Bill Nye vs Ken Ham --What the evolution debate is REALLY about!

Everyone who grew up in the 90s loves Bill Nye, and those who are interested in Christianity and Creationism will love this debate. I watched it and tried to be as objective as possible to determine what the debate was really about.


To save you 2:45 hrs of your life, let me just explain this debate and if you want to watch it after with my enlightenment, please do so.


Ken Ham's Argument:

We should only teach the science that we know is Truth in schools.

Definitions:
Observational Science - Science that derives truth from what we can observe in the present and recreate through experiments.

Historical Science - Science that derives assumptions of the past based on the present **Which Ham emphasizes the word Assumption, because it isn't 100% provable.

Creationism - (His definition is broad, so I'm going to take the liberty of explaining what I believe is pertinent to this debate) The theory that there were around 2,000 kinds and from those kinds all other animals have evolved. I.e. Finches evolved from the bird kind, parrots evolved from the bird kind, etc.

Kind - A species of animal, such as a dog, cat, mouse, lion, bird, man, etc.

Truth - (again, his definition is broad) Anything observable and/or repeatable--OR anything God has spoken in the Bible. [he tacked that one on]

Additional claims:
Ham claims evolutionists are "hijacking" the definitions of "evolution" to include observational science (finches change generationally) AND historical science (finches spawned from a single celled organism a long time ago).


Bill Nye's Argument:

We should allow teachers to teach students the scientific process, regardless of whether what they say is true or false, the emphasis is on the process and it is an exciting thing.

Bill Nye doesn't necessarily claim evolutionists are 100% right or wrong, but he claims students should be taught about everything and all the facts and possible facts should be presented to them as well as the tools to determine if it is true or false.

Definitions:
Nye doesn't directly present definitions, his argument is straightforward in this regard however, to present his argument he presented a lot of other (in my opinion) "off topic" points that debunk some of what Ham was claiming. I have however included a few useful definitions

Evolving - Taking one species and making it more complex for some purpose.

Science - The process of discovery.

Additional claims:
Science is about the process of discovery, not the truth itself.

Nye argues that the job of a scientist is to prove theories right or wrong and that a scientist can stand on either side of the debate so long as they bring Evidence forward about it. If they can't bring evidence forward then they aren't doing science, they are making claims without founding. So...he presented a few claims and provided evidence for them, (here is one of many:) such as the layers of different rocks found in the grand canyon and the fossils found in those areas how they become more and more complex. He even challenged scientists to find just 1 species from a lower layer that is found in an upper layer because if they could do that it would be ground breaking and disprove what we understand about evolutionary science--as of yet no one has.

Nye Argues that we need to encourage the younger generation to ask questions and seek answers via science in order to solve the problems of the future and keep America economically strong because otherwise other countries will do so and surpass america.
--Along with that, he argues that if we limit what students can be taught down to just the truth, we will stifle curiosity and limit the act of science (the process of discovery).  [the assumption is, that if students are taught that one way is the truth and only the truth, then they will not bother researching other things outside that scope--and also, if that truth is false, no one will question it]



Some things to realize:

Private schools are increasing in enrollment, and private schools aren't limited to just creationism or just evolution. The debate is limited to public education.

This may have just been a publicity stunt on Ham's part to promote his museum and books.

Nye is a public education figure and mechanical engineer (scientist).
Ham has a degree related to education curriculum design (museum curator).

Nye is American, Ham is Australian.
Nye is Agnostic, Ham is Christian.


My opinion:

Ham was the better debater of the two--Nye wasn't as organized and not as focused on his actual argument but instead focused on the points of his argument rather than the argument as a whole. Ham came across well practiced.


I have to come out now and say that I side with Bill Nye. Nye's argument is non-judgmental of the truth. Under Nye's argument you can believe whatever you want as long as you back it up with proof whereas Ham's argument supposes that there are certain things that we shouldn't believe or argue about. If Nye is correct in his assumption, we already stifle our creativity and critical thinking by refusing to investigate the truth for ourselves.

I think public education should teach all viewpoints, all theories, and the pluses and minuses of those theories--even silly things that people once believed but no longer do (like the greek humors) because understanding the flaws in that way of thinking gives you a better idea of how to determine truth in the present times.
The important thing that public education should teach is how to come to the truth on your own. We live in the information age--we can look up any information we want, but if we don't know how to interpret that information for ourselvse and figure out how it applies to us, or we don't know how to determine if it is correct or incorrect, then what good does it do for us to know the said "truth?" Schools focus too much on memory regurgitation and not enough on independent thinking. Memory regurgitation was useful when our economy was more industrial and there were strict procedures for doing everything in our economy, but now that things have changed we need to focus on how to think for ourselves, how to come up with good ideas and solve problems, and to determine truth from untruth and how to objectively analyze things and to change our opinions if we are proven wrong.