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Friday, February 7, 2014

Thoughts on the Nye/Ham Debate

I know it has been a couple days since the debate happened, and I know that it has been gone over and in the long run does not really change the face of the issue, but I have had some serious thoughts concerning what happened. Now I haven't written here in a while and the bulk of this text is actually from a Facebook comment I made, but I was prompted to put it here as well. I know I will appear biased, but these are a lot of points in the debate where I feel Ham was given a lot of leeway by Nye that were never addressed and deserve a response.

Frankly, from the start, Ham made me want to pull my hair out. Not even because I disagree with him. One could write an entire book on what was wrong with his presentation... but mainly the fact that all of his arguments against modern science, or "historical science" as YECists call it, could be easily flipped right on their heads. "You weren't there when it happened, so you don't know or you have to read it from books!" Gee, that sounds familiar, Mr Ham. It was sort of one giant string of pot calling the kettle black. Then came his essentially preaching session. You had to listen close, but Ham gave away his real position at least twice(I admit I'm going to be paraphrasing because I'm not going to go fishing through the entire 2.5 hour debate to find the exact quotes).

First was his claim how "historical science" teaches children to be closed minded and hampers critical thinking. You would think that makes sense, until you actually do critically think about his argument and realize he is advocating only "observational science," i.e. believing only what you can see with your naked eye, and then going into his long preach about all the "questions" that the Bible "answers". Basically, that line of argument boiled down to: "we need to teach children Creationism to keep them more open minded and think critically, now here, now let's throw out all these other lines of thought and only study this single book."

The second, that was the most telling to me, was when he questioned Nye over the "meaning of life" if there was no God and Heaven. Basically Ham admitted there that he just didn't like science because he didn't like the idea of there not being an afterlife which I find an incredibly selfish world view, particularly as Ham put it, essentially saying "Well if nothing happens to me after I die, if it's just nothingness and I won't remember anything I did, what was the point?" Yes, you personally will not remember any of your accomplishments if that world-view is true. But that's only if the only thing that matters to you is how you feel personally about what you've done in life. Nevermind the great impacts you might have on the lives of those who live on after you pass, and those who have yet to walk on this Earth. Sir Alexander Fleming has been dead for almost sixty years now, but his discovery of penicillin revolutionized the entire world of medicine and saved, and continues to save, millions of lives. Were I to have made that discovery, even if I knew for an absolute certainty that after my death I was going to just rot in the ground, my consciousness over, I would still be pretty happy that I made an impact and that I would live on in the memories of others.

A third line of argument that Ham presented which I find amusing was Ham's assertion that "just because a majority believe in [modern science] doesn't make it right, and old ideas need to be replaced with new ones." He's right, problem is, once upon a time, his world view was what the majority (at least in the western world) believed. It was that way for approximately a thousand years until modern science came along. Modern science is new, not Ham's stance. Just because he pretends his view is science does not make it so. It's like putting new rims and a bodykit on a 2000 Honda Civic and pretending you're in a Fast and Furious film and it's a "new car." Yeah, it looks newer on the outside, but look underneath and it's still just a 2000 Honda Civic.

I also think Ham miscalculated and misunderstands modern science greatly. I think he leapt on Nye's statements of "I don't know" when asked questions by the audience such as "what was there before the 'Big Bang?'" and "How did consciousness come from matter?" not getting where modern science's mind is on those matters. The same with his answer of "Nothing" to the question "What would make you change your mind?" versus Nye's "evidence." His side of the argument places such a premium on that "faith" and conviction while modern science clearly does not. So while I'm sure Ham, and many of his followers, thought he had pulled the ultimate punch on Nye with his pithy "Well you know, Bill, there *is* a book out there..." lines and his refusal to accept any evidence to dissuade him from his faith, to an obvious majority, it made him appear completely unreasonable versus Nye and probably did much more harm to him than help.

That said, I did feel Nye could have been a lot tougher on Ham, on those points in particular. But I also have to wonder if perhaps Nye did not answer them because he did not feel the need to. And having said that, I disagree with many's assertions that Nye should not have done the debate. I think we've let stances such as Young Earth Creationism get plenty far without a response of some kind. That's how it's creeping back into the debate of being taught in schools, because of modern science's infernal "holier than thou" attitude. It's time for the modern scientific community to wake up, I must say.

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