I didn't watch the entire debate because it was clearly not intended to inform an educated audience, but the parts that I did see really disturbed me. Neither of the debaters made any tangible assertions, nor any statements of fact that contradicted statements made by the other. Nonetheless, the two still somehow found a way to "argue" and "debate" for two hours.
Nye should have had it easy. He could have argued that creationists need to demonstrate why their beliefs are any more true than the hundreds of other contradictory creation myths that come from various world cultures (as salgernon mentioned). He also could have argued that science and creationism are not fundamentally incompatible, but instead sort of orthogonal. Creationism can be thought of as a cosmological hypothesis. It happens to be a hypothesis that is basically impossible to test, so scientists instead spend their time evaluating other hypothesis.
Instead, it sounded like he argued the position that "science helps us learn and do cool things, plus you don't need to believe in God to seek answers to life's important question." Weak position. Counter argument: "I don't care about learning or technology because when I die I am going to heaven, and that's ultimately more important than science."
> He also could have argued that science and creationism are not fundamentally incompatible, but instead sort of orthogonal. Creationism can be thought of as a cosmological hypothesis. It happens to be a hypothesis that is basically impossible to test, so scientists instead spend their time evaluating other hypothesis.
I'm really surprised this didn't come up more as the idea that "science is attacking my religion" tends to be one of the main reasons that people seemed to be adverse to science. It places a false dichotomy in choosing between their faith & science.
No creationist has ever been able to explain why their version should be preferred over, say, Mayan creation myths. It kind of makes my mind explode that they can claim absolute truth over other such myths. But, that's religion, I guess. Pointless and I wish bill nye hadn't given th the time of day.
To be fair, thats like asking you to explain why gravity works. (without saying that it just does) There are a lot of things that seem simple which smart people have only theorized.
>and I wish bill nye hadn't given th the time of day.
Agreed. I loved Bill Nye's shows when I was a growing up, and I think he made a positive difference in my life. I don't know if participating in the debate will have had the same effect on anyone there.
I wish Bill would continue the kind of work he did when I was younger, instead of debating creationists, or going on FOX News to be the wacky scientist from that kids show that explains middle school science to the viewers.
Getting children interested in science. In discovery. Fostering a love of learning. That's what I think matters. That will be his legacy.
Atheist who grew up in Oklahoma here. The people in this thread who think that the correct tactic is to immediately jump to "Why is your religion better than Mayan creation myths?" are completely clueless. If you ever even met a creationist, you would know that that would just make them dig in their heels and "confirm" their low opinion of mainstream science.
The idea of tiptoeing around religious fundamentalism may bother you, but ultimately you have to decide if you want to be as "right" as possible or if you want to have a shot at convincing someone. And if you don't care about convincing the kind of person who can be a young earth creationist in 2014, then I don't know why you'd even pay attention to any of this.
I'm an atheist that spent my teenage years at a quasi religious military school in south Texas. There was a school chaplain. There were bullies that assumed that since I didn't believe in god, I must therefore worship satan.
I had a revolver held to my head for this when I was 15. Loaded? Dunno. No reason to think that it wasn't. He did this because he wanted me to renounce my beliefs, which I didn't do before someone pulled him away...
My point being that these are not rational people, they cannot be reasoned with or taught reality. They wallow and take pride in their ignorance with a "god said it I believe it that settles it" conviction.
It won't do them by good in the end, since they will die and release their carbon like the rest of us, but to the extent that they hurt society by their insistence that fairy stories should govern our lives, discourage understanding our universe and preach their bigoted filth, we should give them no truck and no platform. They are worthy of our contempt and scorn and public ridicule, but there is no point in debating them.
OMG, that was painful. Bill Nye began by wasting two of his five minutes of opening statement talking about freakin' bow ties!
Then the first substantive statement out of his mouth was: the question tonight is, does Ken Ham's creation story hold up? Is it viable?
No no no! The question is: what is science? And the answer is, as the late great Richard Feynman put it, science is the proposition that EXPERIMENT is the ultimate arbiter of truth. So as soon as you say, as Ken Ham does, that the Bible is the ultimate arbiter of truth, you are not doing science BY DEFINITION.
Now, Ken Ham contends that secularists have "hijacked" the word "science." No. It is Ken Ham who has hijacked the word, because the definition is not arbitrary. There is a REASON for it. That reason is, as Ken Ham himself admitted, it works. Experimental science has produced all of the world's technological progress.
When Ken Ham claims that the central tenet of science -- that experiment is the ultimate arbiter of truth -- cannot be applied to the past because "we weren't there" he is simply, demonstrably wrong. It can be, and it is.
