9 ms·

Ham on Nye: The high cost of “winning” an evolution/creation debate

nextstep 13y ago
"Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference." --Mark Twain
- pkulak 13y ago
  "You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into."
  - illuminate 13y ago
    Disagree. Even smart people believe dumb things because they have a greater ability to rationalize their choice of beliefs. Not saying that creationists (YEC or otherwise) are generally smart, but a lack of "reason" isn't always an excuse.
    - mercurial 13y ago
      The parent never said smart people couldn't hold completely irrational beliefs. They just did not arrive to their position by reasoning about the issue. I was reading this article about a vocal Japanese revisionist. Like creationists, or conspiracy theorists, there is nothing rational about these beliefs. When you reach for the conclusion first, and establish it is the absolute truth and then cherry-pick and twist facts and make excuses to support your conclusion, you are actively engaged in a process of denying reality. These people don't need a TV debate, they need a therapy. On the other hand, you probably have people who have never really examined why they believe in creationism, and do not suffer from the same disease. These people may be convinced, perhaps, but they are not the ones at the frontline of the movement, frothing at the mouth and being engaged in a public debate as if they had any shred of credibility.
      - illuminate 13y ago
        I was responding to the "they didn't reason themselves into". They most certainly used a reasoning, just one grounded in sophistry, not reality.
    - lutusp 13y ago
      > Even smart people believe dumb things because they have a greater ability to rationalize their choice of beliefs. This is quite true -- many very smart people hold onto embarrassing beliefs only because they can (and do) out-argue anyone in their immediate environment. There's a name for this that I have unfortunately forgotten.
SworDsy 13y ago
The distinction between 'observational' and 'historical' is a matter of political and social convenience. Consider carbon dating. Since it's been observed, we should assume it's observational. carbon dating indicates that dinosaurs existed hundreds of millions of years ago instead of mere thousands. but that's historical and therefore this is a contradiction, so we can't assume the distinction. the only logical conclusion is that we have a false premise.
- jurassic 13y ago
  Minor nit pick here, but carbon dating is not used to date fossils and rocks because C14 has a half-life of only ~5k years. With such a short half-life, the C14 all decays away to trace levels in only a few tens of thousands of years. Other radioactive isotopes with much longer half-lives are more appropriate for geologic dating. The U-Pb system is really good for most geologic applications.
salgernon 13y ago
No creationist has ever been able to explain why their version should be preferred over, say, Mayan creation myths. It kind of makes my mind explode that they can claim absolute truth over other such myths. But, that's religion, I guess. Pointless and I wish bill nye hadn't given th the time of day.
- iamjustin 13y ago
  >and I wish bill nye hadn't given th the time of day. Agreed. I loved Bill Nye's shows when I was a growing up, and I think he made a positive difference in my life. I don't know if participating in the debate will have had the same effect on anyone there. I wish Bill would continue the kind of work he did when I was younger, instead of debating creationists, or going on FOX News to be the wacky scientist from that kids show that explains middle school science to the viewers. Getting children interested in science. In discovery. Fostering a love of learning. That's what I think matters. That will be his legacy.
- mkhpalm 13y ago
  To be fair, thats like asking you to explain why gravity works. (without saying that it just does) There are a lot of things that seem simple which smart people have only theorized.
  - lutusp 13y ago
    > To be fair, thats like asking you to explain why gravity works. (without saying that it just does) There are a lot of things that seem simple which smart people have only theorized. Be careful when you say "only theorized." A well-supported scientific theory is the highest form of human knowledge. A scientific theory isn't just a hunch (the everyday meaning of theory), it's a combination of observational evidence, a careful explanation of the evidence, and some predictions based on the explanation that can be researched to expand the domain of the theory. And (very important) a basis for falsifying the theory, an observation that would prove the theory false. The recent discovery of the Higgs boson is an example of theory confirmation -- it's based on the "standard model", the theoretical structure of modern physics, and the Higgs was predicted on theoretical grounds long before we had any chance to detect it. As to "smart people only theorized", gravity has an explanation, and a very good one -- general relativity. Relativity is one of the two best-confirmed scientific theories we have (the other one is quantum theory, that makes our computers possible). Please remember this when you want to say "only a theory".
nickff 13y ago
I used to think that debates like this were important, until I realized that you never 'win' anything.
joesmo 13y ago
tl;dr: "Creationism is a worthless and uneducated position to hold in our modern society and Nye is about to treat it as an equal, debatable 'controversy'." "Scientists should not debate creationists. Period."
FD3SA 13y ago
For the life of me, I never understood why evolutionary biologists engage in such ridiculous behavior. Instead of explaining religion from a scientific point of view, they instead debate nonsense as if it is on equal footing with empirically validated science. Richard Dawkins, who taught me biology through his incredible books, has wasted a majority of his life following this foolish path. I still don't understand why. Religious beliefs result in adaptive behaviors proven to increase fitness in certain environments. That is, these behaviors enhance the fitness of the genes which make one predisposed to religiosity. This has been hypothesized many times, and is the only rational explanation for the vast and fervent religious behaviors we witness today. In brief, religious behaviors cause individuals to engage in cooperative exchanges which are mutually beneficial to both parties. Iterated over many interactions, in a large population, with reputation, it becomes obvious that these behaviors are adaptive. What biologists must emphasize is that religious behaviors are distinct from religious mythology. It is the behaviors we are interested in as scientists, not the literary masterpieces that constitute such works as the Bible, Quran, Torah, etc. Although they are linked, from an empirical point of view it is meaningless to analyze the philosophy of religion. We must instead look at the behaviors and their resultant consequences. For those interested, there is a massive amount of knowledge on this subject. I would recommend beginning with Richard Dawkins' Selfish Gene, and intuitively working through the corollaries thereafter. Further reading can be found here [1]. 1. http://evolution-of-religion.com/ http://evolution-of-religion.com/ EDIT: Removed Wikipedia link as it wasn't very useful upon closer inspection. The research group linked instead is a much better resource. Also reworded for clarity as per comments below.
