So, Bill Nye is going to debate Ken Ham, the founder of the creationist museum and CEO of "Answers in Genesis" about the merits of creationism in today's modern scientific world. It's going down at 7 PM EST tonight at the Creationist Museum in Kentucky. You can watch it here.

Essentially it's going to be same old "Evolution is just a theory!" debate we've heard a bunch of times, but this one will feature Bill Nye!

So, are you watching? Who are you rooting for? What are your thoughts on the debate?

At 2/4/14 12:42 PM, ZJ wrote: Essentially it's going to be same old "Evolution is just a theory!" debate we've heard a bunch of times, but this one will feature Bill Nye!

Then why do you think it would still be an interesting debate for the 10398483rd time, regardless of who's talking?

At 2/4/14 12:54 PM, naronic wrote:

Then why do you think it would still be an interesting debate for the 10398483rd time, regardless of who's talking?

I'm a big fan of Bill Nye and think that he's been one of the most influential voices in educating kids on science over the last 25 years. It'll be more to see what he brings to the debate than anything else.

BUT THE BANANA FITS PERFECTLY IN MY HAND. THAT MEANS GOD MUST HAVE MADE IT THAT WAY!!!!

At 2/4/14 01:33 PM, Camarohusky wrote: BUT THE BANANA FITS PERFECTLY IN MY HAND. THAT MEANS GOD MUST HAVE MADE IT THAT WAY!!!!

Other things fit in your hand that are around the same shape as a banana. Doesn't mean it was meant to be LOL. In fact it would go against the laws of nature.

Why even bother giving these creationist douches a platform to spout their dumb backwards beliefs?*

*'beliefs' not being synonymous with 'scientific theory'.

fuck the other side!

I'm hoping to catch the stream. I heard about this earlier and got super pumped about it. Bill Nye all the way. He's such a good guy.

Bill was more entertaining in his early years.

I predict the creationist guy will drink from his cup a lot, or blink a lot.

Honestly, I like Bill Nye and all, but there is no way in Hell that I'm going to bother with this. The Creation theory is simply nothing than religious myths that even the most religious conservatives give it some grain of salt, but considering where it's going to be held, (A joke of a museum in the Creation Museum) let's just say that that Nye will have work cut out for him working over that possible crowd.

At 2/4/14 03:22 PM, X-Gary-Gigax-X wrote: I always feel completely unrepresented in these debates. I am an intellectual design guy. I feel like the creationists and secularists have their own conclusions in their minds before the debate begins, and would sooner die than change their mind before the debate ends.

That doesn't make as much of a difference as evidence does. The thing is that the Creationist standpoint isn't one where they're trying to gather evidence for their position, it's one where they're trying to belittle Evolution down to the same level as Creationism. So they're arguments consist of putting doubt into Evolution rather than trying to prove their own ideas. That's part of the reason why it's not science; it's just religion. They can't exactly win a traditional scientific debate and they know it, that is what's really sad.

At 2/4/14 07:51 PM, Korriken wrote:

At 2/4/14 04:30 PM, Fim wrote: Why even bother giving these creationist douches a platform to spout their dumb backwards beliefs?*

*'beliefs' not being synonymous with 'scientific theory'.

The irony of the whole thing is people feel the need to constantly slam and bash on those who believe in creation. They can be ignored, but people feel the need to crush those that disagree with them.

People don't bash creationists for believing what they do (correction: MOST people don't do this - I'll never speak for everyone). People DO universally get upset when one group demands to be treated as a science when there is no evidence for such a claim. Just watched the first part of it, and the creationist has literally said just read the bible, believe it and do not question it without evidence - to be honest, I was hoping for something more interesting than that from him.

Anyway, the consequences of treating a religious belief as a scientific truth is fairly disastrous, as their methods are not complimentary. You CAN be religious scientist (that is, you have a belief and you accept scientific discovery), but you can't have a science that is based on religion because you cannot question the source of the religion, by definition, which is 100% contrary to the scientific method. Yes, there is mud thrown on both ends, but to say therefore they're both wrong because of it is not correct.

As far as I'm concerned, believe what you want, but don't force publicly funded schools to teach the creationist method to students as a viable alternative to evolution when one cannot adhere to the scientific method. It's something that Bill Nye fights for consistently, so I'm all for cheering for him.