Now, of course one can choose, as Ken Ham does, not to accept the premise that experiment is the ultimate arbiter of truth. There are certainly areas of human endeavor where that standard is not applicable: art, poetry, music. But it can certainly be applied to the past.
The debate should not be about whether Ken Ham's model of the world is "viable", the debate should be about what is the standard by which truth is decided: experiment, or a holy text. You can choose one or the other, but experiment produces better results.
(warning: Stephen Meyer is several notches up the scale of intellectual acuity than Ham)
In short, any set of criteria you choose to demarcate science from non-science will either simultaneously include or simultaneously exclude both intelligent design and 'descent from common ancestor'. [And, in the case of inclusion will also bring in a lot of other non-sensical theories].
> Then the first substantive statement out of his mouth was: the question tonight is, does Ken Ham's creation story hold up? Is it viable? No no no! The question is: what is science?
Apart from the fact that the debate gave the Creationists unearned attention and was therefore a mistake, no, trying to summarize science to these religious people would only have piled one mistake onto another. Consider the basics of science:
1. Skepticism toward everything, and the assumption that an idea without evidence is assumed to be false (the "null hypothesis") -- the opposite of a non-scientist's attitude toward an unsupported idea.
2. The idea that any worthwhile idea must in principle be falsifiable by the right empirical evidence, or, to put this a different way, all ideas must pass muster by means of a reality-test. No reality-test, no validity.
3. The idea that all theories (ideas) are temporary and dispensable, that no scientific theories ever become true or beyond challenge by new evidence.
To simply describe this foundation of modern science would strike religious believers, people whose lives are ruled by blind belief and a severe lack of critical thinking, as monstrous. The scientific outlook cannot possibly be more opposed to the religious outlook, and to simply present it to a group of religious believers would bring down any house of believers.
What science actually consists of is on a long list of things that religious people don't know about the modern world -- it's too painful to contemplate. To try to break through this barrier would be a mistake. Better to do what Nye did -- show a fossil that's obviously older than 6,000 years. Something small and manageable.
But again, I think the debate was a mistake -- it gave the creationists unearned attention.
Unfortunately, there's also a high cost to people who are christians but are not young earth creationists. Nye actually did a good job pointing out that many reconcile their faith and science and that he was specifically debating Ham's view. Of course, that will probably get glossed over and some will takeaway that christian == wacky like ham
I'm a Christian, and I feel that people like Ham are actively harming Christianity, by effectively teaching people that it's at odds with the observable reality of this world, God's creation (which is studied by science). If you teach people that your faith contradicts science, and they later discover that science works, then what do you think their conclusion is going to be?
And it's so utterly unnecessary. For centuries Christians haven't had any problems with science. This stupid biblical literalism movement is a very recent thing, and it thrives on ignorance. It's harmful not just to science, but also to Christianity. It's a false idol.
A lot of people seem to be saying that you shouldn't talk to people who are familiar with creationism at all.
Question: What alternative method is there to reach them? Believe it or not, there are some communities where science isn't readily known. What's the alternative? Refusing to engage sounds not only spiteful but not very useful as you're essentially giving up on a segment of the population while simultaneously getting upset that they don't know better.
Using another example that might help this crowd - this reaction reminds me of an article by Paul Jarvis: "Amateurs get angry with clients. Professionals educate them"[1].
There seem to be a lot of people here that are angry & not a lot of people willing to educate. It's easy to label & categorize a whole group of people (whether clients or people who may be uninformed), but if you have the ability to inform, educate & change their opinion over time and don't try - don't get mad at people for staying uninformed - it's your fault.
If you attempt and they're hostile, that's a whole different story, but it's definitely worth attempting.
> Question: What alternative method is there to reach them?
Oh, that's easy. Instead of confronting their belief system, present them with evidence from the modern world, and carefully guide them from an observation to a scientific conclusion -- but without calling it that.
Instead of saying "science opposes religion, and science is right", instead tell the modern story of Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Explain that penicillin used to work, but a handful of bacteria were able to resist the penicillin, and those few bacteria, by surviving and procreating, eventually became all the bacteria. Then explain that we tried a different antibiotic which wiped out nearly all the bacteria again -- but not all of them. Again, the few survivors became the new species, and this entire drama played out over a period of years, not millennia, and we observed it happening with microscopes, not fossils, meaning there were no gaps in the fossil record to argue about.
Wait until your True Believer has grasped the basic idea, then let him visit a clinic filled with dying children. Then say, "To solve this problem, to save these children, we need to understand and accept evolution, because these bacteria prove that evolution by natural selection is real."
There are as many similar examples as there are branches of modern science. Each of the stories can be told in an engaging, narrative way, with real people, in modern times, and it's not even necessary to say "science".
> A lot of people seem to be saying that you shouldn't talk to people who are familiar with creationism at all.