- pjscott 13y ago
  Interesting that you bring up Richard Dawkins, as he seems to be adamantly in agreement: http://old.richarddawkins.net/articles/119-why-i-won-39-t-debate-creationists http://old.richarddawkins.net/articles/119-why-i-won-39-t-de...
  - FD3SA 13y ago
    Unfortunately, by releasing the God Delusion, he engaged creationists as equals in an intellectual debate. He would have been better served by supporting research on the evolutionary psychology of religion, while staying very far away from debating creationists, which has sadly become a hobby of his. That being said, I have yet to read a book which so elegantly describes evolution as The Selfish Gene. This includes Darwin's own works. It is an absolute masterpiece, and was the foundation of my lifelong passion for biology. I consider Dawkins the most influential man in my life. That is why it hurts me to see him behave in such a counter-productive manner.
joelrunyon 13y ago
A lot of people seem to be saying that you shouldn't talk to people who are familiar with creationism at all. Question: What alternative method is there to reach them? Believe it or not, there are some communities where science isn't readily known. What's the alternative? Refusing to engage sounds not only spiteful but not very useful as you're essentially giving up on a segment of the population while simultaneously getting upset that they don't know better.
- joelrunyon 13y ago
  Using another example that might help this crowd - this reaction reminds me of an article by Paul Jarvis: "Amateurs get angry with clients. Professionals educate them"[1]. There seem to be a lot of people here that are angry & not a lot of people willing to educate. It's easy to label & categorize a whole group of people (whether clients or people who may be uninformed), but if you have the ability to inform, educate & change their opinion over time and don't try - don't get mad at people for staying uninformed - it's your fault. If you attempt and they're hostile, that's a whole different story, but it's definitely worth attempting. [1] http://99u.com/articles/18303/we-deserve-the-clients-we-get http://99u.com/articles/18303/we-deserve-the-clients-we-get
  - mikeash 13y ago
    I think it's a product of the typical nerd black-and-white thinking. People are either raging fundamentalists who take the Bible as literal truth and reject all science that contradicts it, or they are reasonable people who think the Earth is old and evolution happened. In reality, there are a ton of creationists who aren't raging fundamentalists. They aren't creationists because they believe so fervently that they cannot accept any contrary evidence. They're simply creationists because that's all they know. Many of these people, when exposed to the truth in a constructive way, will change their minds. In fact, I was one of those people. My elementary school taught creationism and I believed it because, well, why not? Later on I found out about the scientific explanations, and came to accept them instead. You'll never convince Ken Ham. Nor will you convince his hardcore supporters. That's not the point. The point is to reach out to people who aren't hardcore about it, but who still believe nonsense simply because they don't know any better. And what better way to convince them to listen at all than to involve a religious figure arguing for the other side? How many of these non-fundamentalist creationists would tune in to "Bill Nye Explains Evolution", versus "Bill Nye Debates Ken Ham"? You'll convince lots of them.
callmeed 13y ago
Unfortunately, there's also a high cost to people who are christians but are not young earth creationists. Nye actually did a good job pointing out that many reconcile their faith and science and that he was specifically debating Ham's view. Of course, that will probably get glossed over and some will takeaway that christian == wacky like ham
- mcv 13y ago
  I'm a Christian, and I feel that people like Ham are actively harming Christianity, by effectively teaching people that it's at odds with the observable reality of this world, God's creation (which is studied by science). If you teach people that your faith contradicts science, and they later discover that science works, then what do you think their conclusion is going to be? And it's so utterly unnecessary. For centuries Christians haven't had any problems with science. This stupid biblical literalism movement is a very recent thing, and it thrives on ignorance. It's harmful not just to science, but also to Christianity. It's a false idol.
  - greyfade 13y ago
    And yet Christians have, at many times, rejected science in favor of dogma. See, for example, Galileo Galilei, Giordano Bruno, Nicolas Copernicus, and other scientists who were tortured, excommunicated, imprisoned, or had their works banned by the Church in the 15th, 16th, and early 17th centuries, when the Catholic Church had essentially absolute political power. It wasn't until the Church lost its political power that anti-scientific sentiment diminished.
    - mcv 13y ago
      > See, for example, Galileo Galilei, Giordano Bruno, Nicolas Copernicus You clearly do not know what the Galileo case was about. I'm not sure about Bruno, but Copernicus wasn't prosecuted, excommunicated or tortured either. If you believe Galileo or Copernicus were, then you've been fed lies or have jumped to unfounded conclusions (though you wouldn't be the first). The Church of that day played an active role in science, and was absolutely open to the possibility of a heliocentric system. But they wanted a model that accurately reflected observations, which Galileo's model didn't. Galileo claimed it was correct anyway (which it wasn't), and called the pope a fool, for which he got house arrest, but wasn't tortured or anything. Eventually, Keppler's model was proven correct and was accepted by the church.
mgraczyk 13y ago
I didn't watch the entire debate because it was clearly not intended to inform an educated audience, but the parts that I did see really disturbed me. Neither of the debaters made any tangible assertions, nor any statements of fact that contradicted statements made by the other. Nonetheless, the two still somehow found a way to "argue" and "debate" for two hours. Nye should have had it easy. He could have argued that creationists need to demonstrate why their beliefs are any more true than the hundreds of other contradictory creation myths that come from various world cultures (as salgernon mentioned). He also could have argued that science and creationism are not fundamentally incompatible, but instead sort of orthogonal. Creationism can be thought of as a cosmological hypothesis. It happens to be a hypothesis that is basically impossible to test, so scientists instead spend their time evaluating other hypothesis. Instead, it sounded like he argued the position that "science helps us learn and do cool things, plus you don't need to believe in God to seek answers to life's important question." Weak position. Counter argument: "I don't care about learning or technology because when I die I am going to heaven, and that's ultimately more important than science."
- joelrunyon 13y ago
