Bill Nye - Q & A From Ken Ham - Bill Nye Debate lyrics

1. How does creationism account for the celestial bodies, planets, stars and moons moving further and further apart, and what function does that serve in the Grand Design. Ham: Well, when it comes to looking at the universe, of course we believe, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And I believe our creationist astronomers would say, "Yeah, you can observe the universe expanding.” In fact, the Bible even says, “He stretches out the heavens.” And it seems to indicate there is an expansion of the universe. And so we would say, yeah, you can observe that with what we call observational science. Exactly why God did it that way, I can't answer that question, of course, because, you know the Bible says God made the heavens for His glory. That's why he made the stars that we see out there, and it's to tell us how great He is and how big He is. And in fact, I think that's the thing about the universe, that the universe is so large, so big. One of our planetarium programs looks at this, where we go in and show you just how large the universe is, and I think this shows us how great God is. How big He is, that He is an all-powerful God, that He is an infinite God, an infinite, all-knowing God. He created the universe to show us His power. And could you imagine, the thing that's remarkable, in the Bible, it says that on the fourth day of creation, “and, oh, he made the stars also.” It's almost like, 0h, by the way, I made the stars. And just to show us He is an all-powerful God, an infinite God, He made the stars, and He made them to show us how great He is, and He is an infinite, Creator God, and the more you understand what that means, that God is all-powerful and infinite, we stand back in awe and realize how small we are, we realize, Wow! That God would consider this planet is so significant that He created human beings here, knowing they would sin, yet stepped into history to die for us and to be raised from the dead, offers the free gift of salvation, Wow, what a God! And that's what I would say when I see the universe as it is. Nye: there is a question that troubles us all, from the time we are the youngest and first able to think; and that is, where did we come from? Where did I come from? And this question is so compelling that we invented the science of astronomy, we've invented life science, we've invented physics, we've discovered these natural laws so we can learn more about our origins and where we came from. To you, when it says “He invented the stars also,” that's satisfying; you're done. Oh good, OK. To me, when I look at the night sky, I want to know what's out there, I'm driven, I want to know if what's out there is any part of me, and indeed it is. The "0h By the Way," I find compelling, you are satisfied. And the big thing I want from you Mr. Ham, is can you come up with something you can predict? Do you have a creation model that predicts something that will happen in the future? 2. How did the atoms that created the Big Bang get there? Nye: This is a great mystery. You hit the nail on the head. What was there before the Big Bang? This is what drives us. This is what we want to know, let's keep looking. Let's keep searching. When I was young, it was presumed that the universe was slowing down. The Big Bang, explodes --goes out like that, and so people presumed that it would slow down, that the universe, and gravity especially would hold everything together, and maybe it's going to come back and explode again. People went out with a mathematical expression, is the universe flat? It's a mathematical expression. Will the universe slowdown, slowdown asymptotically and never stop? Well, in 2004 Saul Perlmutter and his colleagues went looking for the rate at which the universe is slowing down. They tried to measure it, and they did it with this extraordinary system of telescopes around the world, looking at the night sky, looking for supernovae. These are a standard brightness that you can infer distances with, and the universe isn't slowing down, it's accelerating. The universe is accelerating in its expansion. And you know why? Nobody knows why. Nobody knows why. You'll hear the expression nowadays, dark energy, dark matter, which are mathematical ideas that seem to reckon well with what seems to be the gravitational attraction of clusters of stars and galaxies and their expansion. And then, isn't it reasonable that whatever's out there causing the universe to expand is here also? And we just haven't figured out how to detect it. But friends, suppose a science student from the Commonwealth of Kentucky pursues a career in science, and finds out the answer to that big question. Where did we come from? What was before the Big Bang? To us this is wonderful and charming and compelling. This is what makes us get up and go to work every day, as you're trying to solve the mysteries of the universe. Ham: Bill, I just want to let you know that there actually is a book out there that actually tells us where matter came from. And the very first sentence in that book says, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." And really, it's the only thing that makes sense; it's the only thing that makes sense of why, not just matter is here and where it came from, but why matter, when you look at it, you have information and language systems that build up, not just matter. And where did that come from? Because matter can never produce information; it can never produce a language system. Languages only come from intelligence. Information only comes from information. The Bible tells us in Hebrews that the things we see are made from things that are unseen. An infinite Creator God, who created the universe, matter, energy, space, ma**, time and the universe, created the information for life. It's only thing it makes logical sense. 