> 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 questio

> 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? Apart from the fact that the debate gave the Creationists unearned attention and was therefore a mistake, no, trying to summarize science to these religious people would only have piled one mistake onto another. Consider the basics of science: 1. Skepticism toward everything, and the assumption that an idea without evidence is assumed to be false (the "null hypothesis") -- the opposite of a non-scientist's attitude toward an unsupported idea. 2. The idea that any worthwhile idea must in principle be falsifiable by the right empirical evidence, or, to put this a different way, all ideas must pass muster by means of a reality-test. No reality-test, no validity. 3. The idea that all theories (ideas) are temporary and dispensable, that no scientific theories ever become true or beyond challenge by new evidence. To simply describe this foundation of modern science would strike religious believers, people whose lives are ruled by blind belief and a severe lack of critical thinking, as monstrous. The scientific outlook cannot possibly be more opposed to the religious outlook, and to simply present it to a group of religious believers would bring down any house of believers. What science actually consists of is on a long list of things that religious people don't know about the modern world -- it's too painful to contemplate. To try to break through this barrier would be a mistake. Better to do what Nye did -- show a fossil that's obviously older than 6,000 years. Something small and manageable. But again, I think the debate was a mistake -- it gave the creationists unearned attention.