No one has said that. Notable amidst the number of errors you've managed to cram into that one sentence, you seem to have confused "people who want to engage in public 'debate' about creationism" with "people who are familiar with creationism at all". The two groups aren't even approximately the same.
I've engaged in discussions of various topics over the years and developed a few guidelines and practices which I try to adhere to. Starting with the "training-wheel" arguments typical of high-school and college age, and evolving through many of technology's "religious wars" (vi vs. emacs, Microsoft vs. Linux, etc. -- particularly the latter).
Among them:
• Go Socratic. Sometimes the best way to convince someone is to let them argue their own way out of their position. Ask questions rather than make assertions or pound facts.
• Realize that often the game isn't to convince. I have positions I hold strongly, most on the basis of experience, evidence, or logic that's convincing to me (and I'm occasionally persuaded to change my mind). But in discussing them with others my objective is often to understand what the basis of their position is. I might learn something. Fairly often, I'll find that the views aren't well-founded or aren't convincing (strengthening my own conclusions).
• Distressingly often your'll find that a person's primary argument is "it benefits me to claim this belief despite no rational or factual basis for it" -- it's Upton Sinclair (and Al Gore)'s observation: "It's difficult to get a man to understand something if his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
• Rejection of concepts is often driven by fear. I ran across this passage re-reading Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: "You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence in. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They know it's going to rise tomorrow. When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kinds of dogmas or goals, it's always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt."
• Psychology is a hell of a drug. There area all sorts of weird aversions people have. I've met pathological liars. I've met people who simply deny obvious truths. Who feel "it's not a lie if I simply don't say it" (the lie of omission) or "if I only try to draw your attention from it" (lie of distraction). People are rather less rational than you might hope.
And for all of that, I've had some pretty amazing, interesting, and productive exchanges, often in the oddest places. Pulled into a highway rest area in the deep south a few years back, started talking with another man there. We both verbally circled for a few minutes trying to suss each other out, then realize that, actually, our views were fairly similar despite the miles that separated us. That was one of the more interesting 45 minute conversations I've had in years. Possibly decades.
The problem is that religion is a package deal. Members of religious communities see and do a lot of good through the church. They raise money for charity, form close knit social groups and generally spend more time thinking about the good of others than the average person does. But all of this good comes at an ideological price and it could all fall apart easily.
If gradual evolution is true then the book of Genesis must be wrong. If the book of Genesis isn't "true", then the Bible itself is based on a lie. If the Bible is a lie then what's the point of going to church? No one wants to worship a fallacious holy book. And if people stop going to church then they'll lose their sense of community and stop doing all the charity work. The thought is too much to bear. It's better just to believe everything the book says, whole cloth, and defend it against all attacks.
A debate won't change any minds, but a dialogue will. We shouldn't ignore creationists. We should continue to talk to them, even if we spend a lot of time arguing over insignificant details. This kind of argument can't be won with facts and figures, but only through attaining mutual respect. It may not have been a good idea for Bill Nye to accept this debate, but he had the opportunity to change some minds with the the way that he carried himself and presented his beliefs.
For the life of me, I never understood why evolutionary biologists engage in such ridiculous behavior. Instead of explaining religion from a scientific point of view, they instead debate nonsense as if it is on equal footing with empirically validated science. Richard Dawkins, who taught me biology through his incredible books, has wasted a majority of his life following this foolish path. I still don't understand why.
Religious beliefs result in adaptive behaviors proven to increase fitness in certain environments. That is, these behaviors enhance the fitness of the genes which make one predisposed to religiosity. This has been hypothesized many times, and is the only rational explanation for the vast and fervent religious behaviors we witness today. In brief, religious behaviors cause individuals to engage in cooperative exchanges which are mutually beneficial to both parties. Iterated over many interactions, in a large population, with reputation, it becomes obvious that these behaviors are adaptive.
What biologists must emphasize is that religious behaviors are distinct from religious mythology. It is the behaviors we are interested in as scientists, not the literary masterpieces that constitute such works as the Bible, Quran, Torah, etc. Although they are linked, from an empirical point of view it is meaningless to analyze the philosophy of religion. We must instead look at the behaviors and their resultant consequences.
For those interested, there is a massive amount of knowledge on this subject. I would recommend beginning with Richard Dawkins' Selfish Gene, and intuitively working through the corollaries thereafter. Further reading can be found here [1].
EDIT: Removed Wikipedia link as it wasn't very useful upon closer inspection. The research group linked instead is a much better resource. Also reworded for clarity as per comments below.
"these behaviors enhance the fitness of the genes which make one predisposed to religiosity. This has been hypothesized many times, and is the only rational explanation for the vast and fervent religious behaviors we witness today."
