Bill Nye vs Ken Ham: Fight, Fight, Fight!

[idlehands]

What debate? It's like two men talking to brick walls.

[KuroTenshi]

mdk said
sometimes I wish RPG had upvotes.

[Captain Jordan]

Beatrix said
My Bible says that Jordan is a the cursed word and that the dragon is the prettiest girl at the post office.

I hate that word, Bea. But thank you, your worship is well received.

[Card]

Yeah, that's public debating.

I'm no expert, but I've seen a few. No one wins. There are no judges; these are named, well respected individuals (respected by somebody, at least). Who are you going to get to tell one of them that they lost? The only time there's clear victory conditions is the rare occasion when they have the audience take a position before and after, like Intelligence Squared. It becomes more of a casual discourse at some point, and when the debate is more than a dick measuring contest, it can be interesting to see them discuss.

I didn't watch this one because it looked sounded like a big dick contest (and I had other things I wanted to do). How was/is it?

[mdk]

Card said
Yeah, that's public debating. I'm no expert, but I've seen a few. No one wins. There are no judges; these are named, well respected individuals (respected by somebody, at least). Who are you going to get to tell one of them that they lost? The only time there's clear victory conditions is the rare occasion when they have the audience take a position before and after, like Intelligence Squared. It becomes more of a casual discourse at some point, and when the debate is more than a dick measuring contest, it can be interesting to see them discuss. I didn't watch this one because it looked sounded like a big dick contest (and I had other things I wanted to do). How was/is it?

They each talked for about 45 minutes (a piece) before they started debating one another, at which point my connection died. From the bits that I saw, Bill Nye won the things he bothered to talk about, and Ham's overall position was more intellectually interesting.

[Captain Jordan]

Card said
Yeah, that's public debating. I'm no expert, but I've seen a few. No one wins. There are no judges; these are named, well respected individuals (respected by somebody, at least). Who are you going to get to tell one of them that they lost? The only time there's clear victory conditions is the rare occasion when they have the audience take a position before and after, like Intelligence Squared. It becomes more of a casual discourse at some point, and when the debate is more than a dick measuring contest, it can be interesting to see them discuss. I didn't watch this one because it looked sounded like a big dick contest (and I had other things I wanted to do). How was/is it?

It made it clear to me that Bill Nye is a great presenter to kids but not to adults, but wonderful at argumentative rebuttals.

Ken Ham is a wonderful presenter with honeyed words, but, well, I'll let this graphic explain what he does wrong:

[Shy]

Captain Jordan said
It made it clear to me that Bill Nye is a great presenter to kids but not to adults, but wonderful at argumentative rebuttals. Ken Ham is a wonderful presenter with honeyed words, but, well, I'll let this graphic explain what he does wrong:

This

[mdk]

Captain Jordan said
It made it clear to me that Bill Nye is a great presenter to kids but not to adults, but wonderful at argumentative rebuttals. Ken Ham is a wonderful presenter with honeyed words, but, well, I'll let this graphic explain what he does wrong:

From the reactions I've read, Ham's big mistake was coming in christian.

[Beatrix]

Captain Jordan said
It made it clear to me that Bill Nye is a great presenter to kids but not to adults, but wonderful at argumentative rebuttals. Ken Ham is a wonderful presenter with honeyed words, but, well, I'll let this graphic explain what he does wrong:

Asshole. Stealing the image I sent you.

[KuroTenshi]

So much science on his lap top

[NotAMouse]

also relevant

[Captain Jordan]

Beatrix said
Asshole. Stealing the image I sent you.

Love you too, Bea. ;)

[Shy]

mdk said
From the reactions I've read, Ham's big mistake was coming in christian.

I have no issue with him being a Christian, heck, I'm a Christian. His mistake to me is using the Bible as literal, factual evidence for Creationism without contextualization.

[Card]

mdk said
They each talked for about 45 minutes (a piece) before they started debating one another, at which point my connection died. From the bits that I saw, Bill Nye won the things he bothered to talk about, and Ham's overall position was more intellectually interesting.

Yeah, I think one must have called the other out on this one. Anyone who would respect and appreciate Bill Nye would be hesitant to let Ham in, and the reverse is likely just as true. Once again, no expert, and I should watch this later when it's on the internet in full, but my guess is Bill's a little heated if he's digressing.

[KuroTenshi]

Lol XD

[Captain Jordan]

Shy said
I have no issue with him being a Christian, heck, I'm a Christian. His mistake to me is using the Bible as literal, factual evidence for Creationism without contextualization.

To be fair, Bill Nye started off assuming that everyone was familiar with basic science. Considering he was debating at the Creation Museum, I'm going to guess his audience was pretty indoctrinated in Ken Ham's way of thinking. Bill was already facing an uphill battle without overestimating his audience.

[mdk]

Shy said
I have no issue with him being a Christian, heck, I'm a Christian. His mistake to me is using the Bible as literal, factual evidence for Creationism without contextualization.

Exactly. And I don't disagree - but the reaction has been 'Ham thinks Creation, and creation is stupid,' not 'Ham's presentation was flawed in the sense that this piece of data was incorrect.'

Bill Nye handled him just fine, with data and facts and shit. Nobody's talking about that though. Idunno. I'm also not really looking for responses either, so there's always that.

[Beatrix]

[Card]

mdk said
Exactly. And I don't disagree - but the reaction has been 'Ham thinks Creation, and creation is stupid,' not 'Ham's presentation was flawed in the sense that this piece of data was incorrect.'Bill Nye handled him just fine, with data and facts and shit. Nobody's talking about that though. Idunno. I'm also not really looking for responses either, so there's always that.

Yeah, it's generally in poor taste to criticize a participant for their position. You can't expect that to change, and it's not productive to ask them to change it. If one wants to critique, they should critique their technique and presentation. Anything else is hot air.

[Captain Jordan]

mdk said
Exactly. And I don't disagree - but the reaction has been 'Ham thinks Creation, and creation is stupid,' not 'Ham's presentation was flawed in the sense that this piece of data was incorrect.'

I think it was more that Ham kept presenting the Bible as a literal truth. But when asked if it was a literal truth, he had to redefine the word literal before he could answer.

The problem lies where Creationism diverged from modern science. If the diverging point was Darwinism, the Creationists have to continue to rationalize how modern science, apart from evolution, can coexist with the creationist model of the universe. Astrophysics, relativity, electromagnetism, radioactivity, molecules, bacteria and viruses, vaccines, and such and so forth exist in the world because of modern science, and these are the kinds of things that Creationists have to try to fit into their model. But it's like fitting a square peg into a round hole, many of these disciplines are intrinsically linked to and provide evidence for the idea of evolution. Since that's what Creationists reject, they're hard pressed to dance around the specific theories that can lend support to evolution while taking advantage of what modern science offers, and the technology we've produced based on our understanding of it.

So it's not that Creationism is fundamentally flawed. It's like being Amish in a world of cell phones, automobiles and the Internet. You can't just pick and choose which science you accept. But that's what Ken Ham was pushing on stage tonight, a model of the world where parts of modern science are cherrypicked to fit into a very narrow and closed-minded view of the universe. The possibilities in Creationism aren't endless, they're finite.