Random Rambles: Science vs. Creationism
Many people have seen the whole debate with Bill Nye and Ken Ham. Many also agree that Ham's Austrailian accent was pretty awesome. In fact, I think most of his followers were attracted to Ham because of that sexy voice. Regardless, the debate was pretty laughable; Bill Nye just tried to rally a bunch of evidence to prove that evolution was true as a historical science while Ham was just saying the Bible is the source of information that was the ultimate truth. Nye realized pretty quickly that Ham was just going to say that his model was true by refuting Nye's points and by saying that the model is the "only" reliable source of historical science. I especially loved it when Nye asked Ham for specific information and Ham said we would have to take it on faith when Ham attacked Nye's evidence all this time. Nye's evidence was pretty sound and Ham could only call technicalities to hopefully trip Nye up.
But Ham still had some good points that he brought up. He questioned the schools' differentiation between historical and observational science and he also questioned the assumptions scientists had to make. The irony about this though is that Ham is "assuming" that God is real by just quoting the Bible and it became a thing where he's just say, "Well Bill, there's a book that explains this called the Bible," and the audience would start laughing until it became really old. His attack on the technicalities did reveal some of the limitations of our science today as many things are still unknown. However, his argument on indoctrination does seem to fall flat because even though students should have the freedom to choose what they feel, the students should still know the mainstream science knowledge.
Other than that, I really do not have much to talk about. Nye just winged a lot of the presentation it seemed just based on the fact that all he needed to do is just bring up solid evidence. Ham was pretty bad at proving his points. Even a Christian website had a poll where 91% of them believed Nye won. It was all one-sided. And Nye sounds very old now which makes me sad.
But this brings up a point I want to make: we should not have these debates. This debate was a colossal waste of time for Nye and Ham since they did not prove anything to each other. These creationists are free to believe in what they want even if it isn't necessarily factual. Like Nye realized, we can't make the creationists change their faith as they are obstinate in their beliefs. Nye could not do much and so he chose to make the entire thing a more educational process. In fact, nobody learned anything and we just heard the same things each side has brought up time and time again. Creationists tend to be somewhat misinformed in their beliefs and their "5000-year-old Earth" belief is riddled with holes. Scientists have a lot of information but tend to be arrogant in giving their points to ignorant people. This rivalry between the two groups is infuriating because it doesn't matter in the end. Many people walked away still believing in Ham's theory, some people believed in a more deistic point of view, and some believed in the Big Bang. The debate did not prove anything and there was no reason to bring up the same points again. We end up just seeing a more psychological representation of each group as creationists are more like conservatives while scientists are more like liberals. Both groups have their pros and cons while many people are in the gray area between the two groups.
Nye shouldn't have accepted the debate in the first place and I can see that he was just exasperated by the Q&A segment where Ham would say the same thing over and over and over and over about the Bible. Even though he decimated Ham's argument, Nye didn't gain anything from this except the opportunity to educate a tiny, tiny minority of people. Nye respects Ham's beliefs in the end but he still believes in his ideas of evolution and the universe because of the obvious evidence. Creationism never had a good account as everything is just based on the Bible which is the final "conclusion" while scientists use evidence to make a conclusion instead. The constant struggle between the ideologies is also exemplified by comment sections in social media as science guys are constantly astounded by the oblivious state of some creationists.
Now I'm not saying that creationism is necessarily bad but I do believe in science. And Ham did not convince me on much of anything. The debate was a waste of 3 hours of my life and I wished that something interesting would happen instead of us hearing the same stuff. Each group is free to express their beliefs but they probably shouldn't clash because of how heated these insipid debates get. In the end, the debate will continue, however, and we are powerless to stop the storm.
But Ham still had some good points that he brought up. He questioned the schools' differentiation between historical and observational science and he also questioned the assumptions scientists had to make. The irony about this though is that Ham is "assuming" that God is real by just quoting the Bible and it became a thing where he's just say, "Well Bill, there's a book that explains this called the Bible," and the audience would start laughing until it became really old. His attack on the technicalities did reveal some of the limitations of our science today as many things are still unknown. However, his argument on indoctrination does seem to fall flat because even though students should have the freedom to choose what they feel, the students should still know the mainstream science knowledge.
Other than that, I really do not have much to talk about. Nye just winged a lot of the presentation it seemed just based on the fact that all he needed to do is just bring up solid evidence. Ham was pretty bad at proving his points. Even a Christian website had a poll where 91% of them believed Nye won. It was all one-sided. And Nye sounds very old now which makes me sad.
But this brings up a point I want to make: we should not have these debates. This debate was a colossal waste of time for Nye and Ham since they did not prove anything to each other. These creationists are free to believe in what they want even if it isn't necessarily factual. Like Nye realized, we can't make the creationists change their faith as they are obstinate in their beliefs. Nye could not do much and so he chose to make the entire thing a more educational process. In fact, nobody learned anything and we just heard the same things each side has brought up time and time again. Creationists tend to be somewhat misinformed in their beliefs and their "5000-year-old Earth" belief is riddled with holes. Scientists have a lot of information but tend to be arrogant in giving their points to ignorant people. This rivalry between the two groups is infuriating because it doesn't matter in the end. Many people walked away still believing in Ham's theory, some people believed in a more deistic point of view, and some believed in the Big Bang. The debate did not prove anything and there was no reason to bring up the same points again. We end up just seeing a more psychological representation of each group as creationists are more like conservatives while scientists are more like liberals. Both groups have their pros and cons while many people are in the gray area between the two groups.
Nye shouldn't have accepted the debate in the first place and I can see that he was just exasperated by the Q&A segment where Ham would say the same thing over and over and over and over about the Bible. Even though he decimated Ham's argument, Nye didn't gain anything from this except the opportunity to educate a tiny, tiny minority of people. Nye respects Ham's beliefs in the end but he still believes in his ideas of evolution and the universe because of the obvious evidence. Creationism never had a good account as everything is just based on the Bible which is the final "conclusion" while scientists use evidence to make a conclusion instead. The constant struggle between the ideologies is also exemplified by comment sections in social media as science guys are constantly astounded by the oblivious state of some creationists.
Now I'm not saying that creationism is necessarily bad but I do believe in science. And Ham did not convince me on much of anything. The debate was a waste of 3 hours of my life and I wished that something interesting would happen instead of us hearing the same stuff. Each group is free to express their beliefs but they probably shouldn't clash because of how heated these insipid debates get. In the end, the debate will continue, however, and we are powerless to stop the storm.
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