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Bill Nye to debate creationist

A

Aught3

New Member
arg-fallbackName="Aught3"/>
Richard Dawkins refuses to give creationists the publicity by debating them. What do you think of Bill Nye's decision to take on Ken Ham? Nye's goal seems to be to bring light to the fact that AiG is getting all sorts of tax breaks from Kentucky to build their museums of ignorance but since AiG is struggling to raise enough funds for the new Ark Encounter project, perhaps this is bad timing on his part?

Bill Nye Explains Why He's Doing Debate On Creationism (VIDEO)
 
arg-fallbackName="Inferno"/>
Agreed on the "bad timing" part. Nye's intentions are noble and I guess he'll do all right (though: does he know their tactics?), but if he'd done nothing the ark project would've imploded. Nye is inadvertently helping Creationists raise money. (Ticket sales, DVDs, etc.) AronRa commented on that a while back.
 
arg-fallbackName="he_who_is_nobody"/>
I agree 100% that it is bad timing on Bill Nye’s part. However, I do think it is a great thing that Nye is taking creationists head on. I agree that an actual scientist (such as Dawkins or Tyson) should not waste their time with creationists, but Nye is not a scientist, he is a science popularizer. Nye seems like the perfect person to be debating creationists on stage, he is articulate and smart on his feet. I also believe that Nye does know their tactics (he has spent the last two years debunking pseudoscience on several news programs). As I have said before, this is the first time I can think of when the evolutionary proponent (Nye) had far more charisma than his creationist counterpart (Ham). I am excited and believe Nye is going to bring the house (creationist museum) down.
 
arg-fallbackName="Aught3"/>
Public debates of even settled issues seems ok to me. Not everyone gets it and they deserve to hear about the science over and over again in many different ways. I suppose some people might take it as a sign there is something legitimate to debate but those people are already deeply embedded in the creationist mindset. IMO, these people shouldn't be a reason not to debate.
 
arg-fallbackName="Visaki"/>
What I really want to know is are they splitting the profits 50/50 and do both Ham and Nye have full rights to the footage from the debate?

Apart from that I think it has upsides and downsides. It promotes the Ark Encounter when they have just days to collect million or they will go bust, it'll help the Creation park financially and publicly and it'll give that lying sheister Ken Ham credability that he does not deserve one carat of. But on the other scale we have the fact that millions of people actually are YEC in the US and it is a real issue in the mind of the public (even when it's settled in the sciences) and it has to be dealt with.

All in all I think that this debate is a bad idea. For "us" that is. Great idea for Kenny Ham. Get Ham and Nye together in some university auditorium (or a similar venue) and make sure the fees are split down the middle and I could be for it.

Oh and The Thinking Atheist did a podcast about the topic this week which I think is worth watching. He has a few people known to the Atheist community to give their opinion in the matter (including "our own" AronRa).
 
arg-fallbackName="Dragan Glas"/>
Greetings,

I think Nye should have insisted on a neutral (non-religious) venue with profits going to one or more charities agreed by both parties.

That way, he'd still get to educate people without benefitting AiG and/or creationists in general.

Kindest regards,

James
 
arg-fallbackName="DepricatedZero"/>
Watch Bill Nye debate Ken Ham on Feb. 4 at 7pm Eastern

http://news.cincinnati.com/viewart/20140130/NEWS01/301300103/Bill-Nye-debate-Creation-Museum-live-Cincinnati-com

Details in the link above. Bill Nye will be at the Creation Museum in Cincinnati to debate Ken Ham. I was concerned that I'd have to pay to see it, because I don't want to give them money, but it looks like there will be a live feed of the debate.
 
arg-fallbackName="Prolescum"/>
Cheers for the link, DZ. I've merged your thread with an earlier one; hope you're not offended ;)
 
arg-fallbackName="he_who_is_nobody"/>
scaled.php

I have my creationist bingo card ready.
 
arg-fallbackName="Aught3"/>
Anyone going to watch this? I think I will probably pass as I have zero respect for Ken Ham's intellectual ability. At least some creationists have the decency to admit the fact that evolution is mainstream science unlike Ham who'd rather spout nonsense about how his opponents don't understand real science. He just looks like a ridiculous buffoon to me.
 
arg-fallbackName="he_who_is_nobody"/>
If I am free, I will watch it. However, I am sure it will be on YouTube soon after. Thus, watching it live is not a priority in my opinion.
 
arg-fallbackName="Inferno"/>
 
arg-fallbackName="Rumraket"/>
I was very skeptical about this debate before it happened, but I have to say after having watched the debate, I think Bill won on every imaginable point. He came off much more reasonable, engaging and substantive. He was much more on the offensive than I had expected and kept bringing it back to the fundamentals.

I also think Ham really shot himself in the foot when he admitted there was no possible way he could ever be persuaded that he's wrong, while in contrast Bill Nye came straight out and listed ways in which the evidence could persuade him otherwise. Way to lose all the moderates Ham.

Bill also had some pretty strong "rethorical devices" worked into his method. He kept referring to it as "Ken Ham's creation model" and science as something we do "outside in the real world". The obvious implication that Ham's a fringe lunatic irrelevant to real science. Which he is, so score another one for Bill Nye. Interesting moments was when Hamface kept regurgitating that "there's a book out there that tell us where it came from" every time Billy Nye referred to some mystery in science. It just drew laughter from the audience, and I don't actually think they laughed because they agreed the answer was reasonable, but because it was ridiculous.

Bill fucking Nye ftw!
 
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