Science and faith both lost

On February 4, 2014, millions of people tuned in to the live debate staged between popular scientist and entertainer Bill Nye the Science Guy and well-known creationist Ken Ham.

Though a general consensus of the perceived winner would probably turn up in Nye’s favor, the Editorial Board believes this widely-publicized event was severely misguided in its occurrence in the first place.

For starters, nothing was achieved in the discourse by either Nye or Ham. Nye certainly didn’t start viewing creationism as a viable model in modern society on the spot, and Ham admitted that he would flat-out refuse to believe anything but his model of the “young Earth” (6,000 years of age, precisely), even in the face of irrefutable evidence.

Neither took into account the many variations of their systems of belief, and both danced around the question of a marriage between science and religion, which is an idea many Americans with faith have come to share in light of recent scientific discoveries.

Even worse, Nye’s scattered anecdotes and Ham’s hardline beliefs did little more than talk over each other, resulting in a garbled synthesis of arguments we’ve all already heard before.

The discussion was a rather thinly veiled bid for publicity for the two aging entertainment figures, simultaneously making quite the pretty penny for Ham.
The debate itself took place in Ham’s famous Creationism Museum, and was a ticketed event that sold out to more than 900 happy museum-goers.

After all the lights, cameras and ticket sales, perhaps Ham will have enough money to fund his old pet project — a massive theme park dedicated to explaining the scientific historicity of Noah’s Ark.

Nye’s motives behind his decision to fly to Kentucky for the showdown are less clear. One can imagine, with restraint, two different explanations.

Either he has become a publicity hound after his fall from the PBS spotlight, or he was rather naïve in his eagerness to defend his reputation as a firebrand for science.  

The whole issue also serves as a somewhat chilling reminder to us that Indiana still indirectly funds creationism programs within the state through the use of the voucher program, which allows independent schools with unambiguously Christian agendas to participate and teach intelligent design.

While the Editorial Board staunchly defends everyone’s right to believe what they choose, we maintain that students, especially young students, have the right to hear the most scientifically accurate information of the day while in such a formative stage in their development.

All in all, it was an uncomfortable 150 minutes for everyone involved.
Nye awkwardly referred to the decidedly unreceptive audience as “his Kentucky friends.” Ham used the Bible to disprove Darwin’s notoriously discredited concepts of high and low races, while failing to acknowledge its use in justifying centuries of slavery.

Neither side seemed particularly appealing.

Though in its conception the idea of the debate might have seemed like an earnest, plausible opportunity for both sides to intellectually duke it out, we believe that in its execution, everybody lost that night.

­— opinion@idsnews.com
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