Bill Nye vs. Ken Ham, Evolution Debate

Yesterday evolutionist Bill Nye and creationist Ken Ham had a publicly televised debate. I didn't see it, but a lot of people are talking about it, and I got into the tail end of a debate going on a friend's Facebook page. Michael, an agnostic because atheist sounds too harsh for someone who isn't anti-God, just doesn't believe in God, and Peter, a Christian biologist had a lively debate going on. They were discussing things with terminology I don't know, so part of it was way over my head, but other things were said that I do know a little about, so I added my two cents worth.

I'm not adding their conversations, but Michael criticized Scripture saying, No man has seen God at anytime, and then in another place it says someone saw the face of God. He also threw in a criticism of the Bible being unscientific. They had a discussion of amino acids being created in a test tube, which I have read about. I don't know the terminology they were using, but I know enough about the event to comment on it. So, with that introduction, here is my reply.

Wow. Wish I'd seen the debate. I've had these kinds of discussions and the intellectuals blow me away. I've heard Ham speak too and I thought he presented creation well, but it was never in a debate situation. It sounds from the comments that he didn't do so well. I don't suppose I could keep pace with Michael and Peter, but I would like to add a few thoughts.

Both men were arguing from subjective beliefs which require faith. Ham's position is based on a scriptural foundation which does indeed leave many details unanswered, but which are supported scientifically by such laws as thermodynamics. Evolution has just as many or more unanswered questions that scientific laws actually refute. Laws of probability show that the likely hood of getting enough amino acids to combine to even take the first step toward life are so astronomical that it is foolish to believe it could even happen.

There are many questions about Scripture and some of those probably have to do with translations not being exactly perfect, but it's an unfair argument to take a verse out of context and throw it into the mix without taking the time to do an exegetical study on the whole passage and finding out what its true meaning is. It's also unfair to make a blanket statement about scientific errors in the Bible without noting what and where they are so we can discuss them.

As for actual evolution, there are things that have honest scientists stymied. The eyeball, for example. No one has dared speculate on how it evolved. The same goes for sex. If life just mutates blindly into new life, what's the point of sex? And how could blind mutation invent something so pleasurable? For that matter, what is the purpose of blind mutation into life forms anyway? If there is no God, why are we here? What's the meaning of life? What answer does evolution provide?

The entire evolutionary argument falls apart when you start talking about evolving mushrooms. You alter and select mushrooms through breeding, but at the end of the day you still have a mushroom. It hasn't evolved into anything.

When you talk about fossils you start losing credibility. The fossil record all over the world proves one thing; no transitional forms, no proof of any change from one creature to another. Colin Patterson, an evolutionist, who was the curator of the British Museum of Natural History, realized this and made the comment that it should be a crime to teach the fossil record as proving evolution in public schools.

Stephen Jay Gould also realized this and came up with a theory he called Punctuated Equilibrium in which species don't slowly evolve, they leap forward all at once. In other words, a monkey didn't slowly evolve into a Neanderthal, he suddenly gave birth to a human, and all monkeys did the same thing at the same time. Patterson called these "Hopeful Monsters."

The fact is, if you can believe something like that, you can believe in creation, because that's essentially how God did it. All at once. Both ideas suggest an intelligence behind the action.

Creation shows purposeful design, and that's what we see all through the universe. Mathematical precision; everything working in an exact order dependent on everything else. Explain how an explosion out of nothingness did that? You can't do it.

A final thought. You bring up DNA, which is actually the death of evolution. DNA is the blueprint of life and it determines exactly what life is going to be. You alter it, or mutate it as evolution says, and you either deform or kill the life form. Down syndrome for example. Genetic mutations are almost 100% harmful, that's why evolution requires billions of years to develop. The problem is, the life form would become extinct long before it ever began to develop positively and ultimately you would have to have billions of sparks in the primordial ooze starting life over and over just trying to get the first amoeba to survive.

Not only is it easier, it is more logical to believe the biblical record of creation.