Bill Nye: Bible doesn't tell Earth's true history
© AP / Bill Nye
Bill Nye: Bible doesn't tell Earth's true history
Feb. 5, 2014, 8:34 AM EST
By DYLAN LOVAN , Associated Press
PETERSBURG, Ky. (AP) — True to his passionate and animated TV persona, "Science Guy" Bill Nye tapped on the podium, threw up his hands and noted that science shows the Earth is "billions and billions" of years old in a debate at a Kentucky museum known for teaching that the planet's age is only 6,000.
Nye was debating Creation Museum founder Ken Ham and promoting science in the snappy way that made him a pop culture staple as host of "Bill Nye The Science Guy" in the 1990s.
The event was meant to explore the age old question, "How did we get here?" from the perspectives of faith and science.
Ham, an Australian native who has built a thriving ministry in Kentucky, said he trusts the story of creation presented by the Bible.
"The Bible is the word of God," Ham said. "I admit that's where I start from."
Nye delivered a passionate speech on science and challenged the museum's teachings on the age of the earth and the Bible's flood story. Like most scientists, Nye believes there is no credible evidence that the world is only 6,000 years old.
"If we accept Mr. Ham's point of view ... that the Bible serves as a science text and he and his followers will interpret that for you, I want you to consider what that means," Nye said. "It means that Mr. Ham's word is to be more respected than what you can observe in nature, what you can find in your backyard in Kentucky."
The event drew dozens of national media outlets and about 800 tickets sold out in minutes. Ham said ahead of the debate that the Creation Museum was having a peak day on its social media sites.
"I think it shows you that the majority of people out there, they're interested in this topic, they want to know about this, they don't want debate shut down," Ham said before the debate.
At times, the debate had the feel of a university lecture, with slides and long-form presentations.
Responding to an audience question about where atoms and matter come from, Nye said scientists are continuing to find out.
Ham said he already knows the answer.
"Bill, I want to tell you, there is a book that tells where atoms come from, and its starts out, 'In the beginning ...,'" Ham said.
Nye said there are plenty of religious people around the world who don't question evolution science.
"I just want to remind us all there are billions of people in the world who are deeply religious, who get enriched by the wonderful sense of community by their religion," said Nye, who wore his trademark bow tie. "But these same people do not embrace the extraordinary view that the Earth is somehow only 6,000 years old."
The debate drew a few Nye disciples in the audience, including Aaron Swomley, who wore a red bowtie and white lab coat. Swomley said he was impressed by Ham's presentation and the debate's respectful tone.
"I think they did a good job outlining their own arguments without getting too heated, as these debates tend to get," he said.
Some scientists had been critical of Nye for agreeing to debate the head of a Christian ministry that is dismissive of evolution.
Jerry Coyne, an evolution professor at the University of Chicago, wrote on his blog that "Nye's appearance will be giving money to organizations who try to subvert the mission Nye has had all his life: science education, particularly of kids." Coyne pointed out that the Creation Museum will be selling DVDs of the event.
The debate was hatched after Nye appeared in an online video in 2012 that urged parents not to pass their religious-based doubts about evolution on to their children. Ham rebutted Nye's statements with his own online video and the two later agreed to share a stage.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methuselah
Interestingly, that wiki page provides an additional flaw in using the age of Biblical characters to calculate the age of the Earth: different traditions provide different ages for the same characters.
Then it is all right to pass science-based doubts about evolution on to one's children.
Good!
But is it all right if the evolution True Believers, in turn, reply to those who doubt evolution for scientific reasons by claiming they obviously have a "religious agenda"? I don't think so. Yet that is what most Darwin acolytes do — that is what Jerry Coyne has always done.
More mysterious than where atoms come from is the mystery of where "ought" statements come from, since they indicate the existence of a non-physical moral dimension that cannot be derived or deduced from atoms or indicative "is" statements about atoms, or physical things made up of atoms.
I saw his blog post, but so far I've only read about half of it because it was really long. I'll have to finish reading it.
Ham said he already knows the answer.
"Bill, I want to tell you, there is a book that tells where atoms come from, and its starts out, 'In the beginning ...,'" Ham said.
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And that, my friends, is how religious nutjobs shut themselves off from gaining new knowledge. They tell themselves they already have the answer, and therefore no more research is needed. They become closed to new information, killing off any hope of a new idea. That mentality is the antithesis of scientific reasoning, and the death-knell of logic.
And no, the belief that God created atoms does not, in fact, tell us WHERE they came from, nor does it tell us HOW they were created. The religious approach only tells WHO the creator was. This inability to distinguish between "who," "where," and "how" is just one example of the sort of irrationality that such religious fundamentalists exhibit. This Ham guy is an idiot.
This is special pleading. It's the fallacy where people argue no matter what test or observation someone does, they say that is just an exception. It's completely different from making a prediction before the experiment/observation.
I don't want to give creationists personally a hard time, but I reject any notion that creationism is a scientific claim.
I also would take issue on your statement that the majority of creationists are Old Earth. I think it's fair to say Young Earth is the orthodox Christian position, though i don't think people get dogmatic proclaiming it happened on "Sunday, 23 October 4004 BC". If it's not the dominant position, I'd say the viewpoints are split pretty close to 50/50.
I believe in evolution and the mostly random assemblage of the solar system, but I can't prove that's what happened. I also can't prove there isn't a God who put it all together and included all the extra little bits just to keep the scientists busy. Maybe the creationists are right, but I really don't think so.
We discussed the event afterwards and she reached the conclusion that Mr. Ham was wrong about the age of Earth. She is of the opinion that the world is “bunches of millions of years old” but that god created it and us.
It’s really remarkable watching a young one form their first impressions and opinions of the world.