> What biologists must emphasize is that religious dogma (i.e. behaviors) are distinct from religious theology (i.e. mythology).
You know that these are distinctly non-standard (to the point of not having any resemblance to the usual ones) definitions of "dogma" and "theology", right?
If you mean "behaviors" and "mythology", then just say that, rather than saying "dogma" and "theology" with those others in parenthesis, when "dogma" doesn't mean "behavior" and "theology" does not mean "mythology".
There is a very simple explanation for religion: most people conform to the culture of their surrounding.
That's why most people growing up in Muslim country become Muslims, most people growing up in Mormon area become Mormons, most people growing up in atheist countries are atheist and Germany (yes, I'll go there) had a surge of Natzis-ism.
Cultural norm is a powerful thing.
But hey, I'm open to changing my mind given some evidence.
Why don't you sequence a few deceased atheists and a few deceased religious folks and by way of simple diff isolate the "religion" gene. There might be a Nobel prize in it.
I have come to understand the people that don't believe in evolution are either incapable of grasping the concept or they are too afraid to accept it b/c of it's (supposed) implications. My grandmother is one of the former. Whenever we discuss it she always asks why apes are still here if we descended from them. I try to explain about a common ancestor, etc. But it is useless. Perhaps she too just doesn't want to accept the implications, but I have to consider it possible she simply is incapable of grasping the theory. My mother on the other hand is of the later group. It took quite a bit of effort but I think she finally understood the basic idea. However, she is simply too afraid that believing it might mean there is no such place as Heaven. And that, she just cannot bare to accept.
So it is useless really to argue the facts of Evolution vs Creationism. It's the wrong argument. If the person is capable of scientific thinking at all, you still have deal the emotional question of death.
I wouldn't call myself a creationist, but I think there's a substantial chance that our current understanding of the physics of the universe will seem as backwards to people in a 200 years as people's under standing 200 years ago does to us now. I even believe that there's a small chance that our understanding of the universe now will seem as backwards as creationism in 5000 years.
As there is so much we don't know yet, it seems crazy to say that creationism absolutely cannot be true, even though it's crazy to say that creationism is true.
Sure! I'm a trained nuclear physicist, and a biblical literalist.
The rather trivial reconciliation of the two viewpoints is that the material world is a small reflection of the theological world.
Frankly, I find the debate with Nye and Ham regrettable - in that neither seemed to understand their own position well and did a disservice to both viewpoints.
I've created several worlds, so I guess it's plausible that this world was created as well. But the actual evidence for this world being "created" is pretty much non-existent. I'm not sure how you would even test for it.
The distinction between 'observational' and 'historical' is a matter of political and social convenience.
Consider carbon dating. Since it's been observed, we should assume it's observational. carbon dating indicates that dinosaurs existed hundreds of millions of years ago instead of mere thousands. but that's historical and therefore this is a contradiction, so we can't assume the distinction.
the only logical conclusion is that we have a false premise.
Minor nit pick here, but carbon dating is not used to date fossils and rocks because C14 has a half-life of only ~5k years. With such a short half-life, the C14 all decays away to trace levels in only a few tens of thousands of years.
Other radioactive isotopes with much longer half-lives are more appropriate for geologic dating. The U-Pb system is really good for most geologic applications.
Although, the idea of debates like these is great, I feel that they do little to make people think rationally, or convince anyone to switch sides. They only galvanize each sides feels that they are right.
it's unbelievable that the argument of the creationist guy was: "it's not true cause you didn't observe it" and "the evidence it's god's word" as god was something we can all observe...
I REALLY hate to agree with a creationist to any degree but there is something to the observational/historical debate.
We now understand a LOT of physics and chemistry. That's because it's observational, and because it's observational you can make predictions, perform experiments and get results. Other people can do the same as well, thus enabling not only peer review but actual verifiability.
This is why we understand physics and chemistry extremely well, biology OK but rapidly improving, and economics and public policy much less well. Because we can reproduce results in physics everyone either agrees on the truth or is generally regarded as a crackpot. Biologists can't produce the kinds of extremely clean data physicists can but it's still meaningful. In macroeconomics there's very little ability to perform experiments in a repeatable fashion, which results in everyone observing the world and then arguing about why things happened and nobody can prove that they're right or that others are wrong.
When you're dealing with math or computer science induction is a great tool that allows you to do pretty incredible things. But it does so because the nature of math or algorithms is stationary; the rules are 100% fixed from the beginning of time 'til the end (or so you can assume if you're building the system) and thus any assumptions are by definition correct. It's much harder to do this when you're dealing with things that can change over time (and thus potentially invalidate your assumptions), which is basically everything else. That's not to say that induction is worthless outside of math and computer science but it's use comes with more caveats.
