Evolution vs. Creation
Watch/listen to Bill Nye debate Ken Ham about evolution and creation.
edit
I forgot to link this article (h/t Filippo Salustri) about why this debate is a waste of time. via Salon http://goo.gl/ZelyN1
#ScienceEveryday
Originally shared by Liz Krane
RIGHT NOW: Bill Nye Debates Creationist Ken Ham Live
The videos that sparked the debate:
Bill Nye: Creationism Is Not Appropriate For Children
Ken Ham Responds to Bill Nye “The Humanist Guy”
Why is Bill Nye even doing this in the first place? The Science Guy says, “I decided to participate in the debate because I felt it would draw attention to the importance of science education here in the United States.”
“Tuesday’s debate will be about whether Ham’s creation model is viable or useful for describing nature. We cannot use his model to predict the outcome of any experiment, design a tool, cure a disease or describe natural phenomena with mathematics.
These are all things that parents in the United States very much want their children to be able to do; everyone wants his or her kids to have common sense, to be able to reason clearly and to be able to succeed in the world.”
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2014/02/04/why-im-debating-creationist-ken-ham/
NPR will be covering the debate here:
February 5, 2014
I wouldn’t use Damadian as an example.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Vahan_Damadian#Nobel_Prize_controversy
February 5, 2014
via Rich Pollett
While it’s going on, play along with Creationism Bingo! Get cards:
http://www.vocativ.com/content/uploads/2014/02/Creationism-Bingo.pdf
February 5, 2014
Ah the fun of fact checking.
Also, page not found. No bingo 🙁
February 5, 2014
Try this Carissa Braun
http://www.vocativ.com/02-2014/creationism-drinking-game/
February 5, 2014
Set and ready to play 😉
February 5, 2014
I can’t bring myself to watch! 🙁
February 5, 2014
Not enough wine, Rajini Rao ?
February 5, 2014
I’d have to be dead drunk first 🙂
I know that I’ll just get annoyed. Not sure I can deal with that now.
February 5, 2014
Bill Nye is a Seahawks fan, the debate is over. Everybody go home!
February 5, 2014
I had to turn it off. The Ham guy is a blabbering idiot.
February 5, 2014
Gah. Nye is simply not as charismatic or as good a speaker as Ham. No where near, in fact.
February 5, 2014
True, but in all fairness he doesn’t have the accent.
February 5, 2014
I don’t think bill nye has done as good a job as he could have. From a lay point of view, this has been a lot closer than it should have been.
February 5, 2014
Good to hear, thanks for the summary Jason Mitchell . He’s a brave man in a way.
February 5, 2014
Jason Mitchell I don’t think it was that clear cut. You’re judging it as a scientist. You deal in a world where models can make predictions and that’s what Bill Nye tried to get across. Unfortunately, most of the public isn’t concerned about predictions. They’re concerned about right now. I think that’s where Ham had the advantage. His brand of science refers back to the Bible so it doesn’t need to predict. Nye hailed the beauty of science and its ability to make predictions. Ham hailed the beauty of religion in its ability to provide the answers to the here and now.
Whether or not Ham’s answers are rational is irrelevant to the general public because he was articulate and Nye was not. Ken Ham has a talent for speaking and that alone gave him the edge. The flow of his argument was a lot easier to follow than that of Nye’s, if you consider it from the point of someone with very little science background. I wouldn’t easily hand this debate to Nye.
February 5, 2014
It does make you want to fast forward. However then we would be accused of confirmation bias and the like.
February 5, 2014
Mark Bruce I respect that opinion, but feel that that the debates unfortunately must happen. The internet has granted humanity a breath-taking freedom of thought and ideas. But it has shifted the core of discourse away from centralized gatekeepers in the form of newspapers and news media, and distributed it among everyone. Unfortunately the belief that once all information is free, the best results naturally fall out… proved false. The gatekeepers that were previously so reviled as undemocratic, were the same forces who keep extreme opinions extreme by refusing to legitimize them. Now they need no legitimization, because no institution anymore has the authority to declare what is or is not true. In the absence of a moderator, people choose whatever they will from the glut of opinions available. The only choice is to challenge poor opinions directly.
* Economics and media consolidation also played a role in the failure of the fourth estate.
February 5, 2014
Mark Bruce – Agreed, completely. I was ranting about exactly that while watching a Sam Harris / Deepak Chopra “debate”. This isn’t a debate. Your belief system is not based on fact, logic and deduction. Ergo, it cannot be “argued”. I’m not sure I know what the answer is to this whole problem, to be fair (I also lack a cultural context and background in this specific issue). I just keep coming back to the question “When and how was this even allowed to become a valid thought rather than a belief?”
February 5, 2014
I edited the post because I just remembered this article that Filippo Salustri posted :
New Atheism’s big mistake: Debating creationists solves nothing
http://goo.gl/ZelyN1
February 5, 2014
Gita Jaisinghani Six-pack Chopra is the king of woo. I just ignore anything from him.
February 5, 2014
AS should everyone, Chad Haney – especially scientists.