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Posts Tagged ‘Ken Ham’

In the Beginning, Part 1: Why Genesis Matters

Posted in Scripturalism, Theology, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on March 14, 2021| 9 Comments »

Detail from The Tower of Babel by Peter Brugel, 1563.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

  • Genesis 1:1

“Republicans and Evangelicals are stupid.”  So proclaimed a work colleague of mine one day, seemingly out of the blue. 

Since I fell into both groups and was a bit curious as to what prompted his outburst, I asked him, “Why do you say that?” 

My colleague pointed me to an article he was reading in a newspaper he had brought with him – yes this was way back in 2007 before everyone had smartphones and still read physical newspapers.  The article was about the opening of the Creation Museum here in the Cincinnati area.    

Having lived in Cincinnati, I was well aware of the Creation Museum project.  Several years in the making, the museum had garnered extensive press coverage both locally and nationally.  Most of it was negative.  Denunciations galore poured forth from various mainstream news organizations about the mass enstupification of the of the American public that was nigh upon our doorstep because of museum’s opening. 

One example of that hostility is a Los Angeles Times editorial from May 24, 2007 title “Yabba-dabba science,” which, as you may gather from the title, makes great fun of the Creation Museum, likening it to an episode of “The Flintstones.”    

Apparently, my work colleague bought the propaganda.

Science, we are told by the L.A. Times and other voices of “reason,” is all about hard facts and logic.  All which, we are confidently told, militate against any possibility that the earth is a mere 6,000 years old and that dinosaurs and men walked the terra firma at the same time.     

But is science so-called really the arbiter of truth?  Think about just the past year and all the contradictory science we’ve heard.  Some of the most blatantly contradictory statements have come from the same supposed scientific experts.  For example, in a March 2020 interview with 60 Minutes, Dr. Anthony Fauci said,

Right now, in the United States, people should not be walking around with masks….there’s no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you’re in the middle of an outbreak wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better, and it might even block a droplet but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is, and often there are unintended consequences – people keep fiddling with the masks and they’re touching their face.

Now, this same Dr. Fauci is out there saying that we may have to wear masks until 2022.  And not only that, he’s stated on the record that double-masking makes “common sense”!  And all this despite a great deal of scientific evidence that mask mandates do nothing to slow the spread of Covid. 

Clearly, Dr. Fauci has contradicted himself.  In fact, his statements often seem to be driven by some hidden political agenda rather than the scientific facts at hand.  Yet we are told that he is a coolly rational scientific mind and that anyone who doubts him is, in the words of Joe Biden, a Neanderthal.   

Or take the matter of the uber trendy cause of Transgenderism.  Facebook offers members a palette of 58 gender options.  Fifty-eight!  Supporters of transgenderism are often the same people who loudly announce their love of science and are quick to denigrate those who disagree with them as “science deniers.” Yet it is the progressives themselves who are the science deniers.   

If we consider the most up-to-date scientific opinion, the most reasonable conclusion is that there are only two sexes, and that the notion that there can be 58 genders is an absurdity.  Yet, the transgender folks will argue that one’s gender identity is not tied to one’s biological sex, and that a biological man really can reasonably identify as a woman and a biological woman really can identify as a man.  And yet, even if a man successfully “transitions” to a woman, every cell in his body is still genetically coded as male, with a both an X and a Y chromosome.  This seems like a hard case of science denialism on the part of transgender activists, but it’s rare for anyone to point this out. 

As Christians, we don’t rest our argument that there are only two sexes, male and female, on the findings of geneticists.  We believe this, because it’s revealed in the Word of God.  But it is interesting that today’s ideologically confused progressives will, on the one hand, lecture Christians about their supposed “science denialism,” while on the other hand, denying the science they claim to love so they can indulge their transgender fantasies.   

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Unbelievable: A Quick Look at Bill Nye’s Views on Evolution, Science and Creation, Part 5

Posted in Creationism, tagged , , , , on July 9, 2017| Leave a Comment »

Nye_UndeniableThis week’s installment o f our series on Bill Nye continues our review of Chapter 2 of his book Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation.

Bill Nye Asserts The Consequent

Suppose for a moment we were having a conversation about my car and I said to you, “If my battery’s dead, my car won’t start.” “Okay,” you replied, “that makes sense.”

So we go out to my driveway; I hop in and try to crank the engine. Nothing happens.

“Alright,” I say, “obviously this is scientific proof that my battery’s dead!”

What would you say about my logic? Well, if you had any sort of mechanical background, or had just a little bit of training in logic, you’d probably point out to me that I was jumping to conclusions. You might say something like, “Not so fast there, Steve. Sure, your battery may be dead, but there are many other explanations why your car won’t start. Maybe you didn’t check your oil and your engine’s locked up (I had this happen once), or maybe your ignition switch is broken. You could have a bad battery cable. In fact, there are probably dozens of reason why your car won’t start that have nothing do with a dead battery. Don’t you think you’re getting ahead of yourself by claiming you know your battery’s dead?”

