Posted on 02/06/2014 1:58:22 PM PST by celmak
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 young-earth creationist founder of Answers in Genesis, about the origins of the world?
Actually, there are two other reasons that Nye might have done so, and I’ve given both possibilities a great deal of thought in the past few days. The first is that Nye, for all his bow-tied charm, is at heart a publicity-hungry cynic, eager to reestablish the national reputation he once had as the host of a PBS show. When his stint on Dancing With the Stars ended quickly, Nye turned to the only other channel that could launch him back to national attention: a sensationalized debate, replete with the media buzz that he craves.
Possibility number two is that Nye is clueless—that, for all his skill as a science communicator, Nye has less political acumen than your average wombat.
After watching the debate, I’m leaning toward that second possibility. Last night, it was easy to pick out the smarter man on the stage. Oddly, it was the same man who was arguing that the earth is 6,000 years old.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Well, since this 68 year old retiree has no respect for you or your nasty ways, I think I’ll just let you stew. I have no need of ‘trying’. You aren’t worth it, skippy.
Both wrong. You can read my comments on what a poseur know-nothing Bill Nye is going back many years, and my posts on Bill Nye about this debate go back to the day it was announced.
Creationists are dominant in genetics, by a wide margin.
I actually answer that question a tad further down-thread. The short answer is: he can’t. Faith vs. Faith is like throwing out two rocks or two scissors at the same time.
It will all out in the end.
I hope you two sci-fi fans are enjoying your opium smoke in the corner, but the people are beginning to snicker...
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I thought it self-evident that we are talking about Ham’s 6,000 year old Earth creationism, which is the subject of this thread.
So, to clarify: you believe Young Earth Creationism to be false?
To clarify: You do, or do not believe the Earth is actually 6 days old?
If you're saying that there are scientists in your family who believe the universe was created by a Sentient Intelligence, you are saying nothing remarkable. I would wager most scientists believe that, or accept that it is the best current explanation -- including me. If you are saying That Being is the God of Abraham, your support falls off rapidly to zero by the time you arrive at the point where you tell us that the world was created in six days, six thousand years ago.
Non-creationists like to use the term *creationist* to imply YEC.
Not everyone who is a creationist is the sort of YEC that the non-creationists love to deride.
That’s the same kind of broad brushing that occurs when someone claims that all evos are liberal, God hating atheists. Most evolutionists would object to that, would they not?
Did you read the link about time dilation?
well, Miggie says calling someone a liberal is a nasty slight. As to the explanation Dr. Schroeder gives, I notice you do exactly what you insult others for, you do not refute what he explains, you just use the mormonesque tactic of claiming it has been refuteds many times (and yes, that too is an insult, to infer you are using a mormonesque technique so I’ll apologize right here if you’re not a Mormon or ex-mormon).
Quite an imagination you have there Freddie!
I’ve read it before. It isn’t new and it’s been refuted many times, from numerous experimental directions. It simply does not hold together. I take it the physicists who are accessible to you are not cosmologists or General Relativists?
Freddie knows that nothing has been demolished, except in the imaginations of Freddie and his fellow science groupies.
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Kind of hard to debate, with any semblance of authority, when the facts just aren't on your side.
Show us where it’s been refuted.
ID is NOT The same thing as Young Earth Creationism. My problem with the Young Earth Creationists is that they want to diminish God by forcing Him to comply with HUMAN time. The Bible says God created the world in seven days, but was that seven HUMAN days, or the unknown time GOD set for creating the universe, and all in it? And for those who believe the Creation story; which one applies to the Young Earth Creation idea?
God gave us brains to use, and to learn, and to lead us closer to Him. If our knowledge has led us to understand the world around us, and that means being able to estimate the age of the world around us, why would some persist in ignoring that knowledge in favor of a very narrow HUMAN interpretation of the creation of the world?
IF Setterfield [and all of the laughable derivatives of it] were true, the universe could barely have expand AT ALL in its earliest "days" because Setterfield's "theory" requires the universe to be many orders of magnitude more massive than it is now in its earliest days. So massive, in fact, that it would have contracted when it was just a few microseconds old [that's in your fake, "dilated" time. In real time, it would have come back together within a few hundred years of the Singularity.]
Why? Because E=mc2, and if the speed of light was significantly greater in the past, then all matter would have been significantly more massive in the past. And, by the way, as that matter lost energy [because c was decreasing] what happened to the energy? Or, in the [literally] magical world of YEC, is there no such thing as conservation of energy, as well?
There are so many other inconsistencies in the YEC time dilation model that it isn't even worth talking about.
Someone tried this silliness on another thread.
If time dilation says that the Earth can be both 6,000 years old and 4.5 billion years old at the same time, then length contraction means that New York and Paris can be both 5 miles and 5,000 miles apart at the same time.
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