Category Archives: Bill Nye

The Recent “Debate” Between Ken Ham and Bill Nye (2)

In the debate between creation science and evolution, the real problem is not that creationists reject science, it is that evolutionists reject the evidence of the Bible.  They not only reject the Bible, but they reject any possibility of the supernatural whatsoever.  Though they aver that they are objective, in actuality anything that conflicts with their materialistic world view is rejected or shrugged off.

For instance, Ken Ham introduced a piece of evidence for Bill Nye that he did not really touch.  He made one attempt, but then spoke of it no more.  Ham spoke of a piece of wood that was discovered entombed in a basalt flow 70 feet down.  Samples of the rock and wood were sent to a lab to be dated.  The rock was dated to 45 million years old but the wood was dated to 45,000 years old.  Two widely divergent dates in the same layer.

Nye tried to suggest that the 45 million old rock slid on top of the wood.  But Ham pointed out that the wood was found encased in the rock, not under it.  Nye never answered this again.  Never attempted to answer it.  He just shrugged.  These examples could be multiplied many times.

In attempting to defend Big Science dating methods, Nye unwittingly undercut himself by admitting that their predictions about the age of asteroids were incorrect.  They initially predicted that there would be a wider spread between the age of the asteroids, but it was discovered that the ages were actually quite close together, which Nye described as a “mystery.”  These dates are not a problem for creation scientists, but they are for evolutionists.

Furthermore, Nye is fond of pointing out that science actually makes predictions about what should be if certain things are so.  He says this often as if to imply that creation science doesn’t actually make predictions, thus it is not science.  While we would agree that making predictions is essential in the scientific method, science often gets it wrong, as in the case of the age of asteroids.  Creation scientists often make predictions as well.  But in every instance where all the evidence is available, the Bible has been found to be completely accurate.

When addressing the idea of racism that has been promoted by the belief in evolution (remember, the original title of Darwin’s book was “Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection, or the preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life), he never addressed the issue.  Nye simply said that racism was proposed by people of European descent who said “Hey, were the best. Check us out.”  But the point is that Darwinism gave cover to racism by promoting the idea of a “favored race.”  Nye did not even attempt to address the point.

Nye continued throughout the debate to dismiss the Bible as unreliable because it has been translated many times and that creation science is merely Ham’s fallible interpretation of an old, outdated, fallible book.

In response, Ham pointed out that it was not simply his view but that it was backed by many credentialed scientists.  “I do want to say this, that you said a few times you know, ‘Ken Ham’s view’ or ‘Ken Ham’s model.’  It’s not just Ken Ham’s model.  We have a number of PhD scientists here on staff. . . It’s Dr. Demadian’s model, it’s Dr. Fabish’s model, it’s Dr. Faulkner’s model, it’s Dr. Snelling’s model, It’s Dr. Perdams model, and so it goes on”.

Again, either Nye was completely ignorant of what the Bible says regarding sin, or he purposely misrepresented it.  He said:  “Are the fish sinners?  Have they done something wrong to get diseases?  That’s sort of an extraordinary claim that, ah, takes me just a little past what I’m comfortable with.”  Obviously, no one claims that fish have sinned, but there are consequences to actions.  Many people who have never imbibed one drop of alcohol have been hurt or killed by it, however.

Nye once and again tried to characterize Ham’s position.  For instance, he said: “So this idea that you can separate the natural laws from the past from the natural laws that we have now I think is at the heart of our disagreement.  I don’t see how we’re ever going to agree with that if you insist that natural laws have changed.  It’s ah, for lack of a better word, it’s magical.  And I have appreciated magic since I was a kid but it’s not really what we want in conventional, mainstream science.”

But Ham responded: “I would also say that natural law hasn’t changed.  As I talked about, you know, we have the laws of logic, the uniformity of nature.  And that only makes sense within a Biblical world view anyway of a Creator God who set up those laws.  And that’s why we can do good experimental science, because we assume those laws are true and they’ll be true tomorrow.”

Ham also brought up the “Horizon Problem” to show that Big Science also has problems with how heat and radiation can transfer across the universe, producing a stable and fairly constant background radiation.  According to Big Science, there should not be a consistent background radiation because the universe is too large for all the energy to have reached all other parts.  Yet, this prediction was found to be wrong.  So, Big Science had to come up with a solution.  Therefore, it invented Inflation, the idea that at some very early point in the formation of the universe (according to Cosmic Evolution) the universe expanded at a rate much more rapidly than they say it is doing to day.  But isn’t this, for lack of a better word, “magical”?  That’s what Nye said it is when laws from the past differ from laws from the present (see above).

There is so much more that could be said, but I’ll make one final point.  Experimental science is wonderful and God given.  God has given us a world full of wonders to explore and understand.  We are, in fact, to subdue the earth (Gen. 1:28).  Good Bible exegesis has nothing to fear from honest, objective experimental science because Truth does not contradict itself.

After having listened to the debate a second time, I find that Mr. Ham actually did a much better job of addressing the issues, answering questions and challenging his opponent than I initially thought he did.   Nye merely characterized his opponent’s positions and never answered the arguments presented substantially.  I don’t know if this is Bill Nye’s true character or if this was all he was left with because he could not answer the truth.

Eric L. Padgett