I totally get why serious scientists don't want to even acknowledge that a creationist might raise a good point but once it's made the damage is done. If you don't respond at all they pile on saying "look he doesn't have an answer for X!" and if you do respond with a reasonable statement about "this is the best we know thus far and of course nothing can be known until we observe it directly" then they'll pile on with "see it's not guaranteed!" Both of those outcomes are extremely frustrating when you're dealing with someone who can't be convinced with any amount of evidence.
But failing to acknowledge that there is a difference between direct observation and historical/induction and that they create two classes of certainty which are not identical does the very tedious and difficult work of science a disservice in my opinion.
EDIT: To clarify I think what I'm mostly talking about is certainty. If you can't directly (or indirectly) observe something happening with some kind of experiment you can have a personal opinion about certainty and someone else can have another but neither one can be provably wrong. Once that happens there's real certainty and very little room for opinion anymore. Until then things are a bit more fluid. A well educated person's estimate of certainty might be much more accurate than a plebe's but it's not guaranteed to be right.
As you say, it seems that the main point of creationists' argument is that historical science isn't valid, because "you haven't seen it happen".
There are so many things wrong with this argument that I don't even know where to begin, but let's play along with this ridiculous line of thought anyway. The obvious question that follows is why is the "historical science" given by the bible any more plausible than the "historical science" of any other creation myth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_creation_myths) ?
Of course there is a difference between circumstantial evidence and direct evidence, but even if you can't guarantee that your interpretation of the circumstantial evidence is true (something which by the way you can't do with direct evidence either), one should strive to find an interpretation that has the highest probability of being true given all the evidence at a given moment.
tl;dr:
"Creationism is a worthless and uneducated position to hold in our modern society and Nye is about to treat it as an equal, debatable 'controversy'."
"Scientists should not debate creationists. Period."
[+] [-] mgraczyk|12 years ago|reply
Nye should have had it easy. He could have argued that creationists need to demonstrate why their beliefs are any more true than the hundreds of other contradictory creation myths that come from various world cultures (as salgernon mentioned). He also could have argued that science and creationism are not fundamentally incompatible, but instead sort of orthogonal. Creationism can be thought of as a cosmological hypothesis. It happens to be a hypothesis that is basically impossible to test, so scientists instead spend their time evaluating other hypothesis.
Instead, it sounded like he argued the position that "science helps us learn and do cool things, plus you don't need to believe in God to seek answers to life's important question." Weak position. Counter argument: "I don't care about learning or technology because when I die I am going to heaven, and that's ultimately more important than science."
[+] [-] joelrunyon|12 years ago|reply
I'm really surprised this didn't come up more as the idea that "science is attacking my religion" tends to be one of the main reasons that people seemed to be adverse to science. It places a false dichotomy in choosing between their faith & science.
[+] [-] nextstep|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pkulak|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] salgernon|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mkhpalm|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iamjustin|12 years ago|reply
Agreed. I loved Bill Nye's shows when I was a growing up, and I think he made a positive difference in my life. I don't know if participating in the debate will have had the same effect on anyone there.
I wish Bill would continue the kind of work he did when I was younger, instead of debating creationists, or going on FOX News to be the wacky scientist from that kids show that explains middle school science to the viewers.
Getting children interested in science. In discovery. Fostering a love of learning. That's what I think matters. That will be his legacy.
[+] [-] chilldream|12 years ago|reply
The idea of tiptoeing around religious fundamentalism may bother you, but ultimately you have to decide if you want to be as "right" as possible or if you want to have a shot at convincing someone. And if you don't care about convincing the kind of person who can be a young earth creationist in 2014, then I don't know why you'd even pay attention to any of this.
[+] [-] salgernon|12 years ago|reply
I had a revolver held to my head for this when I was 15. Loaded? Dunno. No reason to think that it wasn't. He did this because he wanted me to renounce my beliefs, which I didn't do before someone pulled him away...
My point being that these are not rational people, they cannot be reasoned with or taught reality. They wallow and take pride in their ignorance with a "god said it I believe it that settles it" conviction.
It won't do them by good in the end, since they will die and release their carbon like the rest of us, but to the extent that they hurt society by their insistence that fairy stories should govern our lives, discourage understanding our universe and preach their bigoted filth, we should give them no truck and no platform. They are worthy of our contempt and scorn and public ridicule, but there is no point in debating them.
[+] [-] lisper|12 years ago|reply
Then the first substantive statement out of his mouth was: the question tonight is, does Ken Ham's creation story hold up? Is it viable?
