Here’s a post about it and there’s an official promo site out there too. My church and many others are showing it @ 7pm Tuesday live.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/25340136-452/bill-nye-wastes-his-time-debating-creationists.html
Here's a post about it and there's an official promo site out there too. My church and many others are showing it @ 7pm Tuesday live. http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/25340136-452/bill-nye-wastes-his-time-debating-creationists.htmlIt is an interesting article, it shows the anti-intellectual root of Christian fundamentalism. Are you a Trojan who brings in the Athens' horse?
Because the “fundamentalist problem" is not rooted in religion, the answer can’t be found in anti-theism, the preferred response of commentators like Bill Maher, Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins. Rather, American Protestants must learn to read the Bible as a religious text rather than a series of logical premises to be proven. The irony of debates like the one between Bill Nye and Ken Ham is that they pit two fundamentalist readers against each other. The fundamentalist Christian and the atheist both read the Bible as a series of falsifiable propositions — what Terry Eagleton calls the “Yeti" theory of belief. Disproving the creation narrative should strike any theologian as absurd — the way a literature professor would react if a student claimed to have “disproven" “Sons and Lovers."The best way to address the problem is to confront the underlying political and economic concerns that are obscured by religious dogma, rather than attacking the religion directly. Our problems require an entirely new political and economic paradigm, one that rests on understanding and empathetic action between people of all faiths. Religious reformers, concerned environmentalists, scientists and economists must work together toward a more sustainable future. Bill Nye is intensely concerned about climate change and evolution, as are we. He should therefore ally himself with sane religious leaders, rather than debate fundamentalists.
I am not sure if I agree with everything they write, but it is definitely worth thinking about.
What do you think about the article?
Very accurate to say Nye is wasting his time. These sort of debates have basically turned into intellectual muzak.
Very accurate to say Nye is wasting his time. These sort of debates have basically turned into intellectual muzak.what I can't figure out is, why is this one getting the attention it is? Nye is going on to Ham's turf, but that's not unusual. These debates usually end up as obscure YouTubes, not events sponsored by churches. as an aside, I think it's great if more people publicly state, "that's not my Christianity" with reference to Ham. The less support he gets, the better.
I’ll watch it, but I’m not too sanguine. From what I’ve seen, while I agree with the logic of atheism, none of these guys: Hutchins, Dawkins, Boghosian, etc. is a decent debator. They get shredded by someone who has far less data but far more oratory skill.
A local NPR station will be carrying it in So.Cal. so I would guess that it will be widely carried.
Occam
Nye is killing Ham. Flat-crushing him. He’s comfortable in his skin and doesn’t allow himself to be drawn onto the other guy’s turf. I hope every humanist will watch this. THIS is how to do it!
It’s on in So. Cal. Wednesday evening from 7:00 to 9:00. I’ll reserve further comment until after I watch it.
Occam
Supposedly, it was seen by between 6,000 and 4.5 billion.
I had to go participate in democracy, but the live bloggers are sounding fairly positive. Nye stayed on message and Ham, well, he did what you would expect. I think Nye had the advantage of his lack of reputation. It had me worried that he was untested, but it seems to have worked in his favor. And, points for correct choice of bowtie.
I had to go participate in democracy, but the live bloggers are sounding fairly positive. Nye stayed on message and Ham, well, he did what you would expect. I think Nye had the advantage of his lack of reputation. It had me worried that he was untested, but it seems to have worked in his favor. And, points for correct choice of bowtie.I don't get where people are coming from with this idea that Nye's "untested." The man did stand up comedy for years, so he's no doubt had to defend himself against hecklers, and unlike Ham, they're not going to be limited in the kinds of nasty things that they can say.
As much as I respect Bill Nye and all of his accomplishments in science education I hate to admit that his message was somewhat disjointed compared to Hams. It’s an unfortunate fact of life that you can have all the right answers and still lose the debate.
A good debater has to know his audience. Nye is giving his talk to simple people who believe in creation but the larger audience is made up of non-scientists who may be on the fence. Those are the people he needs to convince. To convince them you need a simple narrative with a few convincing examples.
