I couldn’t watch it.
I just couldn’t do it.
Those of you who did watch it… I know you had your reasons. I respect that. I’m not criticizing anyone here.
It’s just that, after so many years of watching fruitless debates in the church, I may be constitutionally incapable of watching Bill Nye the Science Guy and Ken Ham engage in a debate, the outcome of which is all but predetermined. (Side effects may include headaches, blurred vision, hiccups, vomiting, and hair loss.)
It’s not that I don’t think creationism and evolution are significant matters (though I honestly don’t spend very much time thinking about them). It’s that a debate about creationism vs. evolution between an agnostic and a man who funded a museum dedicated to creationism doesn’t hold much promise for fruitful dialogue. One party is not willing to acknowledge that God exits. How, then, could he possibly come to the position that God created anything? The other party has an epistemological commitment to scripture whereby anything that he understands to conflict with scripture must be wrong. How, then, could he possibly come to the position that anything the Bible says is incorrect?
Is the purpose of a debate like this to find common ground? That can’t happen given the presuppositions of the two parties. Is its purpose, then, for one party to prove another wrong? That can’t happen either, for the same reason. So the only real result can be that partisans of each side of the debate receive a set of arguments based upon the presuppositions that gave rise to the debate to start with.
Am I wrong? I admit, I didn’t watch it. But I don’t see how it could have gone any other way.
I’m probably wrong.
Let me know what you think.
David F. Watson 
Nye was a bit better on religion than expected. Further, the debate was not about God as first cause (something Nye is not scientifically qualified to answer) but about biological origins and what presents a more accurate view.
For Ham, he is committed not to what Scripture says (as evidenced by his refusal to understand Holy Writ according to the ANE world) so much as to what he believes it says. As he said, nothing will change his mind. He must always believe what he believes now, or his entire house of cards (faith) comes crashing down.
This debate was about biological origins rather than cosmological origins. NPR's On Being ran a program recently featuring Brian Greene who, while he is is qualified to speak about First Cause, gave such a wonderfully nuanced answer that it is possible to understand Greene as a deist. But, I digress.
I agree with your thoughts David. I watch it for the novelty of it and irony. There was a lot of hype built around it, it was focused not on the debate by on celebrity personalities in their respective fields, and the desire to push each other's campaigns. Nye wants to see people support science. Ham wants to see people trust the Bible, as he sees it. Having said all that, I was interested in it for the pop-culture aspect: a lot of people tuned in, a lot of people live tweeted, and a lot of people blogged about it. That, in it self, is interesting.
I can appreciate the apprehension here. However, as a pastor, knowing there would be a lot of buzz yesterday and today, I took this opportunity to teach what our denomination teaches about this issue to my people. Namely, it is possible to hold an open Bible in one hand and an open science book in the other. This media event provided a great teachable moment to reveal to my congregants a “third way” between literal creationism and atheistic naturalism.
Joel, I would rather listen to one person who can integrate different kinds of ideas than two people who can't.
No doubt, it was a cultural phenomenon. You're right: that's interesting in itself.