No no no! The question is: what is science? And the answer is, as the late great Richard Feynman put it, science is the proposition that EXPERIMENT is the ultimate arbiter of truth. So as soon as you say, as Ken Ham does, that the Bible is the ultimate arbiter of truth, you are not doing science BY DEFINITION.
Now, Ken Ham contends that secularists have "hijacked" the word "science." No. It is Ken Ham who has hijacked the word, because the definition is not arbitrary. There is a REASON for it. That reason is, as Ken Ham himself admitted, it works. Experimental science has produced all of the world's technological progress.
When Ken Ham claims that the central tenet of science -- that experiment is the ultimate arbiter of truth -- cannot be applied to the past because "we weren't there" he is simply, demonstrably wrong. It can be, and it is.
Now, of course one can choose, as Ken Ham does, not to accept the premise that experiment is the ultimate arbiter of truth. There are certainly areas of human endeavor where that standard is not applicable: art, poetry, music. But it can certainly be applied to the past.
The debate should not be about whether Ken Ham's model of the world is "viable", the debate should be about what is the standard by which truth is decided: experiment, or a holy text. You can choose one or the other, but experiment produces better results.
[+] [-] yoduddde|12 years ago|reply
(warning: Stephen Meyer is several notches up the scale of intellectual acuity than Ham)
In short, any set of criteria you choose to demarcate science from non-science will either simultaneously include or simultaneously exclude both intelligent design and 'descent from common ancestor'. [And, in the case of inclusion will also bring in a lot of other non-sensical theories].
[+] [-] lutusp|12 years ago|reply
Apart from the fact that the debate gave the Creationists unearned attention and was therefore a mistake, no, trying to summarize science to these religious people would only have piled one mistake onto another. Consider the basics of science:
1. Skepticism toward everything, and the assumption that an idea without evidence is assumed to be false (the "null hypothesis") -- the opposite of a non-scientist's attitude toward an unsupported idea.
2. The idea that any worthwhile idea must in principle be falsifiable by the right empirical evidence, or, to put this a different way, all ideas must pass muster by means of a reality-test. No reality-test, no validity.
3. The idea that all theories (ideas) are temporary and dispensable, that no scientific theories ever become true or beyond challenge by new evidence.
To simply describe this foundation of modern science would strike religious believers, people whose lives are ruled by blind belief and a severe lack of critical thinking, as monstrous. The scientific outlook cannot possibly be more opposed to the religious outlook, and to simply present it to a group of religious believers would bring down any house of believers.
What science actually consists of is on a long list of things that religious people don't know about the modern world -- it's too painful to contemplate. To try to break through this barrier would be a mistake. Better to do what Nye did -- show a fossil that's obviously older than 6,000 years. Something small and manageable.
But again, I think the debate was a mistake -- it gave the creationists unearned attention.
[+] [-] callmeed|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mcv|12 years ago|reply
And it's so utterly unnecessary. For centuries Christians haven't had any problems with science. This stupid biblical literalism movement is a very recent thing, and it thrives on ignorance. It's harmful not just to science, but also to Christianity. It's a false idol.
[+] [-] joelrunyon|12 years ago|reply
Question: What alternative method is there to reach them? Believe it or not, there are some communities where science isn't readily known. What's the alternative? Refusing to engage sounds not only spiteful but not very useful as you're essentially giving up on a segment of the population while simultaneously getting upset that they don't know better.
[+] [-] joelrunyon|12 years ago|reply
There seem to be a lot of people here that are angry & not a lot of people willing to educate. It's easy to label & categorize a whole group of people (whether clients or people who may be uninformed), but if you have the ability to inform, educate & change their opinion over time and don't try - don't get mad at people for staying uninformed - it's your fault.
If you attempt and they're hostile, that's a whole different story, but it's definitely worth attempting.
[1] http://99u.com/articles/18303/we-deserve-the-clients-we-get
[+] [-] lutusp|12 years ago|reply
Oh, that's easy. Instead of confronting their belief system, present them with evidence from the modern world, and carefully guide them from an observation to a scientific conclusion -- but without calling it that.
Instead of saying "science opposes religion, and science is right", instead tell the modern story of Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Explain that penicillin used to work, but a handful of bacteria were able to resist the penicillin, and those few bacteria, by surviving and procreating, eventually became all the bacteria. Then explain that we tried a different antibiotic which wiped out nearly all the bacteria again -- but not all of them. Again, the few survivors became the new species, and this entire drama played out over a period of years, not millennia, and we observed it happening with microscopes, not fossils, meaning there were no gaps in the fossil record to argue about.
Wait until your True Believer has grasped the basic idea, then let him visit a clinic filled with dying children. Then say, "To solve this problem, to save these children, we need to understand and accept evolution, because these bacteria prove that evolution by natural selection is real."