Ham had a simple narrative with a common thread that he kept repeating like a drumbeat. Scientists are monopolizing the discussion and being hypocritical. The creationists have valid competing theories and in his view the evidence supports their explanation better than it does the standard scientific theories. He supported his ideas with flawed examples but in the mind of the average listener that wont matter. They will come away with the idea that science is being closed minded and there is good reason to look at both sides of the debate.
Nye should have done a better job explaining the flaws in Hams arguments ( and there were many - like the whole historical science dichotomy stupidity) and then given a few simple examples that even an 8 year old could understand. He rambled and gave far too many examples. Some of them were excellent, but others were ambiguous and for many in his audience the connection to the overall argument was probably difficult to make.
I watched the debate last night at CFI WNY. My viewpoint is that debating creationism is not the best way to deal with these fundamentalists. I think it would be more productive to debate the historical origins of the Bible and the influence it had on the development of Western Society. The Bible is a library of many different books by many different human authors, writing in the context of their own times and societies, attempting to influence particular groups. It is one of the most important collections in our civilization. These books were not written as a scientific document nor an objective history. In mind mid we should be pointing out constantly that it was and still is a political (in the broad sense) document that created a common heritage for many of us. We should be attacking these fundamentalists for their continued attempts at corrupting of this great library for their own “narrow minded” anti-human purposes.
I watched the debate last night at CFI WNY. My viewpoint is that debating creationism is not the best way to deal with these fundamentalists. I think it would be more productive to debate the historical origins of the Bible and the influence it had on the development of Western Society. The Bible is a library of many different books by many different human authors, writing in the context of their own times and societies, attempting to influence particular groups. It is one of the most important collections in our civilization. These books were not written as a scientific document nor an objective history. In mind mid we should be pointing out constantly that it was and still is a political (in the broad sense) document that created a common heritage for many of us. We should be attacking these fundamentalists for their continued attempts at corrupting of this great library for their own "narrow minded" anti-human purposes.I disagree, respectfully, but emphatically. The least effective thing to do is try to meet these characters on their turf. The reason Nye was so effective is that he didn't get baited into a debate about creationism, even though that's what the topic was, formally. He stayed on the science, which is his turf. The science refutes creationism but the debate was on Nye's turf. Nye stayed on the only useful subject matter in the debate. So when Ham put in his pitch for the Bible, he was only talking to the people who already agree with him. Nye educated people. I thought he was brilliant.
I watched the debate last night at CFI WNY. My viewpoint is that debating creationism is not the best way to deal with these fundamentalists. I think it would be more productive to debate the historical origins of the Bible and the influence it had on the development of Western Society. The Bible is a library of many different books by many different human authors, writing in the context of their own times and societies, attempting to influence particular groups. It is one of the most important collections in our civilization. These books were not written as a scientific document nor an objective history. In mind mid we should be pointing out constantly that it was and still is a political (in the broad sense) document that created a common heritage for many of us. We should be attacking these fundamentalists for their continued attempts at corrupting of this great library for their own "narrow minded" anti-human purposes.I should get a chance to listen to it soon. I agree with what you're saying, but I don't hear too many debates between fundamentalists and Methodists who just read the latest by Marcus Borg. In fact I've never heard of one. The closest thing would be internal conflicts in denominations over specific doctrines, like the homosexuality debates. This usually gets ugly. In that case, each side has something to gain, keeping congregants. The choice on creationism vs Bible as library was made for most churches many decades ago and congregants now have clear choices. So, no point in dredging that up again! Having these choices actually improves the group cohesion landscape, giving each something to define themselves.
