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by Steve Risner

[This blog post is part of a series. The previous post is here, and the next one is here.]

Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve been discussing two blog posts by Tyler Francke from godofevolution.com that he connected together. One is called “Why Ken Ham’s scientific defense of young-earth creationism just doesn’t make any sense,” and the other is “Ken Ham has a problem with the Bible.” This is part three in that series. We have found that the issues brought up by theistic evolutionists are, as is the general rule, either inaccurately stated or nonexistent. So we left off last week just getting into Bill Nye—who plays a scientist on TV.

Tyler talks about how there is no conspiracy against Christianity or creationism and suggests that the fact that Bill Nye agreed to debate Ken Ham supports this. Let’s first be clear that Bill Nye is not a science expert by any stretch of the imagination, any more than Big Bird is a science expert. He’s an entertainer. Nye agreeing to debate Ken Ham has nothing to do with the censorship of creationist material. There are numerous scientists who have done much for their particular fields who were censored or shunned due to their creationist beliefs. It’s exceptionally easy to find examples of this. This article details it quite a bit. Ben Stein produced a movie on the subject. This article on peer review is rather lengthy, but it’s a good one. Some institutions have had the boldness to come right out and say they won’t tolerate creationist material. Bill Nye even supports the idea of the biased nature of the scientific community when he said, “Many of you, by that I mean many of my skeptic and humanist colleagues, expressed deep concern and anger that I would be so foolish as to accept a debate with a creationist, as this would promote him and them more than it would promote me and us.

As I often say and sincerely believe, ‘You may be right.’ But, I held strongly to the view that it was an opportunity to expose the well-intending Ken Ham and the support he receives from his followers as being bad for Kentucky, bad for science education, bad for the U.S., and thereby bad for humankind--I do not feel I'm exaggerating when I express it this strongly.” I won’t beat it to death. The idea that the mainstream scientific culture at large is unbiased is a joke and everyone knows it. The list of scientists who have lost their jobs over belief in creation is appalling. Nye was naïve enough to believe he’d “expose” Ken Ham and his philosophy when he clearly did no such thing. Further info can be found here and here.

Continuing with the discussion on Bill Nye, Tyler parrots Nye as he asks for a single piece of evidence that would contradict an old earth. First, let’s just say that the age of the earth is completely unknowable unless we can time travel, so the question is inappropriate. However, we can provide many things from the study of the universe that would call into question this idea. This link has 101 of these things. Some are good; some I question. A few of my favorites are helium retention in zircons, C14 in fossils, coal and diamonds, spiral galaxies, short term comets, DNA and soft tissue in fossils, and the faint sun paradox. Let’s move on.

Tyler here quotes Bill Nye in the debate with Ken Ham. He says, “Everyone, and children especially: Do science. Please. And if the evidence shows us that we’re wrong, so be it.” If only this were the case. The theory of evolution is the most accommodating belief system I’ve encountered. They will claim that ‘such and such’ would create major issues for the theory. But when that ‘such and such’ is discovered, the theory is modified or they claim that their position was the opposite the whole time. Examples of this are junk DNA, dinosaur soft tissue, and DNA. Darwinian evolution cannot under any circumstances fall; if it does, the worldview of so many will be wrecked (including Tyler). Sure, they say that you’ll be famous if you find something that throws the theory out the window. Yes, they claim that they want to know the truth and they’d gladly throw out their theory if you show them something that disproves it. But these are just words. Their actions show they have no interest at all in anything but support for the religion they call Darwinism. If something seems to contradict it, they bury it, disqualify the discoverer, or rewrite the past to say they were claiming this the whole time. It’s actually remarkable.

Tyler also says that Nye’s position isn’t, “Just accept what I say because I’m smart and I have evidence.” This is funny. In my experience, most evolutionists do at least the first half of this statement. They will generally resort to saying something like, “Nearly all scientists believe in evolution,” or something like that. We call this an appeal to authority and an appeal to majority. We’ll give them extra points for two fallacies in one. The number of times this is brought up is simply amazing. And as far as evidence goes, where is it? We often hear of the “mountain of evidence” for Darwinism but I’ve never been shown so much as a small stone from its base. I’ve asked repeatedly as have many other creationists I know. There isn’t “evidence for evolution” and “evidence for creation.” There is simply evidence. How one interprets it is what determines what it says. But the evidence is available to us all and we all use it, albeit from different perspectives. This is so vital to understanding this discussion. For more on this point, please take a peek at this blog post I wrote in March of this year.

To wrap up this installment in this particular series, we’ll examine a quote at the end of Tyler’s blog post called “Ken Ham’s defense of young-earth creationist just doesn’t make any sense.” He says, “…there are objective ways to measure arguments. One of them would be that an argument presented at a debate is not completely contradicted by another argument presented by the same person. Another standard I might propose is that an argument presented at a debate not be refuted by the very fact that the debate is happening.” This is interesting. He believes, I am guessing, that because he says something, it makes it true. He’s giving his argument way too much credit. The weight of his statement is hardly noticeable, yet he’s acting as though it’s a slam dunk for his position. We’ve seen that his statements concerning Ham’s comments are not really accurate. It’s really easy to make someone look foolish if you misrepresent what they’ve said. Thus far, after 17 writings, I don’t believe we’ve encountered this theistic evolutionist accurately representing his opponent’s position. This is very telling. Knowing your position is critical (and we could argue he’s a little sketchy there), but knowing your opponent’s position is equally important. How can you reject something you have very little knowledge of? We’ll be hitting some actual theology next week (I realize Tyler said this was all about theology, but I’ve had a hard time finding theology in any of his writings so far)! Isn’t that exciting! Thanks for sticking with us.

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