There are as many similar examples as there are branches of modern science. Each of the stories can be told in an engaging, narrative way, with real people, in modern times, and it's not even necessary to say "science".
[+] [-] dragonwriter|12 years ago|reply
No one has said that. Notable amidst the number of errors you've managed to cram into that one sentence, you seem to have confused "people who want to engage in public 'debate' about creationism" with "people who are familiar with creationism at all". The two groups aren't even approximately the same.
[+] [-] dredmorbius|12 years ago|reply
Among them:
• Go Socratic. Sometimes the best way to convince someone is to let them argue their own way out of their position. Ask questions rather than make assertions or pound facts.
• Realize that often the game isn't to convince. I have positions I hold strongly, most on the basis of experience, evidence, or logic that's convincing to me (and I'm occasionally persuaded to change my mind). But in discussing them with others my objective is often to understand what the basis of their position is. I might learn something. Fairly often, I'll find that the views aren't well-founded or aren't convincing (strengthening my own conclusions).
• Distressingly often your'll find that a person's primary argument is "it benefits me to claim this belief despite no rational or factual basis for it" -- it's Upton Sinclair (and Al Gore)'s observation: "It's difficult to get a man to understand something if his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
• Rejection of concepts is often driven by fear. I ran across this passage re-reading Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: "You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence in. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They know it's going to rise tomorrow. When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kinds of dogmas or goals, it's always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt."
• Psychology is a hell of a drug. There area all sorts of weird aversions people have. I've met pathological liars. I've met people who simply deny obvious truths. Who feel "it's not a lie if I simply don't say it" (the lie of omission) or "if I only try to draw your attention from it" (lie of distraction). People are rather less rational than you might hope.
And for all of that, I've had some pretty amazing, interesting, and productive exchanges, often in the oddest places. Pulled into a highway rest area in the deep south a few years back, started talking with another man there. We both verbally circled for a few minutes trying to suss each other out, then realize that, actually, our views were fairly similar despite the miles that separated us. That was one of the more interesting 45 minute conversations I've had in years. Possibly decades.
[+] [-] hooande|12 years ago|reply
If gradual evolution is true then the book of Genesis must be wrong. If the book of Genesis isn't "true", then the Bible itself is based on a lie. If the Bible is a lie then what's the point of going to church? No one wants to worship a fallacious holy book. And if people stop going to church then they'll lose their sense of community and stop doing all the charity work. The thought is too much to bear. It's better just to believe everything the book says, whole cloth, and defend it against all attacks.
A debate won't change any minds, but a dialogue will. We shouldn't ignore creationists. We should continue to talk to them, even if we spend a lot of time arguing over insignificant details. This kind of argument can't be won with facts and figures, but only through attaining mutual respect. It may not have been a good idea for Bill Nye to accept this debate, but he had the opportunity to change some minds with the the way that he carried himself and presented his beliefs.
[+] [-] FD3SA|12 years ago|reply
Religious beliefs result in adaptive behaviors proven to increase fitness in certain environments. That is, these behaviors enhance the fitness of the genes which make one predisposed to religiosity. This has been hypothesized many times, and is the only rational explanation for the vast and fervent religious behaviors we witness today. In brief, religious behaviors cause individuals to engage in cooperative exchanges which are mutually beneficial to both parties. Iterated over many interactions, in a large population, with reputation, it becomes obvious that these behaviors are adaptive.
What biologists must emphasize is that religious behaviors are distinct from religious mythology. It is the behaviors we are interested in as scientists, not the literary masterpieces that constitute such works as the Bible, Quran, Torah, etc. Although they are linked, from an empirical point of view it is meaningless to analyze the philosophy of religion. We must instead look at the behaviors and their resultant consequences.
For those interested, there is a massive amount of knowledge on this subject. I would recommend beginning with Richard Dawkins' Selfish Gene, and intuitively working through the corollaries thereafter. Further reading can be found here [1].
1. http://evolution-of-religion.com/
EDIT: Removed Wikipedia link as it wasn't very useful upon closer inspection. The research group linked instead is a much better resource. Also reworded for clarity as per comments below.
[+] [-] pg|12 years ago|reply
It's certainly not the only possible explanation.
[+] [-] dragonwriter|12 years ago|reply
You know that these are distinctly non-standard (to the point of not having any resemblance to the usual ones) definitions of "dogma" and "theology", right?
If you mean "behaviors" and "mythology", then just say that, rather than saying "dogma" and "theology" with those others in parenthesis, when "dogma" doesn't mean "behavior" and "theology" does not mean "mythology".
[+] [-] kkowalczyk|12 years ago|reply
There is a very simple explanation for religion: most people conform to the culture of their surrounding.