For anyone watching the debate, a few minutes ago the defining question that goes to the heart of the creationism vs. science debate was asked and answered: "What, if anything, would change your mind?"

Nye gave a list of a number of things that he would need to see evidence for that would then immediately make him change his mind about the age of the earth and the universe.

Ham's answer: "nothing is going to convince me that the word of God is wrong".

I don't have enough time at the library to finish watching.

From what's observe it seems like these are same kind of people. Who will drag the concept through the dirt until you actually see with your own eyes. Same kind of people who believed the Earth was flat despite some brilliant arguments of people like Aristotle that is must be round.

Few interesting nick picks, made me think, but still overall....

Please scientists, invent a time machine.

At 2/4/14 09:25 PM, Light wrote:

At 2/4/14 09:09 PM, Angry-Hatter wrote: Ham's answer: "nothing is going to convince me that the word of God is wrong".

You see, this just proves to me the inanity of having a debate with these people. Openly refusing to conceive of any evidence that can shake you from your faith and convictions is the hallmark of an idiotic dogmatist.

The game is not about changing the mind of your dogmatic opponent, it's about reaching the people in the audience. There are way too many stories about people who used to be hardcore believers who became atheists after realizing how flawed their position had been to not give trying to convince them a shot. Non-belief in religion has been on a steady rise over the past couple of decades, to the point where irreligiosity today is at an unprecedentedly high level, and I suspect that this trend owes its existence to debates like these and their easy availability through the internet. Over half a million people, likely from all over the world, were tuning in live on the channel I was watching, and more yet will watch the video once it's posted. Most of the religious viewers won't be reached, but a few of them will be. Just a few, but that's all that it takes to sustain the current trend away from religious dogma.

Slowly but surely, more and more people will move away from Ham's way of thinking, until one day...

ATHEIST WORLD DOMINATION.

At 2/4/14 09:09 PM, Angry-Hatter wrote:

Ham's answer: "nothing is going to convince me that the word of God is wrong".

It's because of people like him why blind faith is so dangerous.

lol Bill's putting it pretty nicely saying things like "that's...remarkable" and "that's...unsettling"

"Uh, Bill there is a book that explains that. hehehe." remarkable. And that part moral relativism and killing old people. REMARKABLE!

At 2/5/14 02:19 PM, Sense-Offender wrote:

"Uh, Bill there is a book that explains that. hehehe." remarkable. And that part moral relativism and killing old people. REMARKABLE!

The constant "There's a book out there" remarks really just killed any momentum Ham had in my eyes. I was willing to give his views some of my time, but one he started just jamming that down our throats, I just stopped listening.

I'd have like to ask him why he thinks the Bible is supreme and not the Quran. That would have been a good debate topic if he just wanted to play religious dogma cards.

That was boring and I wish it wasn't rocks vs. the Bible...

Bill Nye lost, and he lost hard. This whole debate was pretty much useless in any real sense. Both side were preaching to the choir and those that could be swayed didn't care to watch.

However, Ham came off as more comfortable and fluid, thus more likeable, even though he was doing nothing but blowing smoke. Nye, on the other hand, came off as esoteric unpersonable and a bit disconnected. What was essentially a battle of egos and personalities (as opposed to fact, or a battle between scinece and religion) Nye was easily overwhelmed.

At 2/5/14 09:01 PM, Korriken wrote: At the end of the day, it doesn't REALLY matter HOW we got here. We're here, that's what counts.

Exactly.

At 2/5/14 08:54 PM, Camarohusky wrote: Bill Nye lost, and he lost hard.

I would disagree. Nam hiding behind dogmatic rhetoric to try and prove what cannot be proved using faith is not grounds for a sane well rounded argument. Nye on the other hand used facts therefore he won the debate hands down.

This whole debate was pretty much useless in any real sense.

yes.

At 2/5/14 09:29 PM, leanlifter1 wrote: I would disagree. Nam hiding behind dogmatic rhetoric to try and prove what cannot be proved using faith is not grounds for a sane well rounded argument. Nye on the other hand used facts therefore he won the debate hands down.

