Overview on Bill Nye vs Ken Ham DEBATE

At last the debate took place that so many looked forward to! And the WINNER is...?

Bill Nye 'the Science Guy' and Ken Ham the 'Creation Expert' debated the old question about our origins: Evolution or Creation?

Both debaters made good arguments from the start and stayed with their arguments throughout the debate.
Ham stated that both him and Nye had the very same evidence, the battle is how they interpret the past."It's a battle over world views and starting points with the same evidence."

Ham then went to show that there's a great difference between observational science that do science in the present and historical science where 'faith' is needed since no present scientist lives in the past and therefore can't do any observation = science. Of cause he also showed different top scientists that are creationists, like Raymond Damadian, inventor of the MRI scanner.

Ham concluded his argument by stating: "Creation is the only viable model of historical science confirmed by observational science in today's modern scientific era."

For the next 30 minutes Bill Nye brought his argument to the table. He started out stating the audience is sitting on layer upon layer of limestone that indicate millions of years with fossils that lived for a whole lifetime - how could that have formed in just 4000 years? 'THERE ISN'T ENOUGH TIME.'

Later Nye challenged Ham with, "If you look at the layers carefully... you never ever find a higher animal mixed in with a lower one. You never find a lower one trying to swim its way to a higher one. If it all happened within such a short extraordinary time, would we expect to see some turbulence? If you can find ONE example of that... you would be a hero..."

Nye concluded his argument with the reasoning that we have Ice, Trees, Rocks and Starlight that are FAR older than 6000 years.

Of cause Ken Ham countered this with scientific data of hundreds of different natural, physical processes that show that the universe can't be billions or even millions of years old.

Nye replied, "I think this idea that you can separate the natural laws of the past from the natural laws we have now is at the heart of our disagreement."

And so it went on...

I would really liked to see a principle strictly applied to debates, where if a question is posed from the one to the other, the other is obligated to answer. Bill Nye sometimes asked questions that Ken Ham didn't respond to directly, and Ken asked a lot of questions that Bill never even referred to. What is the point of a debate if questions can't be DEBATED?

What I'm really impressed with is the spirit in which the debate was held. Both was absolutely respectful towards one another.

Of cause, Richard Dawkins, the famous atheist, warned Bill Nye:

Scientists should not debate creationists. Period.

Debates about the existence of God can be fun, they are not really that meaningful, but they are a debate about ideas and beliefs and can be worth effort.

Creationism vs. evolution however is not worth debating. Why? Simple, there is nothing to debate. Evolution is a scientific fact, backed by mountains of evidence, peer-reviewed papers you could stack to the moon and an incredible scientific community consensus.  Creationism is a debunked mythology that is based solely in faith. It has zero peer-reviewed papers to back up its claims, it has absolutely no scientific consensus and is not even considered science due to the fact it cannot be tested.

Why would a scientist debate this? Nye would do more good on his own going on TV and discussing evolution and the importance of scientific education instead of giving Ken Ham any publicity and a public forum with thousands, if not millions of viewers, to spew his dishonesty. Ham is a snake oil salesmen and Nye just offered him up an infomercial to sell his product. Ham can repeat his mantra over and over; “teach the controversy”.

Later during the debate they were confronted with questions from the audience. One of the interesting questions were: 'How did consciousness come from matter?'

Bill Nye simply responded with, "I don't know. That is a great mystery." And Ham responded, "Bill, I want to say that there is a book out there that does document where consciousness comes from," Ham said, referencing the Bible, and adding that he believes man was created "in God's image."

I would like to propose that we have more events like these where we can have dialogue with one another in a respectful way, but yet very direct where we answer one another's challenges. These are issues that we need to face and events like these are critical to give information through where both opposite parties have the platform to confront and interrogate the 'facts' of the other.

Winner? Both did well, but as I'm not neutral and am a creationist myself I really think that crucial questions from Ham posed to Nye was not answered - like where did the laws of nature come from? Ham's challenges still stand...

to see the debate for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6kgvhG3AkI