Bill Nye (yes the science guy) vs Ken Ham Debate

[Jimmienoman]

Bill Nye (yes the popular Bill Nye the Science Guy) and Ken Ham (creator of creation museum, answers in Genesis etc) will be having a debate Tuesday Feb 4 at 7pm EST. Yup that's tonight in a little bit

Free live stream of the debate can be found here:




Bah won't let me embed. You can go to debatelive.org for the link.

 

[PimpLimp]

You don't have to embed YouTube vids on here to post them. Just throw up the URL. Like so:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6kgvhG3AkI

 

[GUNNM]

bill gonna go ham on this n*****

 

[GUNNM]

No one laughing at bill's jokes. Poor guy

 

[Rodimus]

Seems like a bad idea for Bill. Ham's probably going to win this because him and his audience are going to walk away feeling like the winners. You can't talk hard turth and facts to a guy who is willfully ignorant. I hope I'm proven wrong, I'd love to see Bill stomp this idiot into the ground.

 

[The 7th Number]

I watched the last hour and a half or so of the debate. One thing that kind of struck me as odd, was a few times Bill would say things as if you cant advance in science if you believe in creationism. It seems like Bills motive for the debate was to challenge Ham on his theory, and talk as if science cant happen if you believe in God, and plead that we shouldnt let our sciences suffer. Instead of defending his own position. Where as Ham was mostly countering Bills comments and talking about the bible. Then again like i said, i saw only the 2nd half of it all. I did find it funny when Bill was talking about how lions couldnt be vegetarians because of their sharp teeth, then Ham listed a few animals with sharp teeth that eat veggies. LOL.

 

[4thHorseman]

Lots of Bill pushing Ham on his beliefs while reiterating predictions and the importance of science in schools benefitting America in the long run. Ham counters a lot of Nyes comments saying theres no sure way of proving the past (specifically Earth/universe age) while saying the bible is fact and promoting his website time and time again.

Not as entertaining as I had hoped as they regurgitated the same talking points, but interesting nonetheless. And I love Nye and his dry sense of humor.

 

[GUNNM]

''You can't prove god isn't real cause you weren't there''

 

[DurbanBrown]

i thought this was awesome. watched it last night.

 

[GamerDude316]

Watched it today.  Was a little disappointed how much both of them repeated themselves, but enjoyable nonetheless.  

 

[n8rockerasu]

All this really proved to me is that people with differing opinions (whether religious, political, etc) talking to each other is a tremendous waste of time. People are so entrenched in their beliefs, they don't even listen to each other half the time. It's just two people talking AT each other.

They were both even posing questions to each other, not answering them, and just going on with their next talking point. I guess if you've got an audience of people who truly don't have an opinion on the subject and can be swayed, then maybe there's something to be gained. But for the most part, it's just two people blowing smoke up each other's asses.

And on a personal note, I really don't care if the Earth is 4.5 billion years old or 6,000 years old. Either way, it has no effect on my day to day life. I guess I understand why these specific details are important if you work in a scientific field. But in terms of a belief system, people around the world believe all kinds of things (some of which may even be regarded as being "crazy").

Your values and your beliefs are a personal thing, and don't really need to be shoved down somebody's throat regardless of which side of the spectrum they fall on. And ultimately, believing in something (religous or scientific) provides an individual with a sense of comfort and mental stability. Whose place is it to judge what seems "improbable" or "assumed" or whatever? It just becomes a really silly argument. To you, you're right...and that's all that matters.

 

[The 7th Number]

The reason they didnt answer each others questions is because the type of debate they had did not require them to. Personally i thought it was odd that they would ask questions and then the other person would just shrug it off and talk about what they wanted. Like N8Rocker said, i believe its true, these debates are somewhat useless. Most people have their minds set on one side of the debate, and no matter what you prove, they will stick to their side anyway.

 

[dohdough]

The debate was held in a creationist museum and audience was stacked with creationists. Instead of releasing the tickets at the pre-arranged time, Ham allowed a certain group of people to reserve them early.

Sorry, but if you think that you could squeeze thousands of years of accumulated scientific knowledge into easy-to-understand soundbites against a true-beliver's reliance on a book that was amended hundreds of times as the literal word of (a) god, then maybe you should reevaluate how you think, or don't think critically about certain subjects.

Without using google, I'd like to see a show of hands to see who thinks the sky is blue because it's a reflection of the ocean and then explain it.

Spoiler

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As for the "you believe what you want to believe and I'll believe what I want to believe, just leave me alone"-crowd, creationism has been pushed into the realm of public education as actual science. Not as one of many "theories" to evolution, but as the only one. Apparently, creation myths from other cultures don't count.

If you liked the "debate," then you should watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2xyrel-2vI

This thread should REALLY be in VS.

 

[PimpLimp]

Nye really should have done a better job at attacking the main point of Ham, that the Bible is a "Historical Science" and that we observed it as happening. Quick question, since when the is the Bible considered historically accurate? Yeah didn't think so.

Ham's whole opposition of "I didn't see it, so it didn't happen" is just as effective against his own point. Anybody see anything that ever happened in the Bible?

 

[panzerfaust]

Damn, this makes me miss Christopher Hitchens. That dude devoured creationists. 

 

[eLefAdEr]

All this really proved to me is that people with differing opinions (whether religious, political, etc) talking to each other is a tremendous waste of time. People are so entrenched in their beliefs, they don't even listen to each other half the time. It's just two people talking AT each other.

They were both even posing questions to each other, not answering them, and just going on with their next talking point. I guess if you've got an audience of people who truly don't have an opinion on the subject and can be swayed, then maybe there's something to be gained. But for the most part, it's just two people blowing smoke up each other's asses.

And on a personal note, I really don't care if the Earth is 4.5 billion years old or 6,000 years old. Either way, it has no effect on my day to day life. I guess I understand why these specific details are important if you work in a scientific field. But in terms of a belief system, people around the world believe all kinds of things (some of which may even be regarded as being "crazy").

Your values and your beliefs are a personal thing, and don't really need to be shoved down somebody's throat regardless of which side of the spectrum they fall on. And ultimately, believing in something (religous or scientific) provides an individual with a sense of comfort and mental stability. Whose place is it to judge what seems "improbable" or "assumed" or whatever? It just becomes a really silly argument. To you, you're right...and that's all that matters.

We share almost the exact same opinion. While I applaud Nye for his efforts of going into the "lion's den" to debate Ham, my feelings on trying to prove/disprove the existence of God: