5 powerful arguments for creation and 5 ridiculous comments from evolutionists

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 it seems that the evolution side tries to pretend it's not.

So, at this event people were asked to write a message to those on their opposing side and there were some really good ones. I picked out the 5 most powerful arguments for creation and the 5 most ridiculous bits of snark from the evolution side.

Do I have my bias, sure, but it's clear that as a whole one side should definitely be taken more seriously than the other.

Ethan Clive Osgoode: "It's easy to confuse actors and "defender of science" claimants with scientists these days."

For a biographical summary on Nye, you might start here.

Nye is reasonably well educated and has worked for many years educating others as:

The Science Guy, as
author of several books on science, as
guest lecturer at Cornell University, as
creator of scientific equipment &
holder of several patents.

In short, Nye is an all-around science-educator kind of guy, certainly not an Albert Einstein or Stephen Hawkins, but clearly a publicly known "defender of science."

Of course, I "get" that you wish to cast vague aspersions on Nye's qualifications and/or character, but they are not really justified.
Rather, Nye's problem, in terms of this particular discussion, is that he was not fully prepared to discuss the issues raised by Ken Ham's invitation to debate if "Creation is a viable model of origins in today's modern scientific era."

I say that only because Nye apparently made no favorable impressions on Ham's audience of mostly creationists.
Whatever Nye was trying to sell them, they weren't buying.

In my view, that means Nye wasn't really addressing the issues they care about, in a way they could relate to.
So I consider Nye lost that debate to that audience.
Of course, it's impossible to say if anybody could have a more successful debate, given that it was, after all, Ham's institute filled with Ham's followers.
Doubtless, if Ham had expected a more serious challenge from Nye, he would have selected somebody else to "debate".

Bottom line: the reason Nye could not persuade that audience is because Nye cares everything about science and nothing about religion, whereas the audience cared everything about its religion, and very little about science.
Ham "spoke their language", while Nye had no clue to it.

But to ask how believing in the Big Bang isn’t an act of faith (for instance) not unlike a belief that God’s hand created everything IS powerful.

Just because you can use the word "belief" with both doesn't make them equivalent. The Big Bang theory is no more than (quoting Wikipedia)

the scientific theory that is most consistent with observations of the past and present states of the universe....It offers a comprehensive explanation for a broad range of observed phenomena, including the abundance of light elements, the cosmic microwave background, large scale structure, and the Hubble diagram.

That's all it is. There's a big pile of observations and measurements, and scientists generally agree that at the moment, the Big Bang theory explains them better than anything else. If somebody comes up with a better explanation, or one that explains more, scientists will work with that one instead. It would not be a threat to their faith.

That's not the same kind of belief as "belief that God’s hand created everything" (unless you think He worked through the Big Bang). That doesn't really explain any of the observations--you can't draw a line from a specific action of God to why there are so many light elements. Since it explains everything, it explains nothing. It truly takes an act of faith, because (as Ham admitted) evidence has nothing to do with it.

Ethan Clive Osgoode: "it's easy to confuse actors, stand-up comedians, TV entertainers, and "all-round science-educator type guys" with scientists."

The usual definition of "scientist" requires only "expert" knowledge of a scientific subject.
Holding "expert" knowledge means:

"1.Having, involving, or demonstrating great skill, dexterity, or knowledge as the result of experience or training."

For a summary of Nye's years of work as a scientist, you might start here.

Clearly, Nye is more of a science-educator & popularize than working scientist.
But isn't education precisely what Nye's debate with Ham was all about?

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