This little story illustrates a common logical fallacy called asserting the consequent. This fallacy is the result of the misuse of a form of argument called the hypothetical argument. In my illustration above, you can easily spot where I go wrong in my thinking. I conclude that my battery is dead, even though there are many other reasons that can just as easily explain why my car won’t start.

But here’s the shocking part: the logical fallacy of asserting the consequent is foundational to the scientific method. That’s right. All the supposed great “truths” discovered by science, the very ones that Bill Nye and others like to use to try to intimidate Christians, are built, as it were, on the logical equivalent of quicksand.

On pages 14 and 15, Nye attempts to solidify the invincible logical rigor of science by providing the reader with an example of a successful prediction made by science. In Nye’s mind, this example illustrates the validity of science, but all it really does is underscore his own poor reasoning skills.

Nye relates the story of a University of Chicago scientists who, reasoning that there must exist the fossil of an animal showing the transition between fish and land animals, led a an expedition to an area in northeastern Canada where he thought he would find what he was looking for. As it turned out, the expected fossil was found leading Nye to claim that this is sound science, because the scientist’s prediction of the fossil turned out to be true.

The hypothesis the scientist used to make his prediction is left unstated by Nye, but it probably ran something like this: If land animals evolved from fish, then I should be able to find the fossil of an animal in such and such a place that has features of both fish and land animals. Eureka! I did, in fact, find the fossil of such an animal in the place where I expected, therefore it is true that land animals evolved from fish.

This argument is in the same form as my example above about my car and the dead battery. There could be any number of reasons why the fossil – the name of the fossil in question is the Tiktaalik – was found where it was that have nothing to do with the professor’s particular hypothesis or even, more generally, evolution.

It’s remarkable how smart people like Bill Nye can be so easily misled that they mistaken obvious logical fallacies for the truth. Worth noting is that the Bible itself predicts Nye’s fallacious thinking, giving as the reason for it the fact that men, in their unrighteousness, suppress their innate knowledge of God. And refusing to acknowledge God, they will move heaven and earth to drive him from their conscience by erecting their own intellectual constructs, however full or logical errors they may be. The world calls this sort of humanistic reasoning wisdom. But God calls it foolishness.

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Unbelievable: A Quick Look at Bill Nye’s Views on Evolution, Science and Creation, Part 4

Posted in Creationism, tagged , , , , on July 2, 2017| 1 Comment »

Nye_UndeniableThis week’s installment of the series on Bill Nye continues our review of Chapter 2 of Nye’s book Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation.

As was mentioned earlier in this series, Chapter 2 of Undeniable bears the title “The Great Creationism Debate,” which was inspired, as Nye tells us, by his 2014 debate with Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis. You may view the full video of that debate here.

Nye Blasphemes God’s Word

Nye picks up his description of the debate thus, “When it was my turn, I hammered away at Mr. Ham’s claim that there was a big ole flood and that all the animals we see today are descendants of the few pairs that Noah and his family were able to save on a big boat, the ark of Biblical myth” (11).

The Apostle Paul tells us that the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. Doubtless, the other messages of the Bible are also likewise foolishness to unbelievers, so it really should not come as a surprise that that the unbelieving Nye would write sarcastically about “a big ole flood” and “a big boat, the ark of Biblical myth.” Still though, it’s sad to see a man so hardened in his unbelief that, not satisfied with simply disagreeing with God’s revelation, he feels the need to revile it.

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Unbelievable: A Quick Look at Bill Nye’s Views on Evolution, Science and Creation, Part 3

Posted in Creationism, tagged , , , , on June 25, 2017| 1 Comment »

Nye_UndeniableThis post in a continuation of Unbelievable:
A Quick Look at Bill Nye’s Views on Evolution, Science and Creation, Part 2 published on 5/28/2017. In that post, I began to examine Chapter 2 of Nye’s book Undeniable, Evolution and the Science of Creation. That post went through page 10 of the book. This week will pick up my review starting on page 11.

The US is lagging in science, and it’s the creationist’s fault

Bill Nye seems to be very worried about the state of US science education and achievement. He writes, “[W]ithout young people entering science fields, especially engineering, the country will fall behind other nations who do educate their kids in real science rather than the pseudoscience of creationism” (10).

This is one of many manifestations of Nye’s unspoken, fundamental, and flawed assumption that one cannot be a Christian and at the same time a scientist. Nowhere does Nye offer any proof of this contention. He simply asserts is expecting his audience to swallow it without question.

But in truth, Christians accept that the very Logos, the Logic, of God spoke the universe into existence. And not only that, this same Logos, and the Gospel of John tells us, is the light which lightens every man who comes into the world. The very logical architecture of our minds is what is it as a result of the creative work of Jesus Christ.

As such, not only is there no inhibition preventing Christians from studying the sciences, but it is the Christian alone who has sound reason to expect the universe to exhibit regularity and rationality, being, as it is, the creation of a rational God.