  > He also could have argued that science and creationism are not fundamentally incompatible, but instead sort of orthogonal. Creationism can be thought of as a cosmological hypothesis. It happens to be a hypothesis that is basically impossible to test, so scientists instead spend their time evaluating other hypothesis. I'm really surprised this didn't come up more as the idea that "science is attacking my religion" tends to be one of the main reasons that people seemed to be adverse to science. It places a false dichotomy in choosing between their faith & science.
  - lutusp 13y ago
    > I'm really surprised this didn't come up more as the idea that "science is attacking my religion" tends to be one of the main reasons that people seemed to be adverse to science. It places a false dichotomy in choosing between their faith & science. There's a dichotomy between science and religion, but it's not false by any means. In the most fundamental sense, and not to oversimplify, the scientific mind assumes ideas to be false until there is evidence to support them (scientists call this the "null hypothesis"), and the religious mind assumes an idea to be true until evidence proves it false -- exactly the opposite outlook. Why is it a mistake to assume claims are true unless proven false? Easily explained — let's say I'm a True Believer who believes in Bigfoot. According to the True Believer's way of picturing reality, Bigfoot exists unless someone can prove he doesn't exist. But think about this — Bigfoot cannot possibly be proven not to exist somewhere in the universe, hiding under some rock. In formal logic, a disproof would require "proof of a negative", an impossible evidentiary burden. Therefore a skeptical, scientific outlook is essential to avoid wasting time on childish fantasies. Need I add that religious people just don't understand this? Remember this when you see endless phony TV documentaries about Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster and ghost hunters. These shows are popular because most people don't have the slightest idea how to process ideas. And only some of them have religious beliefs -- others are simply out in the ozone. The above is the "big secret", the divide that separates science and religion. And it's not a puddle, it's bigger than the Grand Canyon.
edandersen 13y ago
Is there anyone on HN happy to admit they are a creationist?
- mynameishere 13y ago
  I've created several worlds, so I guess it's plausible that this world was created as well. But the actual evidence for this world being "created" is pretty much non-existent. I'm not sure how you would even test for it.
- onthesideofthe 13y ago
  Yes, but I will create a new account to do so.
- dave1010uk 13y ago
  I wouldn't call myself a creationist, but I think there's a substantial chance that our current understanding of the physics of the universe will seem as backwards to people in a 200 years as people's under standing 200 years ago does to us now. I even believe that there's a small chance that our understanding of the universe now will seem as backwards as creationism in 5000 years. As there is so much we don't know yet, it seems crazy to say that creationism absolutely cannot be true, even though it's crazy to say that creationism is true.
- benjohnson 13y ago
  Sure! I'm a trained nuclear physicist, and a biblical literalist. The rather trivial reconciliation of the two viewpoints is that the material world is a small reflection of the theological world. Frankly, I find the debate with Nye and Ham regrettable - in that neither seemed to understand their own position well and did a disservice to both viewpoints.
pstack 13y ago
I had a debate with someone over the existence of Santa Clause, but it was difficult, because the toddler was munching on crayons at the time.
chilldream 13y ago
Atheist who grew up in Oklahoma here. The people in this thread who think that the correct tactic is to immediately jump to "Why is your religion better than Mayan creation myths?" are completely clueless. If you ever even met a creationist, you would know that that would just make them dig in their heels and "confirm" their low opinion of mainstream science. The idea of tiptoeing around religious fundamentalism may bother you, but ultimately you have to decide if you want to be as "right" as possible or if you want to have a shot at convincing someone. And if you don't care about convincing the kind of person who can be a young earth creationist in 2014, then I don't know why you'd even pay attention to any of this.
- salgernon 13y ago
  I'm an atheist that spent my teenage years at a quasi religious military school in south Texas. There was a school chaplain. There were bullies that assumed that since I didn't believe in god, I must therefore worship satan. I had a revolver held to my head for this when I was 15. Loaded? Dunno. No reason to think that it wasn't. He did this because he wanted me to renounce my beliefs, which I didn't do before someone pulled him away... My point being that these are not rational people, they cannot be reasoned with or taught reality. They wallow and take pride in their ignorance with a "god said it I believe it that settles it" conviction. It won't do them by good in the end, since they will die and release their carbon like the rest of us, but to the extent that they hurt society by their insistence that fairy stories should govern our lives, discourage understanding our universe and preach their bigoted filth, we should give them no truck and no platform. They are worthy of our contempt and scorn and public ridicule, but there is no point in debating them.
msandford 13y ago
I REALLY hate to agree with a creationist to any degree but there is something to the observational/historical debate. We now understand a LOT of physics and chemistry. That's because it's observational, and because it's observational you can make predictions, perform experiments and get results. Other people can do the same as well, thus enabling not only peer review but actual verifiability. This is why we understand physics and chemistry extremely well, biology OK but rapidly improving, and economics and public policy much less well. Because we can reproduce results in physics everyone either agrees on the truth or is generally regarded as a crackpot. Biologists can't produce the kinds of extremely clean data physicists can but it's still meaningful. In macroeconomics there's very little ability to perform experiments in a repeatable fashion, which results in everyone observing the world and then arguing about why things happened and nobody can prove that they're right or that others are wrong. When you're dealing with math or computer science induction is a great tool that allows you to do pretty incredible things. But it does so because the nature of math or algorithms is stationary; the rules are 100% fixed from the beginning of time 'til the end (or so you can assume if you're building the system) and thus any assumptions are by definition correct. It's much harder to do this when you're dealing with things that can change over time (and thus potentially invalidate your assumptions), which is basically everything else. That's not to say that induction is worthless outside of math and computer science but it's use comes with more caveats. I totally get why serious scientists don't want to even acknowledge that a creationist might raise a good point but once it's made the damage is done. If you don't respond at all they pile on saying "look he doesn't have an answer for X!" and if you do respond with a reasonable statement about "this is the best we know thus far and of course nothing can be known until we observe it directly" then they'll pile on with "see it's not guaranteed!" Both of those outcomes are extremely frustrating when you're dealing with someone who can't be convinced with any amount of evidence. But failing to acknowledge that there is a difference between direct observation and historical/induction and that they create two classes of certainty which are not identical does the very tedious and difficult work of science a disservice in my opinion. EDIT: To clarify I think what I'm mostly talking about is certainty. If you can't directly (or indirectly) observe something happening with some kind of experiment you can have a personal opinion about certainty and someone else can have another but neither one can be provably wrong. Once that happens there's real certainty and very little room for opinion anymore. Until then things are a bit more fluid. A well educated person's estimate of certainty might be much more accurate than a plebe's but it's not guaranteed to be right.