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We're going to give a play-by-play analysis of the
monumental Bill Nye/Ken Ham debate, and that's it!
This, is Genesis Week!
[music]
And a welcome to this episode of Genesis Week, the
weekly program of creationary commentary on news,
views and events pertaining to the origins
controversy, made possible by the supporters of
CORE Ottawa, Citizens for origins research and
education. Excellence in pirate broadcasting, we
set up the studio in my uncle's basement so we
could continue to bring you the information that
the anticreationists don't want you to see or hear,
and giving glory to our creator while doing it. We
believe God gave you an intelligently designed
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subscribe to our YouTube channel to get extras like
CrEvo Rants, and full interviews with our guests.
I'm your host, Ian Juby
Conservative estimates placed the viewership of the
BIll Nye/Ken Ham smackdown at a staggering 5
MILLION viewers - that's enough to make any media
outlet drool. I went on a spontaneous tweetfest
during the debate and was overwhelmed by viewers
asking for me to do a show devoted to post-debate
commentary. In all honesty, originally had not
planned on any commentary to the debate. Many
creationary thinkers were disappointed by Mr. Ham's
performance, and I have to agree that Nye won the
debate, but he won it by showmanship and not facts.
He also won only because Mr. Ham didn't call Mr.
Nye on his pathetic excuses for argumentation. Now
this is not to be critical of Mr. Ham, because I
still remember the first creation evolution debate
I did - and I too let the evolutionist get away
with a LOT of comments. It's very difficult being
on the hot seat, so I'm sympathetic to Dr. Ham and
just how extremely difficult it is
in that situation.
Nevertheless, Bill Nye the Science guy made an
awful pile of awful claims that were so blatantly
wrong he should be, frankly, embarrassed. Oddly,
Nye took every opportunity to warn about
anti-intellectualism throughout the debate, while
ironically wallowing in extreme
anti-intellectualism, as becomes obvious when you
actually examine what he said.
BUT - his arguments sounded impressive, and so I
thought I would use his comments to springboard
this show and point out how he won the debate with
horrible science, and anti-intellectualism.
For example - In his opening arguments, he said
>>and on CSI, there is no distinction made between
historical science and observational science. These
are constructs unique to Mr. Ham. We don't normally
have these anywhere in the world except here.
Natural laws that applied in the past, apply now.
That's why they're natural laws - that's why
we embrace them.
>>That short 22 second clip is so loaded with
falsehoods, subtle false assertions and stunning
admission, that it is difficult to know where to
begin, and how to address it in a short time!
Aside from the very sly, continual reference to
"Ken Ham's creation model" which is anything but
Ken Ham's creation model, Bill is evidently
blissfully ignorant of the facts. The fact is that
observational and historical science are two very
different things, and this has even been
acknowledged by the evolutionists themselves! Ernst
Mayr - who can hardly be called a friend of
creationists, put it in no uncertain terms:
Over and over, Nye kept making random comments and
allusions in direct contradiction to what Mayr and
other evolutionists have frankly acknowledged -
that evolutionary theory is HISTORICAL science,
which is not the same as observational science.
Evidently Nye was not only blissfully ignorant of
the facts, but was also blissfully unaware just how
much this error was ingrained into his thinking.
This was evident with his continual reference to
technology, which was produced by the observational
sciences, and equivocating technology and science
with evolution. The non-sequitor becomes obvious
when you simplify his comments. Basically he was
saying "We have cellular phones, computers, and
airplanes, therefore evolution is a fact."
The two are worlds apart, but it's obvious that Nye
either did not understand this, or WOULD NOT
understand this. That possibility is disturbing.
Furthermore, I was glad that Nye brought up natural
laws, even though he continually alluded that
somehow creationists claim that natural laws have
changed from the past. Not once did Ham, or any
other creationist that I know of, ever suggest that
natural laws have changed! His assertion was
flat-out false. In fact, I would pitch it right
back to Mr. Nye: You contend that natural laws were
always the same? Excellent - I couldn't agree more.
