Forums → WEPR → Ken Ham vs. Bill "The Science Guy" Nye

Tally:
Antagonizing - 11
Bad/poorly worded questions - 4
Legitimate questions - 8
Note* I counted #8 in two categories.

What does everyone think of this?

Someone tried to answer those 22 questions as calmly and politely as possible.
https://medium.com/p/8712e42fbb0d

Why the big emphasis on scientists' beliefs at the beginning?

Here is where Creationism starts to become a problem.

"Creationists are on the march. In four states, there are proposed laws seeking to restrict âcontroversialâ teaching about science and allowing parents to pull their children from lessons about evolution.

In the aftermath of Tuesdayâs debate between Bill Nye, âthe Science Guyâ and Ken Ham, the founder of Kentuckyâs Creation Museum over evolution, more attention has been drawn to the ongoing attempts of creationists to reverse ground lost since the Scopes Trial and return to the chronology of the world established by Bishop James Ussher in the 17th century which firmly placed the Earthâs creation on Sunday, October 23, 4004 BC...."
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/02/06/could-creationism-become-law.html

"Let's combat pseudo-controversial issues by removing my child from a science classroom and further indoctrinate him into not being a scientifically-literate taxpayer."

Goddammit. Just goddammit. It's just a really sad, hard thing. Michio Kaku was not kidding.

What they seem to be forgetting is, in order to properly discuss something, you need to be informed of what you are debating about. This in itself implies that evolution should be taught anyway. But that's not what creationists want, creationists just want a platform to bring up their arguments and misrepresent what they consider "controversial". That's like saying gravity is controversial, let's 'discuss' this compared to the Flying Spaghetti Monster explanation.
And of course, accepting the bills with the exact wording used in the link above is basically admitting what the creationists are saying, it means evolution is officially considered controversial by the law. This can not be.

This is just really sad.

These people want to minimize exposure to this particular theory because they recognize that it does make sense. They are trying to protect their children from what they believe is a harmful misconception. Because they are uneducated, themselves, they have no hope of combatting it, so their only resort is to avoid and ignore it. Those featured in Ham's PhD Parade were fortunate enough to escape the ignorance loop, but not before the mythology became hardwired into them.

In a way, it is understandable, but no less disappointing.

Those featured in Ham's PhD Parade were fortunate enough to escape the ignorance loop

Where are these chicks in the link posted and why aren't they in Indiana... o-o

Also in the link, not sure if I enjoyed some of the responses given. I get that some of these were to be a stark reflection of some of the religious questions asked (which could have been fruitful in some ways), but who could honestly be insightful enough to figure that out the first time and not instead "wow, look at this shallow response, these are the Atheists who disagree with us?"? They had an opportunity to give a mindful question to try and dig deep into a religious person's perspective, and I'm glad some did, but the rest decided to take the "look at what you did, I can do that too!" route.

I'm do remember if the last guy going on about the e.coli experiment was a biologist or not but the rest of the lot weren't,

The biologist he had, Dr. Andrew Fabich, did state how he goes into his studies "with a Creationist mind set".

Oh man. Liberty University. A tier-seven university? A place where inspectors declared it a non-credible college? Where Bill Maher jokingly implied that it's for people who failed to get into the University of Phoenix? XD