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
lisper 13y ago
OMG, that was painful. Bill Nye began by wasting two of his five minutes of opening statement talking about freakin' bow ties! Then the first substantive statement out of his mouth was: the question tonight is, does Ken Ham's creation story hold up? Is it viable? No no no! The question is: what is science? And the answer is, as the late great Richard Feynman put it, science is the proposition that EXPERIMENT is the ultimate arbiter of truth. So as soon as you say, as Ken Ham does, that the Bible is the ultimate arbiter of truth, you are not doing science BY DEFINITION. Now, Ken Ham contends that secularists have "hijacked" the word "science." No. It is Ken Ham who has hijacked the word, because the definition is not arbitrary. There is a REASON for it. That reason is, as Ken Ham himself admitted, it works. Experimental science has produced all of the world's technological progress. When Ken Ham claims that the central tenet of science -- that experiment is the ultimate arbiter of truth -- cannot be applied to the past because "we weren't there" he is simply, demonstrably wrong. It can be, and it is. Now, of course one can choose, as Ken Ham does, not to accept the premise that experiment is the ultimate arbiter of truth. There are certainly areas of human endeavor where that standard is not applicable: art, poetry, music. But it can certainly be applied to the past. The debate should not be about whether Ken Ham's model of the world is "viable", the debate should be about what is the standard by which truth is decided: experiment, or a holy text. You can choose one or the other, but experiment produces better results.
- yoduddde 13y ago
  You should read this. Really read it (like the whole thing): http://www.discovery.org/a/2834 http://www.discovery.org/a/2834 (warning: Stephen Meyer is several notches up the scale of intellectual acuity than Ham) In short, any set of criteria you choose to demarcate science from non-science will either simultaneously include or simultaneously exclude both intelligent design and 'descent from common ancestor'. [And, in the case of inclusion will also bring in a lot of other non-sensical theories].
  - lisper 13y ago
    You have completely missed the point. The debate is not (or at least should not be) about what is and is not science. That is merely quibbling over terminology. The debate is (or should be) over the process one uses to arrive at the truth. Empirically, if you use experiment as your arbiter of truth, you are led to make VASTLY more accurate predictions about the world, and hence obtain vastly more power to control the world, than any other criterion that man has yet managed to devise (and in particular, you do better than using any holy text as your arbiter of truth). It doesn't matter if intelligent design is or is not science. What matters is that when you put ID or YEC to experimental test, it fails. When you put Darwinian evolution to experimental test, it succeeds. Whether or not that makes evolution "true" is a debate over the meaning of the word "true", not the meaning of the word "science." You can choose to believe that the universe is borne on the back of a turtle. You can even call that science if you like. But if you put your turtle cosmology to experimental test, I will bet you any amount of money you care to wager that your predictions will be wrong. In the long run, I will win and you will lose. THAT is what matters.
hooande 13y ago
The problem is that religion is a package deal. Members of religious communities see and do a lot of good through the church. They raise money for charity, form close knit social groups and generally spend more time thinking about the good of others than the average person does. But all of this good comes at an ideological price and it could all fall apart easily. If gradual evolution is true then the book of Genesis must be wrong. If the book of Genesis isn't "true", then the Bible itself is based on a lie. If the Bible is a lie then what's the point of going to church? No one wants to worship a fallacious holy book. And if people stop going to church then they'll lose their sense of community and stop doing all the charity work. The thought is too much to bear. It's better just to believe everything the book says, whole cloth, and defend it against all attacks. A debate won't change any minds, but a dialogue will. We shouldn't ignore creationists. We should continue to talk to them, even if we spend a lot of time arguing over insignificant details. This kind of argument can't be won with facts and figures, but only through attaining mutual respect. It may not have been a good idea for Bill Nye to accept this debate, but he had the opportunity to change some minds with the the way that he carried himself and presented his beliefs.
transfire 13y ago
I have come to understand the people that don't believe in evolution are either incapable of grasping the concept or they are too afraid to accept it b/c of it's (supposed) implications. My grandmother is one of the former. Whenever we discuss it she always asks why apes are still here if we descended from them. I try to explain about a common ancestor, etc. But it is useless. Perhaps she too just doesn't want to accept the implications, but I have to consider it possible she simply is incapable of grasping the theory. My mother on the other hand is of the later group. It took quite a bit of effort but I think she finally understood the basic idea. However, she is simply too afraid that believing it might mean there is no such place as Heaven. And that, she just cannot bare to accept. So it is useless really to argue the facts of Evolution vs Creationism. It's the wrong argument. If the person is capable of scientific thinking at all, you still have deal the emotional question of death.
genofon 13y ago
it's unbelievable that the argument of the creationist guy was: "it's not true cause you didn't observe it" and "the evidence it's god's word" as god was something we can all observe... how can you discuss on this nonsense?
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
thecolorblue 13y ago
Although, the idea of debates like these is great, I feel that they do little to make people think rationally, or convince anyone to switch sides. They only galvanize each sides feels that they are right.

"Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference." --Mark Twain

pkulak 13y ago
"You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into."
- illuminate 13y ago
  Disagree. Even smart people believe dumb things because they have a greater ability to rationalize their choice of beliefs. Not saying that creationists (YEC or otherwise) are generally smart, but a lack of "reason" isn't always an excuse.
  - mercurial 13y ago
    The parent never said smart people couldn't hold completely irrational beliefs. They just did not arrive to their position by reasoning about the issue. I was reading this article about a vocal Japanese revisionist. Like creationists, or conspiracy theorists, there is nothing rational about these beliefs. When you reach for the conclusion first, and establish it is the absolute truth and then cherry-pick and twist facts and make excuses to support your conclusion, you are actively engaged in a process of denying reality. These people don't need a TV debate, they need a therapy. On the other hand, you probably have people who have never really examined why they believe in creationism, and do not suffer from the same disease. These people may be convinced, perhaps, but they are not the ones at the frontline of the movement, frothing at the mouth and being engaged in a public debate as if they had any shred of credibility.
    - illuminate 13y ago
      I was responding to the "they didn't reason themselves into". They most certainly used a reasoning, just one grounded in sophistry, not reality.
  - lutusp 13y ago
    > Even smart people believe dumb things because they have a greater ability to rationalize their choice of beliefs. This is quite true -- many very smart people hold onto embarrassing beliefs only because they can (and do) out-argue anyone in their immediate environment. There's a name for this that I have unfortunately forgotten.

The distinction between 'observational' and 'historical' is a matter of political and social convenience. Consider carbon dating. Since it's been observed, we should assume it's observational. carbon dating indicates that dinosaurs existed hundreds of millions of years ago instead of mere thousands. but that's historical and therefore this is a contradiction, so we can't assume the distinction. the only logical conclusion is that we have a false premise.

jurassic 13y ago
Minor nit pick here, but carbon dating is not used to date fossils and rocks because C14 has a half-life of only ~5k years. With such a short half-life, the C14 all decays away to trace levels in only a few tens of thousands of years. Other radioactive isotopes with much longer half-lives are more appropriate for geologic dating. The U-Pb system is really good for most geologic applications.

salgernon 13y ago

No creationist has ever been able to explain why their version should be preferred over, say, Mayan creation myths. It kind of makes my mind explode that they can claim absolute truth over other such myths. But, that's religion, I guess. Pointless and I wish bill nye hadn't given th the time of day.

iamjustin 13y ago
>and I wish bill nye hadn't given th the time of day. Agreed. I loved Bill Nye's shows when I was a growing up, and I think he made a positive difference in my life. I don't know if participating in the debate will have had the same effect on anyone there. I wish Bill would continue the kind of work he did when I was younger, instead of debating creationists, or going on FOX News to be the wacky scientist from that kids show that explains middle school science to the viewers. Getting children interested in science. In discovery. Fostering a love of learning. That's what I think matters. That will be his legacy.
mkhpalm 13y ago
To be fair, thats like asking you to explain why gravity works. (without saying that it just does) There are a lot of things that seem simple which smart people have only theorized.
- lutusp 13y ago
  > To be fair, thats like asking you to explain why gravity works. (without saying that it just does) There are a lot of things that seem simple which smart people have only theorized. Be careful when you say "only theorized." A well-supported scientific theory is the highest form of human knowledge. A scientific theory isn't just a hunch (the everyday meaning of theory), it's a combination of observational evidence, a careful explanation of the evidence, and some predictions based on the explanation that can be researched to expand the domain of the theory. And (very important) a basis for falsifying the theory, an observation that would prove the theory false. The recent discovery of the Higgs boson is an example of theory confirmation -- it's based on the "standard model", the theoretical structure of modern physics, and the Higgs was predicted on theoretical grounds long before we had any chance to detect it. As to "smart people only theorized", gravity has an explanation, and a very good one -- general relativity. Relativity is one of the two best-confirmed scientific theories we have (the other one is quantum theory, that makes our computers possible). Please remember this when you want to say "only a theory".

nickff 13y ago

I used to think that debates like this were important, until I realized that you never 'win' anything.

joesmo 13y ago

tl;dr: "Creationism is a worthless and uneducated position to hold in our modern society and Nye is about to treat it as an equal, debatable 'controversy'." "Scientists should not debate creationists. Period."

FD3SA 13y ago

For the life of me, I never understood why evolutionary biologists engage in such ridiculous behavior. Instead of explaining religion from a scientific point of view, they instead debate nonsense as if it is on equal footing with empirically validated science. Richard Dawkins, who taught me biology through his incredible books, has wasted a majority of his life following this foolish path. I still don't understand why. Religious beliefs result in adaptive behaviors proven to increase fitness in certain environments. That is, these behaviors enhance the fitness of the genes which make one predisposed to religiosity. This has been hypothesized many times, and is the only rational explanation for the vast and fervent religious behaviors we witness today. In brief, religious behaviors cause individuals to engage in cooperative exchanges which are mutually beneficial to both parties. Iterated over many interactions, in a large population, with reputation, it becomes obvious that these behaviors are adaptive. What biologists must emphasize is that religious behaviors are distinct from religious mythology. It is the behaviors we are interested in as scientists, not the literary masterpieces that constitute such works as the Bible, Quran, Torah, etc. Although they are linked, from an empirical point of view it is meaningless to analyze the philosophy of religion. We must instead look at the behaviors and their resultant consequences. For those interested, there is a massive amount of knowledge on this subject. I would recommend beginning with Richard Dawkins' Selfish Gene, and intuitively working through the corollaries thereafter. Further reading can be found here [1]. 1. http://evolution-of-religion.com/ http://evolution-of-religion.com/ EDIT: Removed Wikipedia link as it wasn't very useful upon closer inspection. The research group linked instead is a much better resource. Also reworded for clarity as per comments below.