3. The overwhelming majority of people in the scientific community have presented valid physical evidence, such as carbon dating and fossils to support evolutionary theory. What evidence, besides what is the literal Word of the Bible, supports creationism? Ham: Well, first of all, I often hear people talking about the majority. I would agree that the majority of scientists would believe in millions of years, and the majority believe in evolution, but there is a large group out there that certainly don't. The first thing I want to say is, that it's not the majority that's the judge of truth. There have been many times in the past when the majority has got it wrong. The majority of doctors in England once thought-- after you cut up bodies and go and deliver babies, and wonder why the d**h rate was high in hospitals until they found out about diseases are caused by bacteria and so on. The majority once thought the appendix was a left-over [vestigial] organ from our evolutionary ancestry and so it's okay to rip it out, when it's diseased just rip it out, but these days we know it's for the immune system and it's very important. It's important to understand that just because the majority believes something, doesn't mean that it's true. One of the things I was doing, I was making predictions. I made some predictions, there's a whole list of predictions, and we are saying if the Bible is right, and we're all descendants of Adam and Eve, there is one race. I talked about that. If the Bible is right, then God made Kinds. And we talked about that, and so really the question comes down to the fact that we're again dealing with aspects about the past that cannot scientifically be proved, because you weren't there, based on observational science in the present. Bill and I, we all have the same observational science, we're here in the present, we can see the radioactivity, but when it comes to entertaining that question, we're not going to scientifically be able to prove that. That's what we need to admit. But we can be great scientists in the present; the examples I gave you, like Dr. Damadian, or Dr. Stuart Burgess, and we can be investigating in the present. I'm just saying that the past is a whole different thing. Nye: thank you Mr. Ham. I have to disabuse you of a fundamental idea. If a scientist, If anybody makes a discovery, that changes the way people view natural law, scientists embrace him or her. This person is fantastic, Louis Pasteur, in reference to germs. No, if you find something that changes or disagrees with the common thought, that's the greatest thing going in science. We look forward to that change, we challenge you to tell us why the universe is accelerating. Tell us why these mothers were getting sick, and we found an explanation for it. The idea that the majority has sway in science is true only up to a point. And I just want to point out, what you may have missed in evolutionary explanations of Life, is it's the mechanism by which we add complexity. The Earth is getting energy from the sun all the time, and energy is used to make life forms somewhat more complex. 4. How did consciousness come from matter? Nye: Don't know. This is a great mystery. A dear friend of mine is a neurologist. She studies the nature of consciousness. Now I will say, I used to embrace a joke about dogs, and you can say—this guy remarked, "I've never seen a dog paralyzed by self-doubt." Actually, I have. Furthermore, the thing that we celebrate, that there are three sundials on the planet Mars that bear an inscription to the future, “To those who visit here, we wish you safe journey and the joy of discovery.” It's inherently optimistic, about the future of humankind, that we will one day walk on Mars. But the joy of discovery, that's what drives us; the joy of finding out what's going on. So we don't know where consciousness comes from, but we want to find out. Furthermore I'll tell you, it's deep within us. I claim that I have spent time with dogs that have had the joy of discovery. It's way inside us. We have one ancestor, as near as we can figure. And by the way, if you can find what we in science call a Second Genesis, which is to say, did life start another way on the Earth? There are researchers in astrobiology, researchers supported by NASA, your tax dollars, that are looking for an answer to that very question. Is it possible that life could start another way? Is there some sort of life form, akin to science fiction, that's crystal instead of membranous? This would be a fantastic discovery that would change the world. The nature of consciousness is a mystery; I challenge the young people here to investigate that very question. And I remind you, taxpayers and voters who might be watching, if we do not embrace the process of science, I mean them in the mainstream, we will fall behind economically. This is a point I can't say enough. Ham: Bill I do want to say that there is a book out there that does document where consciousness came from. And in that book, the one who created us said that He made man in His image, and He breathed into man and he became a living being. And so the Bible does document that fact. That's where consciousness came from. God gave it to us. You know another thing I want to say is, I'm still a little-- I have a mystery. And that is, you talk about the joy of discovery, but you also say that when you die, it's over and that's the end of you. If when you die it's over and you don't even remember you were here, what's the point of the joy of discovery anyway? I mean, it doesn't make sense, I mean, you won't ever know you were ever here and no one who knew you would know they were ever here, ultimately, so what's the point anyway? I love the joy of discovery. Because this is God's creation and I'm finding more out about that, to take dominion for man's good and for God's glory. 