Hey, Bill Nye, Why the Hell Would You Agree to Debate a Creationist?

[alp227]

For reasons that I can’t understand right now, Bill Nye the Science Guy has agreed to debate Creationist Ken Ham at the Creation Museum on February 4. The topic: “Is creation a viable model of origins in today’s modern scientific era?”



There’s no debate to be had here. The answer is already an unqualified “Not a snowball’s chance in hell.”

full: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/01/02/hey-bill-nye-why-the-hell-would-you-agree-to-debate-a-creationist/

Well, if Nye can embarrass the heck out of this Ham quack then more power to the Science Guy.

[randome]

1. No need to embarrass anyone. All Nye needs to do is stay lucid and on-point.

That in itself will change some minds away from superstition.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]A ton of bricks, a ton of feathers. It's still gonna hurt.[/center][/font][hr]

[KittyWampus]

2. Education & Entertainment. The guy is good at fusing the two.

[liberal_at_heart]

3. My husband had a friend and coworker who's church was hosting one of these forums

a few years ago. We were invited and so we went. The Christians were rude, but the atheists kept their cool and were courteous, polite, and respectful.

[spanone]

4. i wouldn't legitimize ken the ham

[VanillaRhapsody]

5. the biggest problem to me is...

he let him have home field advantage...

[rrneck]

6. Exposure. nt

[LiberalAndProud]

7. Because he does not concede by remaining silent.

I should take a page from his book.

[longship]

8. Extraordinarily bad idea.

Michael Shermer is another who has done this. He claims he's had reasonable success. He even debated Duane Gish, which is astounding in itself considering his claim that it went well.

But I am with Dawkins, PZ, Eugenie Scott, and Stephen J. Gould. Scientists don't debate with creationists. Period!

I am very disappointed with Bill Nye's decision here.

[maxsolomon]

9. Get ready for a Gish Gallop, Bill Nye.

Don't try to refute each of the myriad lines of BS that Ham throws out.

And I'm sorry you have to spend time in N. KY., AKA where you move if Cincinnati is "too liberal".

[Lint Head]

10. Isn't this just a stunt to make money for religious bigots?

[Agnosticsherbet]

11. Sometimes you must ake the fight to the enemy. n/t

[struggle4progress]

12. It's a pointless exercise IMO:

I knew a molecular biologist who in the early 1980s agreed to a radio "debate" with a fundamentalist creationist about evolution

The biologist was not at all hostile to religion. He'd served on the boards of several schools of theology while supervising a number of doctoral students in molecular biology and publishing papers in his own field. But he rather liked Stephen Gould's notion that science and theology didn't really overlap as subjects. He didn't regard the Bible as literally true or as a science textbook. And he didn't believe science produced any kind of absolute truth: he thought of it as a method for producing better and better approximations to physical reality. He regarded evolutionary theory as the only credible current candidate for trying to piece together the history of life on earth from the now-known geology, chemistry, physics, and biology -- and it's my understanding he taught evolution from the point of view: "This is the only theory we have right now that makes scientific sense of the data"

I don't think the fundamentalist understood a single word the scientist said

Part of the problem was that the fundamentalist was some kind of absolutist, who wanted to be able to say "We know for certain that such-and-such is definitely true" -- whereas the scientist thought the object of his science was to produce a defensible account of the facts that was as consistent as possible with the available observations, while realizing that the observations were both incomplete and limited and that errors in measurement plus various misconceptions always produced a certain amount of inconsistency, which one hoped further research would clarify

So every time the scientist said, "We don't know this" or "Of course, there are unanswered questions about that," the fundamentalist reacted "Aha! So although you pretend to know everything, you really don't" and re-emphasized his own belief in the inerrancy of his own understanding of Genesis

I once looked up that fundamentalist on the web, about twenty-five years after the "debate," and found he was still crowing on his website about how he had soundly trounced the molecular biologist in that radio show -- but, as I said before, it was my impression the fundamentalist never understood a word the scientist said, about either religion or science

[SomethingFishy]

13. Bill Nye is awesome.. and I don't see this as a bad idea at all..

It's like someone trying to debate Mr Rogers. There is no way you cannot like the guy. Maybe Bill can change a mind or two.

[X_Digger]

14. It is a bit of a false dichotomy, yes.

That's the thing about science, as opposed to politics or philosophy- not every opinion deserves equal time. There is no 'fairness' in science.

[Vattel]

16. There is no 'fairness' in politics or philosophy either. Dumb opinions don't deserve euqal time.

[X_Digger]

18. True, but we tend to want to enforce a 'fairness doctrine'. n/t

[Cirque du So-What]

15. For the same reason that Skittles kicks so many asses

Because there are a lot of asses that need to be kicked.

[Kingofalldems]

17. Look out for freepers in the audience

looking to shout Nye down.

[Tikki]

19. I think it is thoughtful of Mr. Nye…young ones may hear him…ones who are on the verge...

of making decisions about their adult realities.

Someone gave me the words I needed when I was very young to have confidence to verbalize my truth.

As I got older and wiser, I realized my truth needed no words to defend it..

But for many, they have to start somewhere.


Tikki

[liberal_at_heart]

24. very true. Bill Nye could help people who are searching for truth. I too am at a point

where my truth needs no words to defend it, but I remember being at the beginning of my search years ago. Because my family was Christian I actually started my search in the Christian faith. I found it just didn't fit though so I kept searching until I found what worked for me.

[Tikki]

25. That is exactly it...

YAY for the new generations..



Tikki

[Vashta Nerada]

20. Nye is going to destroy Ham.

I want to see a video of that.

It's a pointless debate, however. Nye is backed by mountains of evidence and Ham's beliefs are backed by a book written by man.

[Dirty Socialist]

22. Nye Must Stay on The Offensive

He should attack Creationism and it's many errors.

[CFLDem]

26. +1

[RainDog]

21. Didn't Ham show up here at one point?

Or some such creationist nutjob?

Maybe Bill will do some good. I don't think he can do harm by simply talking about reality.

[Cleita]

23. Some of our intellectuals seem to think they can make points with undecided people

winning these debates but unfortunately a closed mind is often impossible to pry open.

[Corruption Inc]

27. After that, lung cancer patients will debate tobacco companies

as the stupidity continues...

[hunter]

28. Debating a creationist is like debating a fish.

The creationist's mouth opens and closes, but nothing rational is said.

[sufrommich]

29. Bill Nye will wipe the floor with the creationist.

He has brain cells on his side.