I watched the two hour and forty-five minutes debate between TV
“science guy” Bill Nye and young-earth creationist Ken Ham. See here
for NPR’s summary of the key points of the debate, and also to watch
the debate itself. Here are some of my thoughts. Please keep in mind
that I am far from being a science person, so please be gentle in your
criticisms.
1. The debate would have been much better had each side presented
its arguments from science, and then the other side would have been
given an opportunity to respond or to rebut. Instead, what happened was
what followed: Nye Gish-galloped by presenting a whole bunch of
arguments in his first presentation, whereas Ham did not have the time
to respond to all of them; Nye was cheerleading about how the U.S.A.
should not fall behind in science and thus should rigorously acknowledge
evolution and the old age of the universe; Ham appealed to the Bible as
an authority, as if that would convince someone who did not hold his
religious presuppositions; and Ham name-dropped published, educated
scientists who are young-earth creationists.
There were times when both were presenting significant arguments
pertaining to science that should have at least been addressed by the
other side, but they were not:
—-Nye asked how trees that are older than the alleged date of the
biblical flood survived the flood, since trees normally don’t survive
floods. Ham did not respond.
—-Nye argued that it would have taken a lot of time for the millions
of species there are today to have developed from the thousands of
species/kinds that were allegedly on the ark, and that the span between
the time of the Ark and today is not sufficient for that. Ham did not
respond.
—-Nye disputed Ham’s claim that animals before the Fall were
vegetarians by noting that lions have teeth, which indicates they were
always meat-eaters and never vegetarians, and Ham responded that there
are vegetarian animals that have sharp teeth. Nye did not respond to
that.
—-In arguing that dating methods are unreliable, Ham pointed to a
scenario in which a tree was encased in basalt, and the basalt was dated
millions of years older than the tree encased within it, which is
puzzling. Nye did not understand that Ham was arguing that the tree was
encased in basalt, and thus Nye’s argument against Ham on this point
appeared rather ineffectual.
—-In response to Nye’s question of how Ham could reconcile the travel
of starlight over a long distance with a young universe, Ham appealed
to “the horizon problem.” Nye did not respond.
—-Nye mentioned 680,000 layers of ice, arguing that this indicated
680,000 years (since a layer of ice is presumably laid each year), and
he asked how Ham would reconcile that with a young earth. Ham appealed
to catastrophism as an explanation for how the layers could have
developed within a short time-span. Nye did not respond to that
argument.
I’m not saying that Ham’s arguments were good. This post
explains why Ham was off-base in his basalt-and-tree argument, for
example. Still, it would have been nice had they responded in more
detail to each other’s arguments, or had the format been more conducive
to that sort of interaction over scientific substance.
2. One of Nye’s prominent arguments was that evolution and the old
age of the universe need to be acknowledged for the U.S. to do well in
scientific advancement. Ham, however, was distinguishing between a
historical science that purports to describe the past, and the kind of
science that looks at present realities. Ham’s implication seemed to be
that the U.S. did not need to accept evolution or the old age of the
universe to make scientific observations and to invent things; after
all, Ham was showcasing a young-earth creationist who contributed to the
development of MRI technology!
Nye, in my opinion, did not sufficiently detail how evolution or
acknowledgment of the old age of the universe could contribute to
technological development. Don’t get me wrong: he’s probably right
about the earth’s natural past. Nye, after all, presented more and
better scientific arguments than Ham did, overall. But Nye should have
detailed the practical ramifications to evolution and the old age of the
universe.