5. What if anything would ever change your mind? Ham: Well the answer to that question is, I'm a Christian. And as a Christian, I can't prove it to you, but God has definitely shown me very clearly through his Word and shown himself in the person of Jesus Christ. The Bible is the Word of God. I admit that that's where I start from. I can challenge people that you can go and test that, and you can make predictions based on that; you can check the prophecies in the Bible, you can check the statements in Genesis, you can check that and I did a little bit of that tonight, but I can't ultimately prove that to you. All I can do is to say to someone, look if the Bible really is what it claims to be, if it really is the Word of God and that's what it claims, then check it out. The Bible says if you come to God believing that He is, He will reveal himself to you and you will know; as Christian's we can say we know. And so, as far as the word of God is concerned, no one's ever going to convince me that the word of God is not true. But I do want to make a distinction here, and for Bill's sake: we build models based upon the Bible. And those models are always subject to change. The fact of Noah's flood is not subject to change, but the model of how the flood occurred is subject to change. Because we observe in the current world, and we are able to come up with many different ways that this could have happened, or that could have happened, and that is scientific discovery. That's part of what it's all about. So, The bottom line is that as a Christian I have a foundation, but as a Christian I would ask Bill a question, "What would change your mind?” I mean, you said , even if you came to faith, you'd never give up on believing in billions of years, if I heard you correctly, you said something like that recently, so that would be my question for Bill. Nye: We would need just one piece of evidence, we would need the fossil that swam from one layer to another; we would need evidence that the universe is not expanding, we need evidence that the stars appear to be far away, but they're not. We would need evidence that rock layers can somehow form in just four thousand years instead of the extraordinary number. We need evidence that somehow that you can reset the atomic clock and keep the neutrons from becoming protons. Bring out any of those things, and you would change me immediately. The question I have for you though, fundamentally, in front of the washing??, Mr. Ham, it's What can you prove? What you have done tonight has spent all of the time coming up with explanations about the past. What can you really predict? What can you really prove in a conventional scientific-- or in a conventional, “I have an idea that makes a prediction, and it comes out the way I see it.” This is this very troubling to me. 6. Outside of radiometric methods, what scientific evidence supports your view of the age of the earth. Nye: The age of the earth. Well, the age of stars. Radiometric evidence is pretty compelling [laughing]. Also the deposition rates. It was Lyell, the geologist who realized, to my recollection, he came up with the first use of the term "deep time". When people realized that the Earth had to be much, much older. In a related story, there was a mystery as to how the Earth could be old enough to allow evolution to have taken place. How could it possibly be 3 billion years old? Lord Kelvin made a calculation that if the sun were made of coal and burning, it could not be more than 100,000 or so years is old. But radioactivity was discovered. Radioactivity is why the Earth is still as warm as it is. It's why the Earth has been able to sustain its internal heat all these millennia. And this discovery is something like—this question “without radiometric dating , how would you view the age of the earth”, to me it's akin to the expression, well if things were any other way, things would be different. This is to say, that's not how the world is. Radiometric dating does exist. Neutrons do become protons. That's our level of understanding today. The universe is accelerating. These are all provable facts. That there was a flood 4000 years ago is not provable, in fact the evidence for me, at least as a reasonable man, is overwhelming that it couldn't possibly have happened. There is no evidence for it. Furthermore, Mr. Ham, you never ever quite addressed this issue of the skulls. There are many, many steps in what appears to be the creation, or the coming into being of you and me. Ham: I just want people to understand, too, in dating the age of the earth at about 4 1/2 billion years, no Earth rock was dated to get that age. They dated meteorites, and because they a**umed meteorites were the same age as the Earth, which dates from the formation of the solar system, that's where it comes from. People think they dated rocks on the Earth, but that's just not true. The other point that I was making, and I'll put this slide back up because I have it here, and that is as I said at the end of my first rebu*tal time, that there are hundreds of physical processes that relate to the age of the