Joel Kontinen
In recent years, creation - evolution debates have been few and far between, as most evolutionists have refused to engage in any such exchange of views.
In this sense, Tuesday’s debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham was news. However, the debate topic, Is creation a viable model of origins in today’s modern scientific era? might not have been the best possible one and the five minutes allotted to each debater to respond to the other’s claims was far too short.
The debate, moderated by CNN journalist Tom Foreman, was a battle – although a rather friendly one – of opposing worldviews and touched on our understanding of what science is. While we would agree on observational science, our worldview decides our opinion of historical science – a dichotomy that Bill Nye refused to accept. Moreover, an atheist cannot allow a “divine foot in the door,” because it would destroy the ideological system he has fought for so long and so hard.
As Ken Ham indicated, a belief in biblical creation does not exclude scientists from doing good science.
Bill Nye brought up several illustrations that he assumed would be evidence of an old earth. While Ken Ham did not have the time to respond to each of them, practically all of them have been rebutted by scientists who believe Genesis is true.
Nye claimed, for instance, that there was not enough time “since Mr. Ham’s Flood” for “millions of layers of ancient life” to have formed beneath the Creation Museum. However, things like fossils are not a problem for creation, as in real life fossils can and do form quickly.
Answers in Genesis estimated that over three million people watched the debate live. In the question and answers part, Bill Nye acknowledged that he did not know how matter invented itself at the beginning or how consciousness came from matter.
The debate might not have changed the listeners’ views, but it certainly reminded us of the importance of origins.
Source:
Golden, Steve. 2014. Bill, There Is a Book Out There. Answers in Genesis (5 February).
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