When the Creation Museum opened in 2007,
I was one of the people who was there on opening day,
to actually protest that they were calling it a museum in the first place.
But after the protest was done, I actually bought a ticket
and went inside the Creation Museum.
And so did a lot of people I was protesting with.
And a lot of people may argue, you know, why would you go in there? Why would you give money
to the Creation Museum?
And the thought that I had at the time was:
it was better to have gone in there
and see for myself what they have to offer,
because then I can go spread the word to other people
about what I saw. I can take pictures and show it to everybody else
and maybe, by exposing what they were doing,
that would be better for everybody else.
That's what I was thinking about when I
heard about the Ken Ham - Bill Nye
debate that happened recently over evolution and creationism and which one is a more viable model.
It's silly. And that was my initial thought, "That's a crazy debate to have", that's the thought a lot of people had.
Bill Nye, why would you even sign up to do this? Why would you bother doing this?
Like, "How much are they paying you to do this?"
Because there's no debate in the scientific world over creationism.
There's debate over aspects of evolution, but by and large
just about all real scientists accept evolution.
But,
I think I've changed my mind about this having watched the debate.
And it goes back to why I went into the Creation Museum
on opening day in the first place.
And when I watched the debate, I realized
Bill Nye is doing an okay job of presenting the science side. I don't know how compelling it was, I don't know if it
convinced anyone to be a scientist, or anything like that. Maybe it did. I hope it did.
But, when I saw Ken Ham speak,
it was ridiculous.
He had nothing credible to say. Everything he said, honestly, boiled down to,
"The Bible says it. So, it must be true."
He didn't have any scientific argument for creation.
He had a biblical argument for creation.
And I think the most telling moment of the debate was when the moderator asked,
"What would it take to get you to change your mind?"
And Bill Nye said: "Give me one piece of evidence,
and I'll do it."
"Give me one piece of evidence against evolution and I'll do it."
And Ken Ham said:
"Nothing would change my mind
because the Bible says creationism is the truth."
And I think that's so telling right there.
And I realized there may be a lot of people out there
who had no idea how
not based in science
Ken Ham's views were.
And when you expose that nonsense to the masses,
that probably benefited the scientific community.
Like, "Oh, this is the hyped debate. This is the best the other side has to offer
and it was horrible."
And maybe that exposure of someone who has such a silly idea
is what we need.
And I was thinking that maybe by exposing a lot of their teaching to the masses,
it'll actually help.
And the few bucks I had to pay to get into the Creation Museum
it's a small price to pay
for the opportunity to expose what they're doing.
And so I think I've changed my mind about this. I no longer think Bill Nye was totally crazy to accept the debate.
I think there was value in exposing honestly what Ken Ham has to believe.
You know, I remember in 2012,
Dan Savage, the amazing sex columnist,
activist, writer.
He actually invited Brian Brown, the president of the National Organization for Marriage, like the
most anti-gay bigot of them all.
He invited him
to his house, Dan Savage's house, to dinner.
And a columnist from the New York Times, a reporter from the New York Times was there to be the moderator
and they had a dinner table debate. And you can even watch it online now.
And it seems kind of weird, like, why would you ever debate someone who's that
rabidly anti-gay, who's that against who you are?
And you realize that there was an opportunity there, and the opportunity
wasn't that Dan Savage was going to crush the other guy with all these facts and statistics.
He did, but that wasn't really the point.
The point was: let's take the best of what the other side has to offer,
and let everyone see it.
Let's show how awful the thinking is that goes on in these other people's minds.
And maybe that is the value right there.
So, I think the moral of the story here is, you know,
the next time we come across this question of
"Should atheists debate creationists?" or "Should
scientists debate climate change denialists?"
Or should anyone debate Holocaust denialists? It's just
whenever you have to debate someone from outside the community of reality,
let's not dismiss it completely. I think there is
something good about exposing such
awful not-based-in-science views
to the masses.
I think there is something good about taking on those challenges
if for no other reason
than to let people see what the other side has to bring to the table,
because I think they're going to realize they have nothing to offer.
They have no reality to bring to the table.
So, even though I wasn't happy with the debate
taking place between Bill Nye and Ken Ham,
I think I can now say
it definitely wasn't a loss for science. I don't think any scientist walked away from that debate thinking,
"That was a bad idea."
If anything, it's like, "Wow! We should do this more often because if
Ken Ham is cloned, and we have a lot of people spreading
those arguments for creation,
it won't be long before creationism just get seen as this fringe idea that no one should take seriously
and more people will finally be able to admit that.
My name is Hemant Mehta and I write at FriendlyAtheist.com
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