I watched the debate last night at CFI WNY. My viewpoint is that debating creationism is not the best way to deal with these fundamentalists. I think it would be more productive to debate the historical origins of the Bible and the influence it had on the development of Western Society. The Bible is a library of many different books by many different human authors, writing in the context of their own times and societies, attempting to influence particular groups. It is one of the most important collections in our civilization. These books were not written as a scientific document nor an objective history. In mind mid we should be pointing out constantly that it was and still is a political (in the broad sense) document that created a common heritage for many of us. We should be attacking these fundamentalists for their continued attempts at corrupting of this great library for their own "narrow minded" anti-human purposes.I also think this is the best approach. Christianity is a faith based belief system, as my ministers liked to tell me when I had questions they didn't have answers to. That means you can adapt the metaphors in the Bible to meet your spiritual needs, the Bible was never intended to be used as a historical or literal document. It's there as a guide to ongoing faith based religion. Science is about an ever evolving body of knowledge that needs to be verifiable or the interpretation of the observed phenomena gets turfed. Priests don't design modern electronics, aircraft, medical procedures, etc... because their knowledge isn't applicable in the physical world. Creationism answers a need for spiritual fulfilment for some people, when applied to modern evidence regarding the origins of life and the universe it makes no sense at all, unless you assume God is being intentionally deceptive by placing all the evidence for evolution that we find constantly, from the fossil record to molecular biology. Nye may as well been debating how many fairies you can comfortably fit into your mouth without gagging.
I watched the debate last night at CFI WNY. My viewpoint is that debating creationism is not the best way to deal with these fundamentalists. I think it would be more productive to debate the historical origins of the Bible and the influence it had on the development of Western Society. The Bible is a library of many different books by many different human authors, writing in the context of their own times and societies, attempting to influence particular groups. It is one of the most important collections in our civilization. These books were not written as a scientific document nor an objective history. In mind mid we should be pointing out constantly that it was and still is a political (in the broad sense) document that created a common heritage for many of us. We should be attacking these fundamentalists for their continued attempts at corrupting of this great library for their own "narrow minded" anti-human purposes.I don't think that there's a "one size fits all" method of getting a person to realize that religion is foolishness. As a military minded man once said, "A frontal attack isn't always the best. They're expecting you to come at them from that direction. If you can sweep in from the sides or the rear, the enemy is more likely to surrender without much of a fight." (Paraphrased from memory, so I'm sure its not exactly right.) If someone is willing to believe that God allowed Satan to bury fossils in the ground to encourage people to believe in evolution (and thus turn away from God), then getting them to believe that certain books (or versions of certain books) were created by Satan is no trouble at all.
Pat Robertson tells Ken Ham to STFU!]
Pat Robertson responded to the recent debate between Young Earth creationist Ken Ham and Bill Nye, a.k.a. “The Science Guy," by reiterating his disagreement with Ham’s form of creationism.
“Let’s face it," Robertson said, “there was a Bishop [Ussher] who added up the dates listed in Genesis and he came up with the world had been around for 6,000 years."
“There ain’t no way that’s possible," he continued. “To say that it all came about in 6,000 years is just nonsense and I think it’s time we come off of that stuff and say this isn’t possible."
“Let’s be real, let’s not make a joke of ourselves."
“We’ve got to be realistic," he concluded, and admit “that the dating of Bishop Ussher just doesn’t comport with anything that is found in science and you can’t just totally deny the geological formations that are out there."