pjscott 13y ago
Interesting that you bring up Richard Dawkins, as he seems to be adamantly in agreement: http://old.richarddawkins.net/articles/119-why-i-won-39-t-debate-creationists http://old.richarddawkins.net/articles/119-why-i-won-39-t-de...
- FD3SA 13y ago
  Unfortunately, by releasing the God Delusion, he engaged creationists as equals in an intellectual debate. He would have been better served by supporting research on the evolutionary psychology of religion, while staying very far away from debating creationists, which has sadly become a hobby of his. That being said, I have yet to read a book which so elegantly describes evolution as The Selfish Gene. This includes Darwin's own works. It is an absolute masterpiece, and was the foundation of my lifelong passion for biology. I consider Dawkins the most influential man in my life. That is why it hurts me to see him behave in such a counter-productive manner.

joelrunyon 13y ago

A lot of people seem to be saying that you shouldn't talk to people who are familiar with creationism at all. Question: What alternative method is there to reach them? Believe it or not, there are some communities where science isn't readily known. What's the alternative? Refusing to engage sounds not only spiteful but not very useful as you're essentially giving up on a segment of the population while simultaneously getting upset that they don't know better.

joelrunyon 13y ago
Using another example that might help this crowd - this reaction reminds me of an article by Paul Jarvis: "Amateurs get angry with clients. Professionals educate them"[1]. There seem to be a lot of people here that are angry & not a lot of people willing to educate. It's easy to label & categorize a whole group of people (whether clients or people who may be uninformed), but if you have the ability to inform, educate & change their opinion over time and don't try - don't get mad at people for staying uninformed - it's your fault. If you attempt and they're hostile, that's a whole different story, but it's definitely worth attempting. [1] http://99u.com/articles/18303/we-deserve-the-clients-we-get http://99u.com/articles/18303/we-deserve-the-clients-we-get
- mikeash 13y ago
  I think it's a product of the typical nerd black-and-white thinking. People are either raging fundamentalists who take the Bible as literal truth and reject all science that contradicts it, or they are reasonable people who think the Earth is old and evolution happened. In reality, there are a ton of creationists who aren't raging fundamentalists. They aren't creationists because they believe so fervently that they cannot accept any contrary evidence. They're simply creationists because that's all they know. Many of these people, when exposed to the truth in a constructive way, will change their minds. In fact, I was one of those people. My elementary school taught creationism and I believed it because, well, why not? Later on I found out about the scientific explanations, and came to accept them instead. You'll never convince Ken Ham. Nor will you convince his hardcore supporters. That's not the point. The point is to reach out to people who aren't hardcore about it, but who still believe nonsense simply because they don't know any better. And what better way to convince them to listen at all than to involve a religious figure arguing for the other side? How many of these non-fundamentalist creationists would tune in to "Bill Nye Explains Evolution", versus "Bill Nye Debates Ken Ham"? You'll convince lots of them.

callmeed 13y ago

Unfortunately, there's also a high cost to people who are christians but are not young earth creationists. Nye actually did a good job pointing out that many reconcile their faith and science and that he was specifically debating Ham's view. Of course, that will probably get glossed over and some will takeaway that christian == wacky like ham

mcv 13y ago
I'm a Christian, and I feel that people like Ham are actively harming Christianity, by effectively teaching people that it's at odds with the observable reality of this world, God's creation (which is studied by science). If you teach people that your faith contradicts science, and they later discover that science works, then what do you think their conclusion is going to be? And it's so utterly unnecessary. For centuries Christians haven't had any problems with science. This stupid biblical literalism movement is a very recent thing, and it thrives on ignorance. It's harmful not just to science, but also to Christianity. It's a false idol.
- greyfade 13y ago
  And yet Christians have, at many times, rejected science in favor of dogma. See, for example, Galileo Galilei, Giordano Bruno, Nicolas Copernicus, and other scientists who were tortured, excommunicated, imprisoned, or had their works banned by the Church in the 15th, 16th, and early 17th centuries, when the Catholic Church had essentially absolute political power. It wasn't until the Church lost its political power that anti-scientific sentiment diminished.
  - mcv 13y ago
    > See, for example, Galileo Galilei, Giordano Bruno, Nicolas Copernicus You clearly do not know what the Galileo case was about. I'm not sure about Bruno, but Copernicus wasn't prosecuted, excommunicated or tortured either. If you believe Galileo or Copernicus were, then you've been fed lies or have jumped to unfounded conclusions (though you wouldn't be the first). The Church of that day played an active role in science, and was absolutely open to the possibility of a heliocentric system. But they wanted a model that accurately reflected observations, which Galileo's model didn't. Galileo claimed it was correct anyway (which it wasn't), and called the pope a fool, for which he got house arrest, but wasn't tortured or anything. Eventually, Keppler's model was proven correct and was accepted by the church.

mgraczyk 13y ago

I didn't watch the entire debate because it was clearly not intended to inform an educated audience, but the parts that I did see really disturbed me. Neither of the debaters made any tangible assertions, nor any statements of fact that contradicted statements made by the other. Nonetheless, the two still somehow found a way to "argue" and "debate" for two hours. Nye should have had it easy. He could have argued that creationists need to demonstrate why their beliefs are any more true than the hundreds of other contradictory creation myths that come from various world cultures (as salgernon mentioned). He also could have argued that science and creationism are not fundamentally incompatible, but instead sort of orthogonal. Creationism can be thought of as a cosmological hypothesis. It happens to be a hypothesis that is basically impossible to test, so scientists instead spend their time evaluating other hypothesis. Instead, it sounded like he argued the position that "science helps us learn and do cool things, plus you don't need to believe in God to seek answers to life's important question." Weak position. Counter argument: "I don't care about learning or technology because when I die I am going to heaven, and that's ultimately more important than science."

