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Does anyone remember the epic threads a few years ago about evolution? I forget the main poster but the subject would swell to a thousand or two in short order. In addition to being an interesting subject the science involved was all over the place. What I could follow. Most was over my head, but the passion was something to behold. I also enjoyed the 'rational' evolution folk countering the 'emotional' Christian side of the subject with a batch of desperate fakery. The Piltdown Man probably the most famous.

SnipIt’s something of a miracle that life on our planet has been left to evolve without fatal interruption for billions of years. Such a long unbroken chain of survival, however unlikely, is necessary for bags of mud and water like ourselves to eventually sit up, and just recently, to wonder how we got here. And like the bullet-riddled—but safe—planes, our planet has survived countless near-fatal blows. There have been volcanic apocalypses, body blows from supersonic space rocks the size of Mount Everest, and ice ages that might have frozen the planet almost to the tropics. Had any of these catastrophes...

HISTORY OF OUR PLANET Our Earth has been dubbed by some as the “Goldilocks Planet” with a just-right sun and a just-right moon in a just-right galaxy. What most people do not realize is how radically Earth has changed since it first formed and what kinds of physical steps transformed the lifeless ball into our home today. Earth has the capacity to support more than 7 billon people and even more billions of other creatures. Many suggest that Earth’s life sustaining features are “amazing coincidences” that just fell into place. Hugh says evidence and logic compel him to challenge such...

Order, Order! A Meditation on the Glory of Order in God's Creation Msgr. Charles Pope • January 25, 2016 • In a series of two posts I would like to ponder the glory of something we call order. I do this more in the form of a meditation than a treatise. Some may argue that I am oversimplifying complex philosophical concepts. That may be true, but I am a pastor not an academic. And though I summarize here, I do not think I have been inauthentic in setting forth the concepts and problems that have birthed the modern age....

Order! Order in the Universe! – A Meditation on the Wisdom That Creation Reflects By: Msgr. Charles PopeIn a courtroom, the judge can bring an unruly outburst to an end by shouting, “Order! Order in the court!” I often feel the same urge in the debates of our time about God’s existence and His role in the created universe. It is not so much that the debates can get unruly, but that I, with the  insistence of a town crier, want to shout, “Order! Order, there IS order the universe!” And I want to ask everyone to be quiet and listen to the universe herself...

Pure myth! That is today’s typical view of a literal Adam and Eve. Yet, contrary to current skepticism, a real Adam and Eve remain credible—both in terms of Catholic doctrine and sound natural science.By calling the Genesis story a “myth,” people avoid saying it is mere “fantasy,” that is, with no foundation in reality at all. While rejecting a literal first pair of human parents for all mankind, they hope to retain some “deeper” truth about an original “sinful human condition,” a “mythic” meaning. They think that the latest findings in paleoanthropology and genetics render a literal pair of...

So an apparently epic creation/evolution debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham took place recently. I haven't seen it yet, but it's definitely on my to do list. As a Christian who believes in God I don't reject evolution outright, but I totally reject the evolutionists dismissal of the creation/intelligent design crowd. I believe the creationist views and arguments are just as valid (if not more so) than evolution in that at least the creationist side is honest about the bottom line being that their arguments and beliefs are rooted in faith. Both sides operate on faith, but to me...

Bill Nye, The Science Guy, will debate Ken Ham, The Creationist Guy, tonight at the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky. They will debate a question from the 1920's: "Is creation a viable model of origins in today’s modern scientific era?" Yes or no? This is a bad idea for everyone but the creationists. Whatever his intention, Nye is sitting down as a representative of "evolution" against Ham, implying that there are two equal sides to a debate that has already been settled scientifically. By simply agreeing to participate, Nye is simultaneously elevating the proponents of Biblical creationism, while marginalizing his...

Watch it live. http://debatelive.org/?utm_source=creation-museum-creation-evolution&utm_medium=Banner&utm_campaign=bill-nye-ken-ham-debate

“Science Guy” Bill Nye tapped on the podium, threw up his hands and said “billions and billions” in a Kentucky museum that has become widely known for teaching that the Earth is only 6,000 years old. Nye was debating Creation Museum founder Ken Ham and promoting science in the snappy way that made him a pop culture staple as host of “Bill Nye The Science Guy” in the 1990s. The event was meant to explore the age old question, “How did we get here?” from the perspectives of faith and science. …

The Ham-Nye Creation Debate: A Huge Missed Opportunity After watching Tuesday night's Ken Ham-Bill Nye debate, I was reminded of what attracted me in the first place to the approach to investigating origins represented by the theory of intelligent design. Sure, Ham talked about some science here and there, but almost all of what he said focused on trying to support a young earth viewpoint. Since he's not a scientist, the great majority of his arguments amounted -- over and over again -- to "Because the Bible says so." Nye's main argument was, "Because the evidence says so," and he...

