Ken Ham vs Bill Nye: Thoughts

To start things of,



Losing eyesight in order to sharpen the other senses so as to function in darkness is not evolution, that's discard and draw, as in throw something away as a trade off for something that MIGHT be better. Evolution would be developing night vision although the genetic material does not allow for such things.



On to the main topic.



I won't be talking about who won or lost, the only way to know that is to see if the US government will implement the Creationist Model in schools in the near future. Instead I will be talking about my thoughts about both scientists and some points of interest.



First, Mr Ken Ham. Throughout his presentation Mr Ham had brought forth very compelling arguments as to why the Creationist Model is a better alternative to the evolutionary model. He answered all questions posed to him and also had good rebuttals towards Mr Nye's questions. The issue is whether the answers are accepted by the scientific community but that's another story. What he failed to do however, was answer Mr Nye's fears regarding the effect on scientific development in the future if a scientific model based on "A book written by men over centuries and translated countless times" was used instead of the current model. Mr Ham also failed to answer why the Creationist Model should be used instead of the evolutionary model, all he did was point out what was good about the model, not how it could be applied, which hardly assuaged Mr Nye's fears as it were, based on his questions throughout the debate.



Mr Bill Nye did a better job at answering the main question of the debate, and that's about it.  Throughout the debate he just used the stock evolutionary arguments and although he poked holes in Mr Ham's argument, he did not give us anything that is BETTER then what Mr Ham proposed, just because you prove someone wrong does not make you automatically right, it just means everyone could have f***** up somewhere. One example that stands out was the lungfish living in the cave and I have already given my answer for that (Look Above).



Interesting points:



Historical Science vs Observational Science:

The CSI example was cute. Firstly forensics can't magically, or technologically, reveal who the killer is or tell what EXACTLY happened. It only gives an idea of what COULD have happened and as more evidence is revealed, we get a an idea of what MOST LIKELY happened. This is also shown in the shows as the officers in the show still need to get confessions in order to charge and in real life is the reason why courts have something could "Reasonable Doubt" and "Probability"



Looping around, Mr Nye's example only reinforces the fact that the past could be RADICALLY different from the present but we can't know that DEFINITIVELY, we can only infer based on the evidence we have presently and as I stated earlier, what we now know may be either totally erroneous, or we may be correct but we do not have the full picture.



Stagnation of scientific progress:

 



That's quite an unlikely supposition and in fact Mr Ham had brought forth many examples of creationist scientists who are doing good wok in the field such as Danny Faulkner and Stuart Burgess. Also man will never stop trying to improve or go above and beyond their limits or horizons, in areas such as sports we are constantly seeing the growth of new talent and better athletes than the previous  generation and new training techniques are being developed. In regards to dieting and healthcare new ideas are being tested and proposed daily and new information is constantly being discovered as to why this is healthy or otherwise. Basically, mankind will never stop developing and improving and inventing and creating, the Christians because we want to give glory to God and the Non-Christians because they want to one-up God, which works out find either way I guess.



New Hypothsis:

Well not just Christians, any scientist I'm sure can't really say what new scientific idea or theory will arise in future but the Creationist Model aims, I think, to give the new generation a good foundation to build and then to test and probe. To break ground one needs to know the ground and HOW to break ground in the first place. I think this ties in to Mr Nye's constant harping on processes and processes and the glory and wonder of the natural processes. But I think he fails to grasp that having processes without fundamental knowledge of what exactly drives these processes, how things were placed at the beginning and what the parameters are from the very start, will only result in gaps which could, scratch that, would be filled with limited or narrow-minded human knowledge, which would result in narrow-minded, limited development along well-beaten dead horses and paths. Where's the scientific progress and development then?



All in all, this entire exercise has just been my point of view and thoughts about this whole debate. Love it , Hate it, it is just an opinion so don't rage or flame. Personally I believe that science and God must go together.



Final note. During the debate Mr Nye stated that if any scientist could come up with a new theory they would  be welcomed as heroes. So where's Mr Ham's heroes welcome?