earth. Here's the point. Every dating method involves a change with time. And there are hundreds of them. If you a**ume what was there to start with, and you a**ume something about the rate, and you know the rate, you make a lot of a**umptions. Every dating method has those a**umptions. Most of the dating methods, 90% contradict billions of years. There is no absolute age dating method, from scientific method because you can't prove something is either young or old. 7. Can you reconcile the change in the rate the continents are now drifting, versus how quickly they must've traveled at creation 6000 years ago [to get where they are now. ] Ham: Actually, this again illustrates exactly what I've been talking about in regard to historical science and observational science. We can look at continents today, and we have scientists who addressed this on our website. I'm definitely not an expert in this area, don't claim to be. But, there are scientists, even Dr. Andrew Snelling, our PhD geologist who has done a lot of research here as well, and there are others out there who are into plate tectonics and continental drift, and certainly we can see movements of the plates today. And if you look at those movements, and if you a**ume that the rate it's moving today has always been that way in the past, you see that's an a**umption. That's the problem when it comes to understanding these things. You can observe movement, but to a**ume it's always been like that in the past that's historical science. In fact we would believe basically in catastrophic plate tectonics. As result of the Flood at the time of the Flood there was catastrophic breakup of the Earth's surface, and what we're seeing now is sort of a remnant of that movement. So we do not deny the movement, or we do not deny plates, but what we can deny is that you can't use what you see today as a basis to extrapolate into the past. It's the same with the Flood. You can say layers today only get laid down slowly in places, but if there was a global flood, that would change all that. Again, this places emphasis on historical science versus observational science. I encourage people to go to our website, Answers in Genesis, because we give a number of papers; in fact, very technical papers. Dr. John Baumgardner is one who's written some very extensive work dealing with this very issue. On the basis of the Bible, we believe there was one continent to start with, because [it says] the water was gathered together into one place. So we do believe that the continent has split up, but particularly, the Flood had a lot to do with that. Nye: It must've been easier for you to explain this a century ago, before the existence of tectonic plates was proven. If you go into a clock store, and there's a bunch of clocks, they are not all going to say exactly the same thing. Do you think that they're all wrong? The reason that we acknowledge the rate at which the continents are drifting apart, or one of the reasons, is we see what is called seafloor spreading in the mid-Atlantic. The Earth's magnetic field has reversed over the millennia, and it leaves a signature in the rocks as the continental plates drift apart. So you can measure how fast the continents are spreading. That's how we do it on the outside. As I said, I lived in Washington State when Mount Saint Helens exploded, that's a result of a continental plate going under another continental plate and cracking, and this water laden rock led to a steam explosion. That's how we do it on the outside. 8. What is your Favorite Color? Nye: I will go along with most people to say green, and it's an irony that green plants reflect green light. Ham: Observational science: blue. [holding up his tie.] 9. How do you balance the theory of evolution with the Second Law of Thermodynamics? (What is the Second Law of Thermodynamics?) Nye: the Second law of Thermodynamics is fantastic, and I recall the words of Eddington, who said, “ if you have a theory that disagrees with Isaac Newton, that's a great theory; if you have a theory that disagrees with relativity, wow, you've changed the world, that's great, but if you're theory disagrees with the second law of thermodynamics, I can offer you no hope. I can't help you. The Second Law of Thermodynamics basically is where you lose energy to heat. This is why car engines are about 30% efficient, that's it thermodynamically, that's why you want the hottest explosion you can get, in the coldest outside environment, yet have a difference between hot and cold. And that difference can be a**essed scientifically or mathematically with this word entropy, referring to order of molecules. But the fundamental thing the questioner has missed, is the Earth is not a closed system. So there's energy pouring in here from the sun, if I may, day and night, there's energy pouring in from the other side . And so that energy is what drives living things on earth, especially in our case, plants. By the way, if you are here in Kentucky about a third and maybe a half of the oxygen you breathe is made in the ocean by phytoplankton. And they get their energy from the sun, so the Second Law of Thermodynamics is a wonderful thing; it's allowed us to have everything you see in this room because our power generation depends on the robust and extremely precise computation of how much energy is in burning fuel. Whether it's nuclear fuel or fossil fuel or some extraordinary fuel yet to be discovered in the future, the Second Law of Thermodynamics will govern any turbine that makes electricity that we all depend on and allowed all these shapes to exist. Ham: let me just say