joelrunyon 13y ago
> He also could have argued that science and creationism are not fundamentally incompatible, but instead sort of orthogonal. Creationism can be thought of as a cosmological hypothesis. It happens to be a hypothesis that is basically impossible to test, so scientists instead spend their time evaluating other hypothesis. I'm really surprised this didn't come up more as the idea that "science is attacking my religion" tends to be one of the main reasons that people seemed to be adverse to science. It places a false dichotomy in choosing between their faith & science.
- lutusp 13y ago
  > I'm really surprised this didn't come up more as the idea that "science is attacking my religion" tends to be one of the main reasons that people seemed to be adverse to science. It places a false dichotomy in choosing between their faith & science. There's a dichotomy between science and religion, but it's not false by any means. In the most fundamental sense, and not to oversimplify, the scientific mind assumes ideas to be false until there is evidence to support them (scientists call this the "null hypothesis"), and the religious mind assumes an idea to be true until evidence proves it false -- exactly the opposite outlook. Why is it a mistake to assume claims are true unless proven false? Easily explained — let's say I'm a True Believer who believes in Bigfoot. According to the True Believer's way of picturing reality, Bigfoot exists unless someone can prove he doesn't exist. But think about this — Bigfoot cannot possibly be proven not to exist somewhere in the universe, hiding under some rock. In formal logic, a disproof would require "proof of a negative", an impossible evidentiary burden. Therefore a skeptical, scientific outlook is essential to avoid wasting time on childish fantasies. Need I add that religious people just don't understand this? Remember this when you see endless phony TV documentaries about Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster and ghost hunters. These shows are popular because most people don't have the slightest idea how to process ideas. And only some of them have religious beliefs -- others are simply out in the ozone. The above is the "big secret", the divide that separates science and religion. And it's not a puddle, it's bigger than the Grand Canyon.

edandersen 13y ago

Is there anyone on HN happy to admit they are a creationist?

mynameishere 13y ago
I've created several worlds, so I guess it's plausible that this world was created as well. But the actual evidence for this world being "created" is pretty much non-existent. I'm not sure how you would even test for it.
onthesideofthe 13y ago
Yes, but I will create a new account to do so.
dave1010uk 13y ago
I wouldn't call myself a creationist, but I think there's a substantial chance that our current understanding of the physics of the universe will seem as backwards to people in a 200 years as people's under standing 200 years ago does to us now. I even believe that there's a small chance that our understanding of the universe now will seem as backwards as creationism in 5000 years. As there is so much we don't know yet, it seems crazy to say that creationism absolutely cannot be true, even though it's crazy to say that creationism is true.
benjohnson 13y ago
Sure! I'm a trained nuclear physicist, and a biblical literalist. The rather trivial reconciliation of the two viewpoints is that the material world is a small reflection of the theological world. Frankly, I find the debate with Nye and Ham regrettable - in that neither seemed to understand their own position well and did a disservice to both viewpoints.

pstack 13y ago

I had a debate with someone over the existence of Santa Clause, but it was difficult, because the toddler was munching on crayons at the time.

chilldream 13y ago

Atheist who grew up in Oklahoma here. The people in this thread who think that the correct tactic is to immediately jump to "Why is your religion better than Mayan creation myths?" are completely clueless. If you ever even met a creationist, you would know that that would just make them dig in their heels and "confirm" their low opinion of mainstream science. The idea of tiptoeing around religious fundamentalism may bother you, but ultimately you have to decide if you want to be as "right" as possible or if you want to have a shot at convincing someone. And if you don't care about convincing the kind of person who can be a young earth creationist in 2014, then I don't know why you'd even pay attention to any of this.

salgernon 13y ago
I'm an atheist that spent my teenage years at a quasi religious military school in south Texas. There was a school chaplain. There were bullies that assumed that since I didn't believe in god, I must therefore worship satan. I had a revolver held to my head for this when I was 15. Loaded? Dunno. No reason to think that it wasn't. He did this because he wanted me to renounce my beliefs, which I didn't do before someone pulled him away... My point being that these are not rational people, they cannot be reasoned with or taught reality. They wallow and take pride in their ignorance with a "god said it I believe it that settles it" conviction. It won't do them by good in the end, since they will die and release their carbon like the rest of us, but to the extent that they hurt society by their insistence that fairy stories should govern our lives, discourage understanding our universe and preach their bigoted filth, we should give them no truck and no platform. They are worthy of our contempt and scorn and public ridicule, but there is no point in debating them.

msandford 13y ago

I REALLY hate to agree with a creationist to any degree but there is something to the observational/historical debate. We now understand a LOT of physics and chemistry. That's because it's observational, and because it's observational you can make predictions, perform experiments and get results. Other people can do the same as well, thus enabling not only peer review but actual verifiability. This is why we understand physics and chemistry extremely well, biology OK but rapidly improving, and economics and public policy much less well. Because we can reproduce results in physics everyone either agrees on the truth or is generally regarded as a crackpot. Biologists can't produce the kinds of extremely clean data physicists can but it's still meaningful. In macroeconomics there's very little ability to perform experiments in a repeatable fashion, which results in everyone observing the world and then arguing about why things happened and nobody can prove that they're right or that others are wrong. When you're dealing with math or computer science induction is a great tool that allows you to do pretty incredible things. But it does so because the nature of math or algorithms is stationary; the rules are 100% fixed from the beginning of time 'til the end (or so you can assume if you're building the system) and thus any assumptions are by definition correct. It's much harder to do this when you're dealing with things that can change over time (and thus potentially invalidate your assumptions), which is basically everything else. That's not to say that induction is worthless outside of math and computer science but it's use comes with more caveats. I totally get why serious scientists don't want to even acknowledge that a creationist might raise a good point but once it's made the damage is done. If you don't respond at all they pile on saying "look he doesn't have an answer for X!" and if you do respond with a reasonable statement about "this is the best we know thus far and of course nothing can be known until we observe it directly" then they'll pile on with "see it's not guaranteed!" Both of those outcomes are extremely frustrating when you're dealing with someone who can't be convinced with any amount of evidence. But failing to acknowledge that there is a difference between direct observation and historical/induction and that they create two classes of certainty which are not identical does the very tedious and difficult work of science a disservice in my opinion. EDIT: To clarify I think what I'm mostly talking about is certainty. If you can't directly (or indirectly) observe something happening with some kind of experiment you can have a personal opinion about certainty and someone else can have another but neither one can be provably wrong. Once that happens there's real certainty and very little room for opinion anymore. Until then things are a bit more fluid. A well educated person's estimate of certainty might be much more accurate than a plebe's but it's not guaranteed to be right.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

