Bill Nye and Ken Ham debate whether creation is a viable model of origins in today's modern scientific era.Bill Nye and Ken Ham debate whether creation is a viable model of origins in today's modern scientific era.Bill Nye and Ken Ham debate whether creation is a viable model of origins in today's modern scientific era.
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It will work as confirmation of whichever side you already agree with, but as a debate it is disappointing unsurprisingly throughout
As with many I heard about this debate after it had occurred. As the bits of the internet I tend to use would tends towards Nye, of course I heard he "won" the debate while unsurprisingly a bit of Googling revealed that those websites that support the whole idea of God and Jesus, tended to think that Ham "won". This didn't surprise me since neither camp was going to be convinced to even consider their position for a second but I still hoped that the debate would be interesting. It was in spurts but again unsurprisingly the debate features two people repeating their points rather than really engaging. The structure of the debate doesn't really help; the first hour is each man getting 30 minutes solo. After this rebuttals are very short. The question and answer session which made up the final section was disappointing as it took questions from the audience so, rather than testing either man, they were written with a very thinly hidden agenda one way or the other behind the question and both men just repeated their position.
In terms of who won? Well, whatever you think before you begin is what you will think at the end, so whomever has the view closest to you will be the one you agree with most and thus think "won". In terms of the two as debaters; Nye seems to enjoy the publicity but otherwise there is no reason for him to be here since he is not debating scientific fact behind creationism but rather debating the unprovable existence or not of God. As a result he can never get going and he isn't helped by some rambling moments, poor jokes and an inability to move the debate to his home territory. Ham at least plays strongly to his base because he never wavers – his "there is a book line" is old after the second time, but it does work as a debate point because ultimately this is what it comes down to since as a man of faith, of course some of his "facts" will be "because God did it". I didn't think this made for a good debate, but it was not a surprise and it is amusing how many people seem upset by this despite going in knowing who the two men were.
Moderation is OK but the scope of the debate is too limited and the position of the two men far too diverse. The 2-minute questions was a good place to expand the debate but by using audience questions (some of which the moderator struggled to read – not a good sign) it missed a trick and just continued the predetermined agenda path. It will work as confirmation of whichever side you already agree with, but as a debate it is disappointingly unsurprising throughout.
In terms of who won? Well, whatever you think before you begin is what you will think at the end, so whomever has the view closest to you will be the one you agree with most and thus think "won". In terms of the two as debaters; Nye seems to enjoy the publicity but otherwise there is no reason for him to be here since he is not debating scientific fact behind creationism but rather debating the unprovable existence or not of God. As a result he can never get going and he isn't helped by some rambling moments, poor jokes and an inability to move the debate to his home territory. Ham at least plays strongly to his base because he never wavers – his "there is a book line" is old after the second time, but it does work as a debate point because ultimately this is what it comes down to since as a man of faith, of course some of his "facts" will be "because God did it". I didn't think this made for a good debate, but it was not a surprise and it is amusing how many people seem upset by this despite going in knowing who the two men were.
Moderation is OK but the scope of the debate is too limited and the position of the two men far too diverse. The 2-minute questions was a good place to expand the debate but by using audience questions (some of which the moderator struggled to read – not a good sign) it missed a trick and just continued the predetermined agenda path. It will work as confirmation of whichever side you already agree with, but as a debate it is disappointingly unsurprising throughout.
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- bob the moo
- Feb 17, 2014
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