two things if I can, if I can take, a minute goes past, too long. One is, you know what? It is fundamental to understand that you can have all the energy that you want, but energy or matter will never produce life. God imposed information, a language system, and that's how we have life. Matter by itself could never produce life, no matter what energy you had; and even if you had a dead stick, you can have all energy in the world in a dead stick, it is going to decay. And it's not going to produce life. From a creationists' perspective, we certainly agree, I mean, before man sinned there was digestion and so on, but because of the Fall, now things are running down. God doesn't hold things together as he did back then. So now we see in regard to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, we'd say sort of, in a sense, it's out of control now, compared to what it was originally. Which is why we have a running down universe. 10. Hypothetically, if evidence existed that caused you to have to admit that the Earth was older than 10,000 years, and creation did not occur over six days, would you still believe in God, and the historical Jesus of Nazareth, and that Jesus was the son of God? Ham: Well, I've been emphasizing all night, you cannot ever prove, using the scientific method in the present, you can't prove the age of the Earth. So you can never prove it's old. There is no hypothetical. Because you can't do that. Now, we can certainly use methods in the present and make an a**umption, I mean creationists use methods that change over time. As I said, there's hundreds of physical processes, that you can use to set limits on the age of the universe, but you can't ultimately prove the age of the earth. Not using the scientific method. You can't ultimately prove the age of universe. Now, we can look at methods and you can see that there are many methods that contradict billions of years, many methods that seem to support thousands of years, and as Dr. Faulkner said in the little video clip I showed, there's nothing in observational astronomy that contradicts a young universe. I said to you before, and I admit again that the reason I believe in a young universe is because of the Bible's account of origins. I believe that God has always been an infinite creator God, who revealed in his word what he did for us. And when we add up those dates, we get thousands of years. There is nothing in observational science that contradicts that. But as far as the age of the Earth [and] the age of the universe, even when it comes to the fossil record, that's why I really challenge Christians, if you're going to believe in millions of years for the fossil record, you've got a problem with the Bible. And that is, that you had to have d**h and disease and suffering before sin. So there is no hypothetical in regard to that --you cannot prove scientifically the age of the earth or the universe, bottom line. Nye: Well of course I just really disagree. You can prove the age of the earth with great robustness by observing the universe around us. And I get the feeling Mr. Ham that you want us to take your word for it. This is to say, your interpretation of the book written thousands of years ago as translated into American English is more compelling for you than everything that I can observe in the world around me. So you and I are not going to see eye to eye. You said you a**erted that life cannot come from something that's not alive. Are you sure? Are you sure enough to say that we should not continue to look for signs of water and life on Mars, that's a waste? You're sure enough to claim that? That is an extraordinary claim that we want to investigate. Once again, what is it that you can predict? What do you provide us that can tell us something about the future? Not just about your vision of the past. 11. Is there room for God in science? Nye: Well, we remind us, there are billions of people around the world who are religious and who accept science, and embrace it, and especially all the technology that it brings us. Is there anyone here who doesn't have a mobile phone? That has a camera. Is there anyone here whose family members have not benefited from modern medicine? Is there anyone here who doesn't use e-mail? Is anybody here who doesn't eat? Because we use information sent from satellites in space to plant seeds on our farms. That's how we're able to feed 7.1 billion people, where we used to be barely able to feed a billion. So, that's what I see. We have used science as a process. Science for me is two things. It's a body of knowledge, the atomic number of rubidium. And it is a process, the means by which we make these discoveries. So for me, that's not really that connected with your belief in a spiritual being or a higher power. If you reconcile those two, scientists, the head of the Nationals Institutes of Health, is a devout Christian. There are billions of people in the world who are devoutly religious; they have to be compatible because they're the same people who embrace science. The exception is you Mr. Ham, that's the problem for me. You want us to take your word for what's written in this ancient text to be more compelling than what we see around us. The evidence for a higher power and spirituality is for me separate. I encourage you to take the next minute and address this problem of the fossils, the problem of the ice layers, the problem of the ancient trees. This problem of the Ark, I mean really address it. And so then we could move forward, but right now I see no incompatibility between religions and science. Ham: I actually want to take a minute