So tell me Mr. Nye, how did the first life arise?
That question was asked during the Q&A portion of
the debate, and Nye honourably admitted that he did
not know. I appreciate that he admitted that, but
what was not addressed was the REASON he did not
know. The reason he cannot answer the question of
the origin of the first life is because we have
scientific and natural LAWS, such as the law of
biogenesis and the 2nd law of thermodynamics, which
show that it is IMPOSSIBLE for life to arise from
non-living material. Evolution has life arising
from non-life, in direct violation of these well
established, scientific and natural laws. If it
violated natural law, then that means the event was
extra-natural. You will be more familiar with the
term "SUPERnatural; outside of the natural,
extra-natural.
So Bill Nye believes in the SUPERnatural, he just
doesn't know it. We creationists also believe in
the supernatural, we just honestly acknowledge
where the limits of science are, and where the
lines of the supernatural are drawn.
It's interesting to note that the Special Creation
model does NOT violate these two natural and
scientific laws. Even though the first life was
outside of the natural realm, we still have life
arising only from life, and INTELLIGENCE directed
thermodynamic energy to build the first life.
Nye went on to talk about how ice cores have too
many years for a young earth, which of course Ken
Ham refuted in one sentence, mentioning the "lost
squadron" aircraft buried under 250 feet of ice,
with HUNDREDS of ice layers on top, all happening
in about 50 years. We dealt with this in several
Genesis Week episodes. But Nye then went on to
trees that were allegedly older than the 6,000 year
age of the earth:
>>If we go to California, we find enormous stands
of bristlecone pines - some of them are over 6,000
years old - 6,800 years old! There's a famous tree
in Sweden, "Old Tjikko," is 9,550 years old! How
could these trees be there, if there was an
enormous flood just 4,000 years ago?
>>First of all, the Bristlecone Pine Trees were
dated by counting the tree rings - but it's a well
established FACT that trees can grow more than one
tree ring per season - in fact, in that particular
area of California, multiple tree rings per season
is not to be explained, but rather to be expected.
So by the time you take these multiple rings into
account, the age of the tree quickly falls within
the 4,500 year time frame.
Old Tjikko was not dated by counting its tree
rings, but actually it was given that age by Carbon
14 tests performed on its ROOTS!
So tell me Mr. Nye, do you accept that Carbon 14
age? If you do, then I presume you also accept the
Carbon 14 ages returned on DINOSAUR BONES? Carbon
14 tests on dino bones which invariably return ages
of between 5,000 and 50,000 years old? Sometimes
returning ages as being thousands of years YOUNGER
than old Tjikko. Do you accept those ages as well?
Mr. Nye frequently referred to the fossil record,
but obviously knows NOTHING about the fossil
record, based on his comments:
>>We find a sequence of animals in what generally
is called the fossil record, this would be when you
look at the layers that you find in Kentucky, you
look at them carefully, you find a sequence of
animals; a succession.
>>No you don't! Even Dr. David Raup from the
Chicago field museum acknowledged this, saying:
In fact there are multiple reasons why Nye's claim
is just plain wrong, and his ignorance of the
matter became evident in other comments he made:
>>We're delighted - that's why I say, if you can
find a fossil that's swum between the layers, bring
it on! You would change the world!
Oh really? How about MILLIONS of fossils that swam
between the layers? Nye clearly knows NOTHING of
the fossil record. Let's make use of the
evolutionary ages, which I do not believe but will
use for Bill's sake to make a point: The coelacanth
fish first appears in the fossil record 450 million
years ago, vanishes from the fossil record 75
million years ago, yet is still alive today,
unchanged. So not only did 450 million years of
evolution cause the coelacanth to evolve into...the
coelacanth, in direct opposition to evolutionary
change and perfectly in line with what the Bible
says that life will reproduce after its KIND, did
the coelacanth swim up through the last 75 million
years of rock layers Mr. Nye?