If persuaion were the metric, you would be right. However, as I pointed out, both sides were preaching to theri respective choirs and the liklihood of a person on the fence watching was very low. That essentially made the deate an exercise in who can fire up their base more. Nye was cold and logical, while Ham was warm and emotional. Ham connected to his base far better than Nye did, and thus Ham won the only metric that really mattered.

people actually give a shit about this?

no actual real scientists actually care about this that much, even richard dawkings doesnt take this seriously

At 2/5/14 09:53 PM, Camarohusky wrote:

At 2/5/14 09:29 PM, leanlifter1 wrote: I would disagree. Nam hiding behind dogmatic rhetoric to try and prove what cannot be proved using faith is not grounds for a sane well rounded argument. Nye on the other hand used facts therefore he won the debate hands down.

If persuaion were the metric, you would be right. However, as I pointed out, both sides were preaching to theri respective choirs and the liklihood of a person on the fence watching was very low. That essentially made the deate an exercise in who can fire up their base more. Nye was cold and logical, while Ham was warm and emotional. Ham connected to his base far better than Nye did, and thus Ham won the only metric that really mattered.

Nam only may have connected to his base more because his base is hooked on dogmatic rhetorical faith based on the good book. Would you expect a Nazi SS soldier to be swayed in their opinions ?

My favorite argument was the human story. Nye gave our evolutionary background, and the best Ham gave was "kinds" with no strict definition. You can't have science without a strict definition.

At 2/5/14 09:53 PM, Camarohusky wrote: Nye was cold and logical, while Ham was warm and emotional.

Disagree, Nye threw in jokes here and there and the audience didn't laugh. Reason why sitcoms have laughter in the background is make the watcher more comfortable. The audience themselves were in rejection to Nye, Ham on the other hand, still a better speaker, were more acceptable to the viewers by appearance of the audience.

At 2/4/14 09:53 PM, Angry-Hatter wrote: ATHEIST WORLD DOMINATION.

A world full of depression. Right now it has been on the rise.

Oh course someone has to be in charge.

At 2/4/14 09:53 PM, Angry-Hatter wrote: ATHEIST WORLD DOMINATION.

A world full of depression. Right now it has been on the rise.

I think I agree with you. I don't think the religion is a good source of science (in general) but I don't think it's an awful thing that shouldn't exist. It gives people hope and it teaches compassion and understanding. At least, it's suppose to. The problem isn't that religion exists, it's that we live in a world where everyone feels that they need to force their opinions on others without listening to each others opinions with an open mind and trying to reach a compromise in the middle.

In other words, while you might despise Christianity for whatever reason, do you really want to live in a world without the Dalai Lama or people like Gandhi?

I think that athiests who think an "Athiest world" is the best... are every bit as awful as religious people who think their religion should be the only practiced faith. You're an extremist... and that's bad... even if it is currently "trendy".

Anyway, I didn't watch the debate... but I think we should always accept facts over belief. That being said, facts rarely disprove belief as most, if not all, religious texts are writen just detailed enough to give you an idea of what happened, but still vague enough to let you interpret them in new ways based upon new facts.

So, when it said God created man, that's just about all the Bible says. It doesn't really go into the million year long evolution of how God created man... anyone who refuses to accept facts must not have a very strong foundation in their faith and are blindly protecting it out of fear, not education.

(I don't know, I had this more organized in my head, but then I started typing, and the phone rang... so... whatever)

I.E. to stop creationists from trying to equate creationism with a valid scientific theory in our public schools.

They don't even do that in the south lol

At 2/6/14 06:24 PM, GrizzlyOne wrote: I.E. to stop creationists from trying to equate creationism with a valid scientific theory in our public schools.

They don't even do that in the south lol

Um not exactly. The Public school boards may not necessarily sanction it (although Kansas back in the early 2000's did in fact pass a resolution which made Intelligent Design get taught side by side with Evolution) but individual teachers don't necessarily teach the whole thing. Only a portion of Biology teachers teach the subject on par with standards, the majority have wavering effectiveness on it, only weakly doing it in so much as to avoid controversy and the rest actually teach Intelligent Design for a portion of time. And the reason is more or less obvious; the people who will be offended the most would be parents, if parents want their children to learn Intelligent Design then they're not going to complain.

At 2/4/14 12:42 PM, ZJ wrote: Essentially it's going to be same old "Evolution is just a theory!" debate we've heard a bunch of times,

Evolution IS just a theory, that's why it's called the theory of evolution. Not even Bill Nye will call it fact because science is proof without certainty. It's a lot easier to know if something's wrong than if it's right, and evolution is nowhere near close to being proven as fact. It's just the best guess we have so far, which frankly is the level we're at for just about all of science.