to address the question, and let me just say this, my answer would be, God is necessary for science. In fact, you talk about cell phones, yeah I have a cell phone, I love technology; we have a lot of technology here at Answers in Genesis. And I have the amount??? Or millions of them, or I wouldn't be speaking up here. And satellites, and what you said, you know, about the information we get; I agree with all that. You see, they're things that can be done in the present, and that's just like I showed you, Dr. Stuart Burgess who invented the satellite. Creationists make great scientists. You see, God is necessary, because you have to a**ume the laws of logic, you have to a**ume the laws of nature, you have to a**ume the uniformity of nature, and that was a question I had for you, where does that come from if the universe is here by natural processes? Christianity and science, the Bible and science go hand-in-hand. We love science, but again you've got to understand, inventing things-- that's very different than talking about our origins. Two very different things. 11. Do you believe the entire Bible is to be taken literally? Eg. Men marrying multiple women. Ham: Well, remember in my opening address, I said we have to define our terms. So when people ask that question and they say “literally”, I have to know what that person meant by “ literally.” I would say this, if you say “naturally,” and that's what you mean by literally, I would say, yes I take the Bible naturally. Well what do I mean by that? Well, if it's history, as Genesis is, it's written as a historical narrative, we take it as history. If it's poetry, as you find in the Psalms, then you take it as poetry. It doesn't mean that it doesn't teach truth, but it's not a cosmological account in the sense that Genesis is. There is prophecy in the Bible. And there's predictions in the Bible concerning future events, and so on. So, if you take it as written, naturally according to talkoh??? literature, and you let it speak to you in that way, that's how I take the Bible, it's God's revelation to man. He used different people; the Bible says that all scripture is inspired by God, so God led people by His Spirit to write his words. There's also a misunderstanding regarding the Scripture and in regard to the Israelites. I mean, we have laws in our civil government in America that the government sets. Well, there were certain laws for Israel. You know some people take that all out of context, and then they try to impose it on us today as Christians, and say you should be obeying those laws. It's a misunderstanding of the Old Testament, it's a misunderstanding of the New Testament, and again it's important to take the Bible as a whole, and interpret the Scripture with Scripture. If it really is the word of God, then there's not going to be any contradiction, which there is not. And by the way, when men were married to multiple women, there were lots of problems. The Bible condemns that for what it is; and the Bible is very clear. You know, the Bible is a real book, there are people who do things that were not in accordance with Scripture. It helps you to understand that it's a real book. But marriage was one-man, one-woman. Jesus reiterated that in Matthew 19, as I said in my talk. There were those that did marry multiple women, but were wrong. Nye: So it sounds to me, just listening to your last 2 minutes, that there are certain parts of this document, the Bible, that you embrace literally, and other parts you consider poetry. So it sounds to me in this last two minutes like you're going to take what you like and interpret literally, and other pa**ages you're going to interpret as poetic or descriptions of human events. All that aside, I will say scientifically or as a reasonable man, it doesn't seem possible that all these things that contradict your literal interpretation of those first few pa**ages, all those things that contradict that, I find unsettling when you want me to embrace the rest of it as literal. Now as I say, I'm not a theologian, but when we started this debate, “Is Ken Ham's creation model viable, does it hold water, can it fly? Does it describe anything? I'm still looking for an answer. 12. Have you ever believed that evolution was accomplished through way of a higher power? (This is the intelligent design question). If so, why or why not? Why couldn't evolution not be accomplished in this way? Nye: The idea that there is a higher power that has driven the course of events in the universe and our own existence is one that you cannot prove or disprove. And this gets into this expression “agnostic,” you can't know. I'll grant you that. When it comes to intelligent design, which I understand is your [moderator's] interpretation of the question, intelligent design has a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of nature. This is to say, the old expression that if you were to find a watch in the field, and you pick it up, you would realize that it was created by somebody who was thinking ahead. Somebody with an organization chart, with somebody at the top, who orders screws from screw manufacturers, and springs from spring manufacturers, and gla** crystals from crystal manufacturers. That's not how nature works. This is the fundamental insight in the explanation for living things, as provided by evolution. Evolution is a process that adds complexity, through natural selection. This is to say that nature has its mediocre designs, eaten by its good designs. And so the perception that there is a designer that created all this is not necessarily true, because we have an