Streamed live on Feb 4, 2014 Is creation a viable model of origins in today's modern, scientific era? Leading creation apologist and bestselling Christian author Ken Ham is joined at the Creation Museum by Emmy Award-winning science educator and CEO of the Planetary Society Bill Nye.

Amazing! Pat Robertson, the 2,000 leg-presser?... The creator of the age-defying protein shake?... He is suddenly now the go-to guy for the MSM (and their voice of reason) when it comes to Ken Ham and his debate w/Bill Nye? Pat Robertson: Marginalized to Oracle[ized] in a flash! And in Virginia, not Delphi, of all places, too! BTW, isn't Bill Nye one of those Anthropogenic Global Warming guys, and a believer that man is the main cause of Gorebal Warming?

For any who might have missed the debate Tuesday evening, it may be seen on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6kgvhG3AkI What I was listening to was more of a debate on the age of the Earth than on evolution although the two topics are related. Ham is well schooled in the arguments against evolution, but he believes in a literal intgerpretation of Genesis and a roughly six thousand year old universe; that is pretty much impossible to defend. Nye, on the other hand, strikes me as a sort of a yuppie and an acolyte of Carl Sagan's who has not made any sort...

What was most instructive about Tuesday night's debate between Ken Ham and Bill Nye [watch entire debate here] over the issue of origins was Nye's blanket admission of total, abject ignorance on the most important questions of the evening. Where did the atoms that made up the Big Bang come from? Nye has no idea. Where did man's consciousness come from? Nye has no idea. How can matter produce life? Nye has absolutely no idea. This surely is all one needs to know to recognize the utter bankruptcy of the theory of evolution. Now it's helpful for us who believe...

On many mornings, I wake up and think, “You know what this country needs? More culture war.” As I scramble up a couple eggs, I find myself wishing—fervently wishing—that we could spend more time reducing substantive issues to mere spectacle. Later, as I scrub the pan, I’ll fantasize about how those very spectacles might even funnel money toward some of the country’s most politicized religious groups. Fortunately, Bill “the Science Guy” Nye has heard my wish—which, really, is the wish of a nation. Why else would he have traveled to Kentucky this week in order to debate Ken Ham, the...

The word “pseudoscience” is used to describe something that is portrayed as scientific but fails to meet scientific criteria. This misrepresentation occurs because actual science has creditability (which is to say it works), and pseudoscience attempts to ride on the back of this credibility without subjecting itself to the hard intellectual scrutiny that real science demands. A good example of pseudoscience is homoeopathy, which presents the façade of a science-based medical practice but fails to adhere to scientific methodology. Other things typically branded pseudoscience include astrology, young-Earth creationism, iridology, neuro-linguistic programming and water divining, to name but a few.

Bill Nye may be “The Science Guy,” but Ken Ham is the “Answers in Genesis” man, and a debate between the two over the origins of life has nonbelievers and Christians wringing their hands. Nye, host of a beloved television science series, and Ham, president of a creationist apologetics ministry, will meet at the Creation Museum, where Ham is also the president, on Feb. 4. In what some wags are calling “the Ham-on-Nye debate,” they will weigh this question: “Is creation a viable model of origins?”

In the blog over the past few days we have discussed the Genesis account, evolutionary theory and how these can be reconciled with Catholic thought and teaching. At one level, the genre for the Genesis accounts must be taken into consideration wherein figurative language is sometimes used to confer the sacred truths that God alone created everything out of nothing. Further, that God oversaw every aspect of creation with intelligence, and purpose, and that he created everything out of nothing, each according to its kind. However the genre, or literary form, of Genesis  does not purport to be of nature of a...

On Easter, Pope Benedict XVI spoke out against both creationism and evolution, or so it looked anyway. About the biblical account of Genesis, he said, "It is not information about the external processes by which the cosmos and man himself came into being." So much for literal creationism. But then he seemed to take a swipe at science, proposing that mankind cannot be just another product of evolution. "It is not the case that in the expanding universe, at a late stage, in some tiny corner of the cosmos, there evolved randomly some species of living being capable of reasoning...