Last night, Bill Nye, best known as "the Science Guy," and Ken Ham, founder of the Creation Museum in Kentucky met to debate Ham's assertion that the creation account as recorded in the Bible should be presented alongside evolution in science classes across our nation.
Bill Nye recently made the statement that creationism is not appropriate for kids and that "if parents want to deny evolution...that's fine, but don't make your kids do it because we need them, we need engineers that can build stuff, solve problems."
Why should you care about any of this?
Well, if you are a Christian or adhere to any religious doctrine, you should care because the status quo in regard to such things sets a certain environment in education, determines what can and can not be taught in your child's school, driving the way that textbooks are written, and potentially setting the stage for a world view that may be in opposition to your own.
As a supporter of science and technology, you should care because many perceive Biblical creationism as a threat to science and its applications today. They think that a belief in creationism might answer too many questions, thereby squelching the pursuit of knowledge and inquiry, resulting in a decline in creativity and innovation in the United States.
Definitions
creationism-belief that life arose as recorded in the book of Genesis in the Bible, with God creating heavens and the earth and everything in it over the course of 6 days; resulting from genealogy as is laid out in the Bible, creationists believe that the earth is between six and ten thousand years old.
intelligent design- the theory that life, or the universe, cannot have arisen by chance and was designed and created by some intelligent entity (Online dictionary)
evolution-theory that asserts that "life arose from non-life" and that "over millions of years, matter became more complex until, by some chance of volcanic activity or lightning, there was a sudden transformation to the organic state, the beginning of life." Evolutionists believe that the earth is billions of years old. More specifically, this is macroevolution.
microevolution- theory approved by generally all scientists; presently observable premise that there is "evolutionary change within a species or small group of organisms, esp. over a short period." (online dictionary)
natural selection-"the process whereby organisms better adapted to their environment tend to survive and produce more offspring. The theory of its action was first fully expounded upon by Charles Darwin and is now believed to be the main process that brings about evolution." (online dictionary) Note again, this is generally accepted in the scientific community by both creationists and evolutionists. The difference lies in the fact that evolutionists group all living things together in one family line, while creationists believe that natural selection occurs only within a kind or species.
My Summary
I saw most of the debate but not all. Here is my account from what I gleaned from those moments. I in no way mean to put words in either man's mouth. I am just sharing the events as I remember them.
Ken Ham did an effective job of expressing the fact that there are many scientists with PHDs who adhere to the creationist view of the origin of life, some of whom even joined the debate by video and shared their views.
Ham also shared some of the weaknesses of the radiometric dating method, highlighting instances in which its results have been proven inaccurate.
Additionally, he explained that we have seen no observable instances in which DNA has been added to facilitate change in an organism, pointing out at least one example in which this was thought to be so, but turned out to be incorrect. The DNA in that particular organism had been there all along but simply was not activated until a certain point in time.
These were some of his strongest points, in my opinion. A significant amount of his time was spent discussing the teachings of the Bible, which may have gone over well with fundamentalist Christians but not so much among those in the general scientific community.
Nye came out confidently, presenting a well-earned wealth of knowledge, encompassing about every field of science a person could think of. He came across as a person open to change in any instance in which reliable physical evidence is found to support it.
While Ham spent time distinguishing between observable and historical science, Nye emphasized the importance of utilizing previously acquired knowledge to move forward in our understanding of the world, thereby promoting discovery and innovation.
He made a strong point of expressing his opinion that Ham's creation model only attempts to answer questions about life's origins, while showing no potential of scientific progress or capabilities. He challenged Ham to offer any one scientific prediction he could make as a result of his creation model of science. Ham didn't produce on that one.
My Take
People have a tendency to emphasize the facts that support their previous held opinions, while ignoring those that do not.
Every person approaches this argument with presuppositions.
It is easy for creationists and proponents of intelligent design to perceive scientific discovery as evidence of the hand of God or a designer. The fact that people have made amazing mathematical predictions that have been confirmed in the field of astronomy only strengthens their belief that all that is seen in the universe was created by design. That things observed in the world can be backed up by logic and good sense fuels their belief that the heavens and the earth did not just happen, but were created with a purpose and a plan.
Those presuppositions are easier for me to grasp because they line up with my own.
Though I believe most evolutionists won't admit it, they have their own presuppositions as well. I found a list of them written by D.Q. Inerny in his "Philosophical Psychology" textbook, written as follows...
-Life came to be through natural means with no need for divine intervention.
-"Life arose from non-life" and "over millions of years, matter became more complex until, by some chance volcanic activity or lightning, there was a sudden transformation to the organic state, the beginning of life."
-All life on earth has descended from one primitive form of life.
-"It all began with a simple cell that underwent changes."
-Natural selection-survival of the fittest (check out definition in Definitions section)
-The process happens without direction.
Sometimes you just have to lay it all on the table, so here it goes...
For Ken Ham and creation scientists, I think you will be most productive if you will bang the Bible a little less and get into the lab and textbooks a little more. There are great scholarly articles at the answersingenesis.org. Focus on those and continue to develop more of them.
We all know that the framework of all that you do is God and His Word. I adhere to that and greatly respect it.
Yet, you've got to remember who you're dealing with. These people are looking for concrete facts and are not likely to sway their notions in response to Bible verses. Let God's truth guide and direct you as you endeavor to seek more answers in the scientific world in effort to back up design. It's all around us. Keep going.
To evolutionists, I would suggest that you stop putting misleading stuff in our textbooks. If this is a done deal as you all claim, there would be no need to mislead.
In his book, "Icons of Evolution," Biologist Jonathan Wells shares that a number of textbooks continue to share inaccurate evidence for evolution long after they had been refuted by science. Examples are...
-Haeckel's embryo drawings. It has been know since the 1860s that they were falsified. That they even made it into 20th and 21st century textbooks is enough to make one believe that deception is the underlying intent.
-The Miller experiment. Though we now know that the the early atmosphere was not at all like the one that Stanley Miller used, this is still shared in many Biology texts without critique.
-Lack of acknowledgment that there are weaknesses in Darwin's "Tree of Life" model. The Cambrian Explosion raises far too many questions about the theory of evolution for students not to be taught about the weaknesses of the theory.
I'm good with having theories in our textbooks, lies not so much.
As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, "The means that we use must be as pure as the ends that we seek."
Stay true. Then we'll listen to what you have to say.
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