explanation that is far more compelling and provides predictions and things are repeatable. I'm sure, Mr. Ham, that you have at your facility an organization chart, and I imagine that you are at the top. And it is a top-down structure. Nature is not that way. Nature is bottom-up. This is the discovery. Things merge up, whatever makes it keeps going, whatever doesn't make it falls away. And this is compelling and wonderful, and fills me with joy, and it's inconsistent with a top-down view. Ham: what Bill Nye needs to do for me is to show me an example of something or some new function that arose that was not previously possible from the genetic information that was there. And I would claim and challenge you that there is no such example that you can give. That's why I brought up the example in my presentation of Linsky's experiments in regard to E. coli. And there were some that seem to develop the ability to exist on citrate, and as Dr. Fabbichsaid from looking at looking at his research, he's found that that information was already there; it was just that the genes were being switched on and off. And so there is no example because the information that's there, in the genetic information in different animals and plants and so on, there is no new function that can be added. Certainly there is great variation within kinds, and that's what we look at, but you have to show an example of a brand-new function that never previously was possible, and there is no such example that you can give, anywhere in the world. 13. Name one institution, business or organization other than a church, amusement park, or the Creation Museum that is using any aspect of creationism to produce its product. Ham: Any scientist out there, Christian or non-Christian that is involved in inventing things, involved in the scientific method, is using creation. They are, because they are borrowing from a Christian worldview; they are using the laws of logic. I keep emphasizing that. I want Bill to tell me, in a view of the universe that is a result of natural processes, to explain where the rules of logic came from. Why should we trust the laws of nature? I mean, are they going to be the same tomorrow as they were yesterday? In fact, some of the greatest scientists that ever lived, Isaac Newton, James Clerc Maxwell, Michael Faraday, were creationists, and as one of them said, you know, he is “thinking God's thoughts after Him.” And that's really, modern science really came out of that thinking, that we can do experiments today, and we can do the same tomorrow, we can trust the laws of logic, we can trust the laws of nature, and if we don't teach our children correctly about this, they're not going to be innovative. They're not going to be able to come up with inventions to advance our culture. I think the person was trying to get out, that are there are lots of secularists out there who are doing good work, and they don't believe in creation, and they come up with great inventions. Yeah, but my point is, they are borrowing from the Christian worldview to do so. And as you saw from the video clips I gave, people like Andrew Fabbich and Dr. Faulkner have published in the secular journals; there are lots of creationists out there that have published; people might not know they are creationists, because the topic did not pertain to creation versus evolution, but there are lots of them out there. On our website, there is a whole list there of scientists who are creationists who are out there doing great work in this world, and helping to advance technology. Nye: There is a reason that I don't accept your, “Ken Ham model” of creation, is that it has no predictive quality, as you touched on. There is something that I always found troubling. It sounds as though, and next time around you can correct me, it sounds as though you believe your worldview, which is a literal interpretation of most parts of the Bible, is correct. Well what became of all those people who never heard of it? Never heard of you? What became of all those people in Asia, what became of all those first-nations people in N. America, were they condemned and doomed? I mean, I don't know how much time you spend talking to strangers, but they are not sanguine about that, to have you tell them that they are inherently lost, or misguided. It's very troubling. And you say there are no examples in nature. There are countless examples of how the process of science makes predictions. 14. Since evolution teaches that man is evolving and growing smarter over time, how can you explain the numerous evidences of man's high intelligence in the past? Nye. Hang on – – there is no evidence that humans are getting smarter. Especially if you ever met my old boss, heh, heh. What happens in evolution-- it's a British word that was used in the mid-1800s, it's survival of the fittest. In this usage, it doesn't mean that the most push-ups or the highest scores on standardized tests. It means that those that fit in the best. Our intellect, such as it is, has enabled us to dominate the world. I mean, the evidence of humans is everywhere. James Cameron just made another trip to the bottom of the ocean, the deepest part of the ocean, the first time since 1960, and when they made the first trip, they found a beer can. Humans are everywhere. And so it is our capacity to reason that has taken us to where we are now. If the germ shows up, as it did, for example, in World War I, where more people were k**ed by the flu than were k**ed by the combatants in World War I. That is a troubling, remarkable fact. If the right germ shows up, we'll be taken out. We will be