Of course not - all it means is that the coelacanth
was not preserved in those rock layers when the
rocks were formed. From this very simple fact we
can make an obvious conclusion: The absence of the
fossil does not mean the organism was absent when
the rock was made. Therefore, everything Nye said
about an alleged fossil sequence is invalidated,
because the fossil record is KNOWN to be an
incomplete record. You cannot build a succession of
fossils when you know for fact that organisms that
were there weren't fossilized!
Furthermore, Mr. Nye wanted fossils swimming
through the layers? He's got it. In the famous
Paluxy river bed in Glen Rose, Texas, as well as
Georgian Bay, Ontario, and many, many other places
around the world, you can find the burrows of clams
which have swum up through tens of feet of what was
mud, which has now hardened into multiple layers of
rock. In the upper layers, you can find the corpses
of all of those clams where they died attempting to
burrow to freedom after obviously being rapidly
buried alive in a massive mud flow at least several
tens of feet deep.
This doesn't even get into polystrate fossils like
trees which are found going up through multiple
layers, often by the tens of feet. The evidence is
clear: these layers do not represent even TENS of
years, let alone thousands, or millions. And these
layers certainly do not represent a
succession of fossils.
This is all common knowledge Mr. Nye - so why
hasn't this information changed the world?
But Nye then continues with the falsified fossil
sequence and talks about TIKTAALIK as if it's
evidence for evolution and the power of
evolution to predict!
>>And people realized that if this, with the age of
the rocks there, as computed by traditional
scientists, this would be a reasonable place to
look for the fossil of an animal that lived there.
and indeed, scientists found it! Tiktaalik - this
fish/lizard guy. In other words, they made a
prediction that this animal would be found, and it
was found. So far, Mr. Ham and his worldview, the
Ken Ham creation model, does not have this
capability. It cannot make predictions.
>>Tiktaalik was supposed to be the
half-fish/half-tetrapod land walking animal, one of
the first fish to grow legs and walk up onto land.
Again demonstrating his ignorance of the fossil
record, Mr. Nye is evidently unaware of the fossil
footprints found in POLAND which were some 20
million years BEFORE Tiktaalik, and the fossil
tetrapod footprints found the Tapeats sandstone of
Grand Canyon which are allegedly 125 million years
BEFORE Tiktaalik, according to the evolutionary
timescale! If tiktaalik was evolving legs and feet,
then what are the footprints from perfectly formed
legs and feet doing in rocks made 125 MILLION
YEARS before tiktaalik?
Please notice that evolution would predict NOT
finding footprints in rocks older than Tiktaalik.
So contrary to what Mr. Nye has ignorantly
proclaimed, evolution actually FAILED in its
predictive power, while the creation model, which
can AND DOES make predictions - sees its
predictions fulfilled! Predictions like, tetrapods
have been around since the beginning of creation,
therefore we could expect to find evidence of
tetrapods in just about ANY layer of rock! Gee,
that's exactly what we see!
Speaking of predictions, the creationary worldview
most certainly HAS made predictions. Just a couple
of weeks back, we interviewed Dr. Russell Humphreys
who, using the young earth creation model,
successfully predicted the magnetic fields of
multiple planets and moons - while evolution FAILED
in its predictions of those magnetic fields. Last
week we talked about the RATE project, which
successfully predicted the outcome of a new rock
dating method, predicting that the helium diffusion
rate from zircon crystals would match that of a
6,000 year old earth - their prediction was ***
on, while the old earth model was wrong by a factor
of 100,000! When "Junk DNA" was first heralded by
evolutionists as proof of evolution - some even
going so far as to call it a fulfilled prediction,
creationists predicted that purpose would be found
behind this "purposeless, useless" DNA - sure
enough, astonishing levels of use and purpose have
been found in all of this DNA. The list of
predictions that creationary models have made is
far too long, I could devote an entire show JUST to
that subject. I could also devote an entire show
JUST to the FAILURE of evolution to make
predictions. I have only given a few examples here.
