I didn’t watch the debate last night between Bill Nye the
Science Guy and Ken Ham the Creationist Guy. Based on today’s reactions,
however, it sounds like the results were what you would expect, no minds were
changed and both camps retreated to their respective corners feeling they’d
won.
I have a lot of respect for Nye and his valiant attempts to
take the science versus creationism battle directly to the enemy, but I have to
agree with the large number of scientists who oppose these kinds of events as
they only lend unnecessary credence to those who believe in the supernatural
origins of the universe.
There really can’t be a traditional debate between
scientists and creationists because they have two fundamentally opposing
viewpoints that prohibit any form of agreement about anything. The
creationist’s one and only source for their position is the bible, which they
believe is divinely inspired. If I, as a scientist, don’t believe the bible came
from a supernatural source, we are debating from different universes that have
none of the same touch points. From the scientist’s standpoint, you might as
well be basing your arguments on Aesop’s Fables or Mother Goose stories. And if
you’ve ever tried to engage the cheerful Mormon robots who knock on your door,
you know they’re coming from a far different galaxy than the one in which you
live.
The
always brilliant Dr. Richard Dawkins has this to say about debates with
creationists. "Inevitably, when you turn down the invitation you will be
accused of cowardice, or of inability to defend your own beliefs," Dawkins
wrote in a 2006 article entitled Why I
Won’t Debate Creationists. "But that is better than supplying the
creationists with what they crave: the oxygen of respectability in the world of
real science."
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