lisper 13y ago

OMG, that was painful. Bill Nye began by wasting two of his five minutes of opening statement talking about freakin' bow ties! Then the first substantive statement out of his mouth was: the question tonight is, does Ken Ham's creation story hold up? Is it viable? No no no! The question is: what is science? And the answer is, as the late great Richard Feynman put it, science is the proposition that EXPERIMENT is the ultimate arbiter of truth. So as soon as you say, as Ken Ham does, that the Bible is the ultimate arbiter of truth, you are not doing science BY DEFINITION. Now, Ken Ham contends that secularists have "hijacked" the word "science." No. It is Ken Ham who has hijacked the word, because the definition is not arbitrary. There is a REASON for it. That reason is, as Ken Ham himself admitted, it works. Experimental science has produced all of the world's technological progress. When Ken Ham claims that the central tenet of science -- that experiment is the ultimate arbiter of truth -- cannot be applied to the past because "we weren't there" he is simply, demonstrably wrong. It can be, and it is. Now, of course one can choose, as Ken Ham does, not to accept the premise that experiment is the ultimate arbiter of truth. There are certainly areas of human endeavor where that standard is not applicable: art, poetry, music. But it can certainly be applied to the past. The debate should not be about whether Ken Ham's model of the world is "viable", the debate should be about what is the standard by which truth is decided: experiment, or a holy text. You can choose one or the other, but experiment produces better results.

yoduddde 13y ago
You should read this. Really read it (like the whole thing): http://www.discovery.org/a/2834 http://www.discovery.org/a/2834 (warning: Stephen Meyer is several notches up the scale of intellectual acuity than Ham) In short, any set of criteria you choose to demarcate science from non-science will either simultaneously include or simultaneously exclude both intelligent design and 'descent from common ancestor'. [And, in the case of inclusion will also bring in a lot of other non-sensical theories].
- lisper 13y ago
  You have completely missed the point. The debate is not (or at least should not be) about what is and is not science. That is merely quibbling over terminology. The debate is (or should be) over the process one uses to arrive at the truth. Empirically, if you use experiment as your arbiter of truth, you are led to make VASTLY more accurate predictions about the world, and hence obtain vastly more power to control the world, than any other criterion that man has yet managed to devise (and in particular, you do better than using any holy text as your arbiter of truth). It doesn't matter if intelligent design is or is not science. What matters is that when you put ID or YEC to experimental test, it fails. When you put Darwinian evolution to experimental test, it succeeds. Whether or not that makes evolution "true" is a debate over the meaning of the word "true", not the meaning of the word "science." You can choose to believe that the universe is borne on the back of a turtle. You can even call that science if you like. But if you put your turtle cosmology to experimental test, I will bet you any amount of money you care to wager that your predictions will be wrong. In the long run, I will win and you will lose. THAT is what matters.

hooande 13y ago

The problem is that religion is a package deal. Members of religious communities see and do a lot of good through the church. They raise money for charity, form close knit social groups and generally spend more time thinking about the good of others than the average person does. But all of this good comes at an ideological price and it could all fall apart easily. If gradual evolution is true then the book of Genesis must be wrong. If the book of Genesis isn't "true", then the Bible itself is based on a lie. If the Bible is a lie then what's the point of going to church? No one wants to worship a fallacious holy book. And if people stop going to church then they'll lose their sense of community and stop doing all the charity work. The thought is too much to bear. It's better just to believe everything the book says, whole cloth, and defend it against all attacks. A debate won't change any minds, but a dialogue will. We shouldn't ignore creationists. We should continue to talk to them, even if we spend a lot of time arguing over insignificant details. This kind of argument can't be won with facts and figures, but only through attaining mutual respect. It may not have been a good idea for Bill Nye to accept this debate, but he had the opportunity to change some minds with the the way that he carried himself and presented his beliefs.

transfire 13y ago

I have come to understand the people that don't believe in evolution are either incapable of grasping the concept or they are too afraid to accept it b/c of it's (supposed) implications. My grandmother is one of the former. Whenever we discuss it she always asks why apes are still here if we descended from them. I try to explain about a common ancestor, etc. But it is useless. Perhaps she too just doesn't want to accept the implications, but I have to consider it possible she simply is incapable of grasping the theory. My mother on the other hand is of the later group. It took quite a bit of effort but I think she finally understood the basic idea. However, she is simply too afraid that believing it might mean there is no such place as Heaven. And that, she just cannot bare to accept. So it is useless really to argue the facts of Evolution vs Creationism. It's the wrong argument. If the person is capable of scientific thinking at all, you still have deal the emotional question of death.

genofon 13y ago

it's unbelievable that the argument of the creationist guy was: "it's not true cause you didn't observe it" and "the evidence it's god's word" as god was something we can all observe... how can you discuss on this nonsense?

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

thecolorblue 13y ago

Although, the idea of debates like these is great, I feel that they do little to make people think rationally, or convince anyone to switch sides. They only galvanize each sides feels that they are right.