That's why most people growing up in Muslim country become Muslims, most people growing up in Mormon area become Mormons, most people growing up in atheist countries are atheist and Germany (yes, I'll go there) had a surge of Natzis-ism.
Cultural norm is a powerful thing.
But hey, I'm open to changing my mind given some evidence.
Why don't you sequence a few deceased atheists and a few deceased religious folks and by way of simple diff isolate the "religion" gene. There might be a Nobel prize in it.
[+] [-] pjscott|12 years ago|reply
http://old.richarddawkins.net/articles/119-why-i-won-39-t-de...
[+] [-] herbig|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] transfire|12 years ago|reply
So it is useless really to argue the facts of Evolution vs Creationism. It's the wrong argument. If the person is capable of scientific thinking at all, you still have deal the emotional question of death.
[+] [-] edandersen|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dave1010uk|12 years ago|reply
As there is so much we don't know yet, it seems crazy to say that creationism absolutely cannot be true, even though it's crazy to say that creationism is true.
[+] [-] benjohnson|12 years ago|reply
The rather trivial reconciliation of the two viewpoints is that the material world is a small reflection of the theological world.
Frankly, I find the debate with Nye and Ham regrettable - in that neither seemed to understand their own position well and did a disservice to both viewpoints.
[+] [-] mynameishere|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] onthesideofthe|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SworDsy|12 years ago|reply
Consider carbon dating. Since it's been observed, we should assume it's observational. carbon dating indicates that dinosaurs existed hundreds of millions of years ago instead of mere thousands. but that's historical and therefore this is a contradiction, so we can't assume the distinction.
the only logical conclusion is that we have a false premise.
[+] [-] jurassic|12 years ago|reply
Other radioactive isotopes with much longer half-lives are more appropriate for geologic dating. The U-Pb system is really good for most geologic applications.
[+] [-] nickff|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thecolorblue|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] genofon|12 years ago|reply
how can you discuss on this nonsense?
[+] [-] msandford|12 years ago|reply
We now understand a LOT of physics and chemistry. That's because it's observational, and because it's observational you can make predictions, perform experiments and get results. Other people can do the same as well, thus enabling not only peer review but actual verifiability.
This is why we understand physics and chemistry extremely well, biology OK but rapidly improving, and economics and public policy much less well. Because we can reproduce results in physics everyone either agrees on the truth or is generally regarded as a crackpot. Biologists can't produce the kinds of extremely clean data physicists can but it's still meaningful. In macroeconomics there's very little ability to perform experiments in a repeatable fashion, which results in everyone observing the world and then arguing about why things happened and nobody can prove that they're right or that others are wrong.
When you're dealing with math or computer science induction is a great tool that allows you to do pretty incredible things. But it does so because the nature of math or algorithms is stationary; the rules are 100% fixed from the beginning of time 'til the end (or so you can assume if you're building the system) and thus any assumptions are by definition correct. It's much harder to do this when you're dealing with things that can change over time (and thus potentially invalidate your assumptions), which is basically everything else. That's not to say that induction is worthless outside of math and computer science but it's use comes with more caveats.
I totally get why serious scientists don't want to even acknowledge that a creationist might raise a good point but once it's made the damage is done. If you don't respond at all they pile on saying "look he doesn't have an answer for X!" and if you do respond with a reasonable statement about "this is the best we know thus far and of course nothing can be known until we observe it directly" then they'll pile on with "see it's not guaranteed!" Both of those outcomes are extremely frustrating when you're dealing with someone who can't be convinced with any amount of evidence.
But failing to acknowledge that there is a difference between direct observation and historical/induction and that they create two classes of certainty which are not identical does the very tedious and difficult work of science a disservice in my opinion.
EDIT: To clarify I think what I'm mostly talking about is certainty. If you can't directly (or indirectly) observe something happening with some kind of experiment you can have a personal opinion about certainty and someone else can have another but neither one can be provably wrong. Once that happens there's real certainty and very little room for opinion anymore. Until then things are a bit more fluid. A well educated person's estimate of certainty might be much more accurate than a plebe's but it's not guaranteed to be right.
[+] [-] nothiggs|12 years ago|reply
There are so many things wrong with this argument that I don't even know where to begin, but let's play along with this ridiculous line of thought anyway. The obvious question that follows is why is the "historical science" given by the bible any more plausible than the "historical science" of any other creation myth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_creation_myths) ?
Of course there is a difference between circumstantial evidence and direct evidence, but even if you can't guarantee that your interpretation of the circumstantial evidence is true (something which by the way you can't do with direct evidence either), one should strive to find an interpretation that has the highest probability of being true given all the evidence at a given moment.
[+] [-] joesmo|12 years ago|reply
"Scientists should not debate creationists. Period."
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] pstack|12 years ago|reply