Post-Debate Buzz Heats Up for Ham vs. Nye #10

Debaters Bill Nye & Ken Ham

What would Intelligent Design advocates think about the historic Creation-Evolution debate between Creation Museum founder Ken Ham and evolutionist Bill Nye the Science Guy?

This tenth installment of web reaction to the debate has commentary from a neurosurgeon and from the website Uncommon Descent. (Links to previous installments are at the end.)

An estimated 10 million viewers watched the live stream of the debate:
Is Creation a viable model of origins in today’s modern scientific era?
Additionally, as of press time, the YouTube video of the February 4 debate has been viewed over 2.3 million times. Interest and conversation about the debate continues to be intense and vigorous.

Commentary on the Debate from the Web (Part 10)

Uncommon Descent promotes the scientific and intellectual development of Intelligent Design. Their review of the debate focused on Nye’s fossil and geology claims. Here are excerpts from Nye-Ham and how evolutionism possibly poisons science in lab, field and theory:

Even if Ken Ham may have fumbled on presentation, the facts may show him possibly closer to the truth on some matters. …let me focus on the question of lab and field reporting in historical geology and paleontology, and something Nye said would change his mind. He said something to the effect:

“Why do we not have examples of fossils mixed between layers; for instance, a mammal in trilobite layers?”

He suggested if we found such things he might change his mind.

So do we have something that ought to change Nye’s mind. Absolutely!

Many people are surprised when they hear of these creatures being buried together and wonder why they never heard of it before. Below is one evolutionary paleontologist’s explanation.

“We find mammals in almost all of our [dinosaur dig] sites. These were not noticed years ago … . We have about 20,000 pounds of bentonite clay that has mammal fossils that we are trying to give away to some researcher. It’s not that they are not important, it’s just that you only live once and I specialized in something other than mammals. I specialize in reptiles and dinosaurs.”

So is there a possibility anomalies are edited out and instead a practice of false reporting (perhaps innocently done) has been perpetuated. They probably think something like: “We found a mammal, that’s clearly contamination because we know mammals aren’t in that era”. So thus we never hear official reports of the anomalies because the anomalies are regarded as contaminants since according to the false narrative, certain creatures didn’t live in certain eras.

This would then admit the possibility at least some (not all) “old” fossils are actually young. Note, this doesn’t not necessarily refute the claim of long ages, it may only demonstrate we are hasty in our conclusions. But to say, “we possibly made a mistake, we possibly don’t know the real age” is heresy in the world of Darwin.

Nye also questioned how layers could be formed by a flood. In response, Uncommon Descent included a video in their debate review showing how layers form quickly. Uncommon Descent says,

The video explains why even in principle layers are unlikely to form slowly! … It crushes Nye’s claims about Grand Canyon formation.

There you have it. Real but taboo empirical and theoretical science that you won’t get in school. Why? Evolutionism possibly poisons science in lab, field, and theory. Falsehoods are perpetuated, and truth is rarely known.

 

Question text: What mechanism has science discovered that evidences an increase of genetic information seen in any genetic mutation or evolutionary process?

BuzzFeed photo-journalist Matt Stopera asked creationists at the debate for questions for evolutionists.

Here is one of his 22 question pictures from his report
22 Messages From Creationists To People Who Believe In Evolution.

Stopera also documented his 3-hour tour of the Creation Museum in this photo-report: 45 Things I Learned At The Creation Museum. He said,

The museum is HUGE. It’s also REALLY nice. Like one of the nicest museums I’ve ever been to. It took me over three hours to go through it. Through the course of those three hours, I learned just about everything I could possibly ever want to know about creationism.

 
Pediatric neurosurgeon and Intelligent Design advocate Dr. Michael Egnor commented on the debate from the perspective of Intelligent Design. Excerpts from
Reflecting on the Ham-Nye Creation Debate: Intelligent Design Stands in a Great Scientific Tradition follow:

I think that Ham did very well — he pointed out the important differences between observational/experimental science and historical science, and he made the important point that historical science is particularly influenced by metaphysical assumptions. Darwinists like Bill Nye do their historical science from a materialist and atheist perspective, and it clearly taints their insights.

Unlike Nye, Ham was honest about his own perspectives — which are Biblical and for which I have great respect and much agreement.

My own perspective is that revelation and reason are not, and cannot be, in conflict. Nature speaks to us of our Creator. I seek to “follow the evidence,” as do other advocates of intelligent design. But it would be naïve to think anyone’s quest for scientific truth is without a specific metaphysical perspective.

When I follow the evidence, I begin with a set of quite specific assumptions. Those assumptions are the product of the great Western tradition, which is the marriage of Athens and Jerusalem — the marriage of reason and faith.

The intelligent design movement stands in that tradition, which gave us the Scientific Enlightenment and modern science. That tradition has been derailed in science today by materialists like Nye who presume atheism and presume Darwinism.

Intelligent design rejects the dogma of materialism. Materialist science is a betrayal, not a fulfillment, of modern science.

Intelligent design science is a call for a reawakening of the great scientific tradition that arose in the Christian West — the science of great scientists like Copernicus and Galileo and Newton and Kepler and Pasteur and Faraday and Maxwell. All of the great scientists who gave us modern science inferred intelligent design in nature. The great scientists of the Scientific Enlightenment followed the evidence and openly testified to the design in creation.

Intelligent design stands in the tradition of the Scientific Enlightenment. We follow the evidence, confident in the consilience of faith and reason, trusting in the rationality and purpose that is evident to all of us in nature.

 
Read the prequel articles on this debate:
Creation-Evolution Debate: Ken Ham vs. Bill Nye – background info & the YouTube videos that sparked the debate.
Ham on Nye Debate Update
Who Won the Ken Ham vs. Bill Nye Debate? – includes YouTube video of debate
Post-Debate Buzz Heats Up for Ham vs. Nye #1 – 4 web commentators
Post-Debate Buzz Heats Up for Ham vs. Nye #2 – 4 web commentators
Post-Debate Buzz Heats Up for Ham vs. Nye #3 – comments from debate moderator and post-debate challenges from debaters to each other
Post-Debate Buzz Heats Up for Ham vs. Nye #4 – Albert Mohler’s assessment
Post-Debate Buzz Heats Up for Ham vs. Nye #5 – Nye’s debate coach comments
Post-Debate Buzz Heats Up for Ham vs. Nye #6 – astronomer, CMI, WORLD mag
Post-Debate Buzz Heats Up for Ham vs. Nye #7 – Gary DeMar, Mally sisters video
Post-Debate Buzz Heats Up for Ham vs. Nye #8 – apologetics prof, science historian, debater
Post-Debate Buzz Heats Up for Ham vs. Nye #9 – chemist, ID advocate

Read the sequel with more web commentary:
Post-Debate Buzz Heats Up for Ham vs. Nye #11 – space scientist

Questions to Ponder

1. If the photojournalist referenced in this post tapped you for his feature, what question for evolutionists would you write and display?
2. How have you personally merged faith and reason? What do you think about Dr. Egnor’s challenge to believe in the consilience of faith and reason?
   (In science and history, consilience refers to the principle that evidence from independent, unrelated sources can “converge” to strong conclusions.)

Share your thoughts on these questions in the comments below. It could encourage or help another reader.

Soli Deo Gloria.

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©William T. Pelletier, Ph.D.
“contending earnestly for the faith”
“destroying speculations against the knowledge of God”
(Jude 1:3; 2 Cor 10:4)
Tuesday March 4, 2014 A.D.

For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and made it holy. (Exodus 20:11)