Stick around- we'll be back in a minute!
[woman screaming]
Oh not again!
To the horror of both fans and enemies, Ian Juby is
back with more ranting goodness.
Okay Jacques, you first!
Just when you thought his meds had kicked in, Ian
goes off on a tangent about what killed the
dinosaurs [truck horn]
the origin of life, defining evolution, and yes,
even sex! It wasn't enough for an "R" rating, but
nowadays, what is? Volume 4 of his ever popular and
ever hated CrEvo Rants has eight new short, fast,
funny and hard hitting episodes.
You can get your copy on the soon to be extinct DVD
for 15 bucks plus shipping and handling, or
purchase the instant digital download of all eight
tracks for just 8 bucks! Or you can buy all four
volumes of his world-infamous rants for the price
of three! Order your copies today and have a party
with like, popcorn and stuff. Visit
Ian's bookstore today!
Welcome back, we've been giving a response to the
Bill Nye/Ken Ham debate.
Mr. Nye rambled on about the alleged impossibility
of Noah's ark:
>>Inherent in this world view is that somehow, Noah
and his family were able to build a wooden ship
that would house 14,000 individuals - there was
7,000 kinds, and there was a boy and girl for each
one of those, so there's about 14,000 and 8 people.
And these people were unskilled - as far as anybody
knows, they had never built a wooden ship before.
>>There is subtle evolutionary assumptions,
arrogance and ignorance in Mr. Nye's comments. He
has the assumption that people in the past were not
as smart as we are. Clearly historic people were
UNSKILLED, and couldn't build anything like a vast,
wooden ship. Okay, so historic people somehow built
the great pyramids....and we still don't know how
they did that. The Romans built a temple on top of
the ruins built by the ancients - ruins that
incorporated cut stones weighing about 1,000 TONS
each. With all of our modern technology, we have
one portable crane in the entire world that could
lift those stones - and it takes up acres of space.
These people somehow cut and moved these stones -
yet they were clearly technologically inferior
to us!
By the way - we know how they did it, and it was
very, very smart. We'll be showing how the ancients
did this, in detail, in our upcoming documentary,
Mystery of Noah's Flood, due to be released
hopefully this summer. The point being, just
because WE don't know how to do something doesn't
mean the ancients didn't know how! It's an
evolutionary assumption that we are progressing
through time - evolving from stupid,
less-intelligent apes, into the superior,
intelligent man. The historical record actually
shows the opposite - people used their brains much
more effectively in the past.
>>People in the early 1900's built an
extraordinarily large, wooden ship - the Wyoming.
It was a 6 masted schooner, the largest one ever
built - it had a motor on it for winching cables
and stuff. But this boat had great difficulty - it
was not as big as the titanic, but it was a very
long ship. It would twist in the sea - it would
twist this way, this way, and this way.
>>Ultimately the Wyoming sank, so clearly a ship of
the size of Noah's ark could not be built out of
wood, right? Actually, the Chinese built a fleet of
ships called treasure junks in the 1400's which
were LARGER than Noah's ark, and yes, they were
built out of wood. Again, just because WE don't
know how they did it, does not mean it
cannot be done!
Balking more at the idea of a global flood, Mr. Nye
then attempted to refute the historic world wide
flood with one simple fact:
>>And by the way, if this great flood drained
through the Grand Canyon, wouldn't there have been
a Grand Canyon on every continent? How can we not
have Grand Canyons everywhere, if this water
drained away in this extraordinary short amount of
time - 4,000 years.
>>Well he may be Bill Nye the science guy, but he's
definitely not BIll Nye the geography guy, cause he
flunked geography! Uh hello Mr. Bill - there IS
Grand Canyons on EVERY CONTINENT. In fact the Grand
Canyon of Arizona is one of the SMALLER ones!
