe as Ken Ham does and that many accept the current science of our time.

[crookedvulture]

I decided to sit this one out as well. Not just because of Ken Ham's lunacy, but I've also seen Bill Nye "debate" and I can tell you that even though he says evidence will convince him, it most certainly will not. His debates often go like this: "Bill, some people say you're wrong about that." "Yeah well they're wrong. I have evidence on my side." "Apparently your evidence is wrong. Here's some other evidence." "Yeah, well I think you're evidence is wrong." If you don't believe me, watch him debate climate change on Stossel. Hilarious!

[Jac3510]

I watched and found it easy enough to do so. Neither threw any major bombs at each other. It was, for the most part, respectful and respectable. I felt like Nye really didn't know what to say for much of the debate. I was hopeful when early on he promised to try to collapse Ham's distinction between observational and historical science. His CSI analogy seemed to suggest he was going to spend time there, but then he just sort of left that off. It's also painfully clear that he hasn't taken the time to understand the position he was bothering to critique. He charged that Ham wanted to say that the laws of nature used to be different, that Ham was interpreting a book written three thousand years ago and translated dozens of times, etc. Not very impressive. He did offer a few points of evidence that a traditional YEC would have to account for (e.g., large boulders on top of small ones which seems to contradict Ham's hydrodynamic model of rock placement, more tree rings in some living trees than a 6,000 year old earth would allow, more layers of snow ice than a 6,000 year old earth would allow, etc.), but then he also pulled out several examples that were laughable or showed that he hadn't spent much time in the literature in question (e.g., the starlight problem, the number of species on the earth post-flood, etc.). It certainly isn't his job to give those answers, but at the same time, if you are going to argue that a model is not viable then good scholarship demands you consider it on its strongest terms. In that, Nye failed spectacularly.

Ham, on the other hand, did not capitalize on Nye's ignorance of the nuances of his model. Rather than offering a series of very quick bullet point responses to the few evidences that Nye presented--which a good debater like Craig would have done--he sort of lazily restated over and over his point about operational vs. historical science. But in restating it, he never deeply defended it or drove it home. He just kept saying the same thing over and over again, seemingly unsure how to make his case any clearer, so time that could have been spent developing his case was wasted. At the same time, he let Nye get by with a range of logical fallacies. During one five minute section (starting at 1:45:20 in this video), he offered an argument from incredulity, an ad hominem, a straw man, begged the question, and an ad populum in very quick succession. And yet, Ham did not call him on any of them, which bothered me a great deal. Nye's logical errors don't make him necessarily wrong, of course, but they certainly mean that he isn't reasoning correctly, and that Ham failed to point that out was very much a failure on his own part. And finally, while I appreciate Ham's repeated statement that you cannot prove the age of the earth scientifically, I do think he was oversimplifying the matter, insofar as certain YEC creation models should make predictions on what we actually can and do find today. That is, there should be more than just general evidence for YEC. So Ham thinks that there was a global flood, so some of that evidence should have been offered. If Ham is right about the difficulties associated with radiometric dating, then that is a testable claim and he should have been able to offer some evidence of that (he did offer one point there that, unfortunately, was not really developed).

So all in all, I think both debaters did a fair, though not exceptional, job at defending their own positions. Both were good speakers, cordial to one another, and were clear in what they did present. While there was obvious disagreement as to the conclusion, there was little by way of formal differences throughout the discussion. To me, at bottom, it felt much more like two speakers presenting two series of papers at different conferences unrelated on the same subject from different view points and then meshed together. As such, I found it overall educational. Someone who does not understand the basics of some YEC thinking could learn something if they watched it (they won't be convinced). Someone who doesn't understand the basics of secular evolutionary thinking could learn something if they watched it (they won't be convinced).

So . . . a snoozer? Perhaps. But interesting? Sure, if you are into this sort of thing.

[PaulSacramento]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... ience.html