Further, a Christian scientist doesn’t need to waste a lifetime of research attempting to explain the origin of the universe or of life. He already has these answers revealed to him and can go about his work secure in the knowledge that he has a correct understanding of the universe.

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Unbelievable: A Quick Look at Bill Nye’s Views on Evolution, Science and Creation, Part 2

Posted in Creationism, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on May 28, 2017| 3 Comments »

Nye_UndeniableLast week we looked a Chapter 1 of Bill Nye’s book Undeniable, Evolution and the Science of Creation. This week’s post will examine Chapter 2 of that same book, a chapter titled “The Great Creationism Debate.”

Bill Nye Debates Ken Ham

On February 4, 2014 Bill Nye and Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis (AiG) debated the question “Is creation a viable model of origins?”

The debate must have made a big impression on Nye, for he states at the beginning of Chapter 2 that “in many ways it [the debate] was the impetus for me to write this book.

According to Wikipedia, the origin of the debate were in a video posted by Nye on Big Think titled Creationism is Not Appropriate for Children.

In the video, Nye laments the that “Denial of evolution is unique to the United States.” This is a problem, Nye tells us, because it threatens to retard our progress and prosperity as a nation.

What’s interesting about Nye’s remark about the unique failure of the United States to bow down before the altar of Darwin is that he immediately follows it by saying “We are the world’s most advanced technological [civilization?]. I mean you could say Japan, but generally the United States is where most of the innovation still happens. People still move to the United States. And that’s largely because of the intellectual capital that we have, the general understanding of science.”

As Nye sees it, the stubborn resistance of Christians to accept Darwinian evolution is a threat to all this.

Without getting too far ahead of ourselves, it may be worth asking, just why is that, at least according to Bill Nye, the one nation where there is strong resistance to Darwinism is also, in Nye’s opinion, at the same time the most technologically advanced civilization?

These two ideas appear to be in conflict. If believing the Bible is really the social retardant Nye thinks it is, would it not follow that the US would be among the world’s most backward nations, not among its leading lights?

It seems to me that Nye, who claims to have a great curiosity about the world around us, would be curious enough to look into this strange [according to his world view] phenomenon, but the thought does not seem to occur to him.

For those interested, a video of the 2014 debate can be seen here.

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Unbelievable: A Quick Look at Bill Nye’s Views on Evolution, Science and Creation

Posted in Creationism, Philosophy, tagged , , , , , on May 21, 2017| 6 Comments »

Nye_UndeniableIn recent years, Bill Nye has become something of an icon with the humanist, progressive, environmentalist, social justice warrior crowd.

As a result of his popular children’s science show in the 1990s, he may even be thought of as a sort of Millennial version of Mr. Rogers, a trusted fatherly figure who would never lead his followers astray.

But unlike Mr. Rogers – yeah, I’m a Gen-Xer who grew up on Mr. Rogers and Captain Kangaroo – Bill Nye has gone full social justice warrior in his later years, pushing not only evolution, but the climate change and LGBTQ agendas as well.

Nye has been particularly active in recent years having penned Bill Nye’s Comic History of the United States: The Human Side of the Story (2014), Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation (2014), Unstoppable: Harnessing Science to Change the World (2016). This year will see the release of this latest book Everything All at Once: How to Unleash Your Inner Nerd, Tap into Radical Curiosity and Solve Any Problem.

Just this year, Nye served as one of three honorary co-chairs of the March for Science, an organization dedicated to proposition that it is right and just to use government force to take money from the American people and use it to subsidize scientists dedicated to pushing the false narrative of man-made global warming/climate change or whatever new crisis of the day that happens to be popular.

For my part, I’ve only recently begun to pay much attention to Nye. His science show didn’t start until well after I graduated from high school. When I was in school, we had Julius Sumner Miller as our “science guy,” whose programs were educational, memorable and, on occasion, pretty funny too.

As for Miller, I couldn’t tell you what his religious or political beliefs were. For unlike Nye, he didn’t wear them on his sleeve.

Although I had heard of him previously, Nye really didn’t come onto my radar screen in a big way until his February 2014 debate with Ken Ham of Answers In Genesis.

My best summary of Nye’s argument in that debate runs something like this: Evolution is based on the same scientific principles that have brought us electricity, polio vaccines and the internet. You cannot at the same time use and appreciate any of these scientific breakthroughs without also agreeing that Darwinian evolution is true. If you don’t insist and believing in Biblical creation and a 6,000 year old earth, not only are you contradicting yourself by accepting the benefits of science while at the same time rejecting its truth claims about the origin of life , but you’re stupid too. What is worse, if you teach the Biblical doctrine of creation to your children, you’re guilty of making them stupid. And not only that, your insistence on believing Biblical mythology over science endangers the very future of the United States of America.

Well, that’s quite a bit to unpack. Far more than time and space allow in a single blog post. And this doesn’t even touch on the rest of Nye’s body of work. Lord willing, I hope to begin a new series on Nye later this year. But for now, a few short observations on Nye’s thought will have to do.

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