Copper Canyon and Hell's Canyon are both larger
canyons just in North America. Greenland has as
huge canyon which isn't as deep as Grand, but is
actually half again longer. Peru's Rio Maranyon
canyon is twice the depth of Grand Canyon, and half
again longer! Even Antarctica has its own Grand
Cayon, buried under the ice, which is some 3,000
meters or almost 10,000 feet deep, and up to 25
kilometers or 15.5 miles wide!
Mr. Nye is quite correct - if there had been a
global flood, we would see evidence of it. And of
course, we do!
After Mr. Ham went into some of the problems and
pitfalls which nullify radioactive dating methods,
Mr. Nye just flat out went into denial mode,
ignored everything Mr. Ham pointed out, and said:
>>As far as dating goes, actually the methods
are very reliable."
>>RELIABLE? As I've brought up sooo many times here
with just ONE example of many, the radiodating
tests performed on the Uinkaret lava flows of Grand
Canyon brought up a miriad of ages from 10,000 to
2.6 BILLION years old - but there's Indian
artifacts in the lava flows, so we KNOW the lava is
actually only 800 to 1,000 years old. Mr. Ham
brought up another example where a lava bed deep
underground was found with wood embedded in the
lava. Dr. Andrew Snelling had the lava tested using
Potassium Argon dating, which gave an age of 45
million years old. Snelling also had the wood
carbon 14 dated, which returned an age of 45,000
years old - different by a factor of 1,000!
Radiodating is clearly not reliable! Mr. Nye's
response to DOCTOR Snelling's research?
>>if you find 45 million year old rock on top of
45,000 year old trees, maybe the rock slid on top?
Maybe that's it? That seems a much more reasonable
explanation than 'that's impossible.'
>>Did Nye not even listen? The wood was ENTOMBED
WITHIN the rock - the rock didn't slide over it! As
for older rocks sliding over top of younger rocks,
as we've discussed on previous episodes of Genesis
Week, that's a great explanation....if there's
evidence for it! In multiple examples I provided of
rock layers out of order, evidence of sliding was
completely missing. It appears that those rock
layers were laid down in that sequence.
But Mr. Nye went on to talk about
asteroids and radiodating:
>>One of the mysteries - interesting things, that
people in my business, especially at the planetary
society, are interested in, are 'why all the
asteroids seem to be so close to the same date?'
>>My answer is simple: WHO CARES????? If the dating
methods clearly don't work on rocks of which we DO
know the age, why would you even bother call upon
those dating methods for something like an
asteroid, of which we have NO Idea what
its age is???
But Mr. Nye also brought up one of the questions
that *I* like to ask of evolutionists:
>>There are certain fish..the top minnows that have
the [chuckling] remarkable ability to have sex with
other fish, traditional fish sex, and they can have
sex with themselves. Now one of the old questions
in life science, everybody, one of the old sort-of,
chin strokers, is why does any organism - whether
you're an ash tree, a sea jelly, a squid, a marmot
- why does anybody have sex?
>>Well you see, Bill, there's this book, and it
does tell us why we have sex. It says that "In the
beginning GOD Created them male and female."
But this is such an excellent question Mr. Bill:
How do you explain sex within evolution? You can't.
You brought up an example of one of the many
benefits of sex - hey - NObody is denying the
benefits of sex! That has NOTHING to do with how
sex came to be! If evolution tries to perform any
of the miriads of changes to the miriads of ***
reproduction systems on earth, it leads to the
extinction of the species! Evolution cannot explain
sex, but my Bible can. Mr. Nye I have a sex video
on line you should watch, CrEvo rant #13, and
explain to me how evolution produced
*** reproduction.
Well that was fun, but I gotta run cause we're outa
time - remember you can send in your comments,
questions, hate mail and your grandmother's credit
card information to us in a number of ways:
Remember those words of warning from our Creator,
the Lord Jesus Christ who said "I am the way the
truth and the life - no man comes to the father
except through me." We'll see you next week.
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