As much as I respect Bill Nye and all of his accomplishments in science education I hate to admit that his message was somewhat disjointed compared to Hams. It's an unfortunate fact of life that you can have all the right answers and still lose the debate. A good debater has to know his audience. Nye is giving his talk to simple people who believe in creation but the larger audience is made up of non-scientists who may be on the fence. Those are the people he needs to convince. To convince them you need a simple narrative with a few convincing examples. Ham had a simple narrative with a common thread that he kept repeating like a drumbeat. Scientists are monopolizing the discussion and being hypocritical. The creationists have valid competing theories and in his view the evidence supports their explanation better than it does the standard scientific theories. He supported his ideas with flawed examples but in the mind of the average listener that wont matter. They will come away with the idea that science is being closed minded and there is good reason to look at both sides of the debate. Nye should have done a better job explaining the flaws in Hams arguments ( and there were many - like the whole historical science dichotomy stupidity) and then given a few simple examples that even an 8 year old could understand. He rambled and gave far too many examples. Some of them were excellent, but others were ambiguous and for many in his audience the connection to the overall argument was probably difficult to make.A simple narrative is easy when you are talking about Adam an Eve, or any parable. It's not so simple if you are talking about science and the scientific method. There is no way a debater could turn evolutiinary theory into a simple story for simple people. It would be like trying make a young child understand why Santa Claus is impossible. I don't think there is any way Nye could have made it simple enough for that audience, which is one good reason for rationalists not to get involved in debates of this nature. It creates an impossible task for anyone supporting evolution or just plain common sense, or science over fantasy. I don't agree that "creationists have valid competing theories." They have fantasies, which it's impossible to talk people out of, no matter how simple one might make it. Stephen Jay Gould gave up on debating Creationists because, he said, it was waste of time and an impossible task. It's like debating a child. You simply can't make it simple enough for them to get the merest inkling of what you're talking about. It is a losing game for rational people. Gould gave Richard Dawkins this advice when Dawkins planned to debate a creationist. Gould said, "Don't do it." The point is not, he said, whether or not you would 'win' the debate. Winning is not what the creationists realistically aspire to. For them, it is sufficient that the debate happens at all. They need the publicity. We don't. To the gullible public which is their natural constituency, it is enough that their man is seen sharing a platform with a real scientist. "There must be something in creationism, or Dr So-and-So would not have agreed to debate it on equal terms." Inevitably, when you turn down the invitation you will be accused of cowardice, or of inability to defend your own beliefs. But that is better than supplying the creationists with what they crave: the oxygen of respectability in the world of real science. See more, here: http://old.richarddawkins.net/articles/119-why-i-won-39-t-debate-creationists Lois
Lois I agree with you that there is a danger in doing these debates. It does elevate the creationist to a level of respect that they do not deserve. On the other hand there are lots of people who are on the fence on this issue and millions have visited the creationist museum. To the untrained mind Ham’s arguments might seem compelling so there is certainly an argument to be made for presenting a coherent explanation so people can understand why creationism is not science.
The key I think is in avoiding the trap that creationist set when they try to make this look like a debate between world views and two equally valid opinions which it is not. Nye should have spent more time explaining the scientific method and why creationism is not science.
I disagree that evolution and science can not be simplified into basic concepts that people can understand. I do it every day with topics as or more complex than those involved in evolution when I talk to patients. The key is to break down the concepts into simple ideas that a child can understand and then build on those concepts.
Good debaters of course have to do more than just explain things in a way people can understand. They have to find ways to help their audience relate to what they are saying. Using analogies from everyday life often makes an idea more relateable and therefor more acceptable to people. Nye did this but the relevance of his examples were not always obvious. As unfair as it may be, humor also helps. How many political debates have been “won” with a brilliant quip delivered at the right time. Nye attempted this but stumbled more often than he succeeded. Those sorts of things may be meaningless from a scientific standpoint but they do win people over.
It also helps to know your opponent, anticipate their arguments, and be well prepared with counter arguments. Nye did a particularly poor job for example when the question from the audience came up about the second law of thermodynamics. He rambled about converting mechanical energy to heat when he should have explained why the question had been asked in the first place and then discussed entropy and why that does not apply to an open system like the earth. Not an easy thing to do with a non-science audience but something that a science popularizer and educator like Nye could have sailed through if he had been well prepared in advance. He rambled far too much and I think he lost his audience more than once.
Just finished watching it. I thought it went well. Nye went off on a few tangents, but he generally stayed on message that science makes predictions, it embraces questions and “it is unsettling” that we would abandon all the facts gathered over the centuries as well as the method used to acquire them.
Ham had a bit of advantage during the rebuttals when he was listing scientific claims and saying they were bad interpretations. But even then, he was giving people lists of things that they could simply look up and verify. Many will only look at evidence given by other creationists, but some will look elsewhere. That’s the best we can hope for.