Teddy James
AFA Journal staff writer
April 2014 – For Ken Ham, founder of Answers in Genesis and the Creation Museum, the much-anticipated debate with noted scientist Bill Nye “The Science Guy” began long before the two stood in front of a sold out audience and millions of online viewers. Ham hosted a meeting with members of the press 60 minutes before the debate. Reporters took the opportunity to question him about creation science and his motives behind the timing of the debate.
“Some have said it’s not coincidental that this debate comes as you are seeing funding deadlines for your Ark Park project,” one reporter said.
“How do you answer all the dating tests that show rocks and trees are older than your purported age of the earth,” another pressed.
Ham answered each question with humility and candor, even getting many of those present to laugh by saying they were making him let the cat out of the bag before the main event.
Clash of ideas
When both scientists made it to the Creation Museum stage in Petersburg, Kentucky, moderator Tom Foreman explained the central question for discussion: “Is creation a viable model of origins in today’s modern scientific era?” He then described the debate’s format. Each man would have 5 minutes for opening remarks, 30 minutes to present his beliefs, 5 minutes for rebuttal, another 5 minutes for a counter rebuttal, then 45 minutes of answering questions from the audience.
During his opening remarks, Ham drew a distinction between observational or operational science and historical science. Observational science is what scientists use to experiment, innovate, invent and build. Historical science, in Ham’s view, is what scientists do to understand what happened in the past. His assertion was that scientists have many assumptions about the past, and if those assumptions are founded in evolution, then the assumptions and thus the conclusions, are unreliable and wrong.
There appeared to be mutual respect between the debaters with Nye even thanking Ham after his 30-minute presentation saying, “I really learned something.” However, his gracious attitude abruptly disappeared.
Nye quickly made a distinction between the scientists who follow Ham’s dichotomy of the sciences and those who do not. He said, “There is no distinction made between historical science and observational science. Those are constructs unique to Mr. Ham.” He proceeded with frequent references to mainstream scientists, “outside” the Creation Museum, and therefore outside Ham’s belief system.
Nye later exemplified his view of the Bible saying, “I understand that you take the Bible, as written in English, translated many, many times over the last three millennia to be a more accurate, more reasonable assessment of the natural laws we see around us than what I and everybody in here can observe. That, to me, is unsettling.”
Clash of worldviews
His unsettling is easy to explain. The debate centered on evolution versus creation on its surface, but at its core, it was a clash of worldviews. Ham bases his worldview and his view of origins on the Bible. Nye bases his worldview and his view of origins on the material world and evidence he can see and touch. Consequently, the two have little room for agreement.
Ham believes the earth is 6,000 years old. He said, “Creation is the only viable model of historical science confirmed by observational science in today’s modern scientific era.” He later asserted that observational science must logically borrow from a creationist worldview in order to make discoveries and innovations.
This was followed by a question asking Ham whether he interprets the Bible literally. “I interpret the Bible naturally,” he answered. “If a passage is written as historical narrative, as Genesis is, you take it as history. If it’s poetry, as we find in the Psalms, you take it as poetry.”
Nye responded: “It sounds to me that there (are) certain parts of this document, of the Bible, that you embrace literally and other parts you consider poetry. So it sounds to me like you’re going to take what you like and interpret it literally and other passages you’re going to interpret as poetic or descriptions of human events. All that aside, I’ll just say scientifically, or as a reasonable man, it doesn’t seem possible that when all these things that contradict your literal interpretation of those first few passages, all those things contradict that, I find that unsettling.”
Nye insisted that creationism is not only wrong but also backward. “What keeps the United States ahead, what makes the United States a world leader is our technology,” he said. “If we continue to eschew science, and try to divide science between observational science and historical science, we are not going to move forward. We will not embrace natural laws. We will not make discoveries. We will not invent.”
Clash of beliefs
It was the belief in the “danger” of creationism that initially brought Nye to Kentucky. In his closing remarks, he said, “I want to close by reminding everybody what’s at stake here. If we abandon all that we’ve learned … if we abandon the process by which we know it … if we stop looking for the next answer, we in the United States will be out-competed by other countries, other economies. That would be okay, I guess, but I was born here, I’m a patriot, and so we have to embrace science education. We have to keep science education in science classes.”
Post-debate, much of the media seemed to agree with Nye. In Ham’s native Australia, Brisbane Times apologized to Kentucky with acerbic mockery: “Well this is embarrassing … I’m sorry, Kentucky. We could have kept (Ham) here, you know. We have a large containment facility where we store all of our Ken Hams. … I’m not sure how Ham got out of the Queensland high school system where [he] had been teaching – ahem – science, and made his way to your fair shores.”
Other news sources and websites joined in the ridicule of Ham, his beliefs about the authority of Scripture and anyone who shares his views.
However the criticism failed to discourage Ham. In a post-debate interview on the Answers in Genesis YouTube channel, he declared the winner of the debate to be God’s Word, which he invoked numerous times. In at lease three of those mentions, the estimated five million people who watched the debate live on the Internet heard Ham clearly identify Jesus Christ as Savior of mankind.
And that good news is not debatable. 
Learn more
The Ken Ham vs. Bill Nye Debate on DVD $19.99
Evolution vs. God – Evangelist Ray Comfort interviews top university evolutionists to prove that evolution is religion rather than science. $5.00
I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist Book and DVD by Christian apologist Frank Turek $24.95
Resources above available at AFA store or 877-927-4917