eliminated. Being smarter is not a necessary consequence of evolution. So far, it seems to be the way things are going, because of the remarkable advantage it gives to us over-- we can control our environment or even change it, as we are doing today, apparently by accident. So, everybody, just take a little while and grasp this fundamental idea: it's how you fit in with nature around you. As the world changed, as it did for example in the age of the ancient dinosaurs, they were taken out by a worldwide fireball apparently caused by an impactor; that's the best theory we have, and we are the result of organisms that lived through that catastrophe. It's not necessarily smarter, it's how you fit in with your environment. Ham: I remember at University, one of my professors was very excited to give us this evidence for evolution. And he said, look at this, here is an example. These fish have evolved the ability not to see. He gave the example of blind cave fish, and he said, “You see, in this cave they are evolving, because now the ones that are living there, their ancestors had eyes, and now these ones are blind.” And I remember asking him, “Wait a minute, now they can't do something that they could do before.” They might have an advantage in this sense, in a situation that's dark like that, those with eyes might have developed diseases and died out, but those that had mutations for no eyes are the ones that survived. It's not survival of the fittest; it's the survival of those who survive. And it's survival for those that have the information in those circumstances to survive, but it's not—you're not getting new information, you're not getting new function. There is no example of that at all. So we need to correctly understand these things. 15. Final Question. What is the one thing, more than anything else upon which you base your beliefs? Ham: Again, to summarize the things I've been saying, there is a book called the Bible; it's very unique, it's different than any other book out there. In fact I don't know of any other religion that has a book that starts out by telling you that there is an infinite God, and talks about the origin of the universe, the origin of matter and the origin of light and darkness, and the origin of day and night and the origin of the Earth and the origin of dry land and the origin of plants and the origin of the sun, moon and stars, the origin of sea creatures, the origin of land creatures, the origin of man, the origin of women, the origin of d**h, and sin, the origin of marriage, the origin of different languages, the origin of clothing, the origin of nations; I mean it's a very specific book. And it gives us an account of a global flood in history and the Tower of Babel, and if that history is true, then what about the rest of the book? That history also says that man is a sinner, and it says that man is separated from God, and it gives us a message that we call the gospel, which is a message of salvation, that God's Son stepped into history, died on the cross, and was raised from the dead and offers the free gift of salvation, because history is true, and that's why the message based on history is true. I actually went through some predictions, and listed others; there are a lot more you can look at, and go and test it for yourself. If this book really is true, it is so specific, it should explain the world, [and] it should make sense of what we see. Yeah, the apostles went all over the world; the Tower of Babel, yeah, different people groups, different languages. They have Flood legends very similar to the Bible, creation legends similar to the Bible, there's so much in prophecy and so on. Most of all, as I said, the Bible says if you come to God believing that He is, He will reveal himself to you. You will know. If you search out the truth, if you really want God to show you, as you are searching out the silver and gold, He will show you, He will reveal himself to you. Nye: As my old Prof. Carl Sagan said so often, when you are in love, you want to tell the world. And I base my beliefs on the information and the process that we call “science.” It feels me with joy to make discoveries every day of things I've never seen before [pointing to fossil]. It fills me with joy to know that we can pursue these answers. It is a wonderful and astonishing thing to me that we are, you and I are somehow, at least one of the ways that the universe knows itself. You and I are a product of the universe. It's astonishing. I can see it on your faces, that we have come to be because of the universe's existence. And we are driven to pursue that, to find out where we came from. And the second question, that we all want to know: Are we alone? Are we alone in the universe? And these questions are deep within us, and they drive us, through the process of science, the way we know nature. It is the most compelling thing to me. And I just want to close by reminding everybody what's at stake here. If we abandon all that we've learned, our ancestors, what they've learned about nature and our place in it, if we abandon the process by which we know it, if we is eschew, if we let go of everything that people have learned before us, if we've stopped driving forward, stopped looking for the next answer to the next question, we in the United States will be outcompeted by other countries, other economies. Now that would be okay, I guess but I was born here, I'm a patriot. So we have to embrace science education. To the voters and taxpayers that are watching, please keep that in mind. We have to keep science education in science. Science cla**es. THE END