Bill Nye Debates Creationist Ken Ham Live 2/4/2014

A large section of Vanderbilt's campus is called the Commons too! :D Most of the religious demonstrators I ever saw were on the other side of campus at the frats, but one time there was a group of people passing out altered copies of Darwin's "Origin of Species" at the Commons. Basically they edited out a bunch of stuff to make it seem contradictory/less convincing. A university campus is an interesting choice of venue for a misinformation campaign lol

I knew that someone with a molecular bio background while chime in! While there are difficult questions that seems to obfuscate the problem, even the most complex problems are brought down through binary. We might end up with a complex answer, but it will be because of this huge amount of binary questions.

You're right, every real experiment is a simply a combination of many binary questions. You and I won't sit in a lab and do one binary question every day (that's what 96 well plates are for!) But think, every single one of those wells is one binary question that is compared to your positive and negative controls. It never occurs to many people that this is the case, we take it for granted.

I'd gladly discuss immunofluorescence/blotting/preciptation and bioinformatics also. Each of these fields have gigantic sub-disciplines so I can't guarantee that I'll be entirely familiar with all of them but I'd gladly discuss any of these (although, the topic would be beyond the scope or vernacular of this thread, so PM's are preferable).

You are correct in the sense that religion has no predictive power. That doesn't mean that they can't challenge what the scientific community understands. What you need to realize is that everything, uniformitarianism, scientific evidence all have limits. The reason why there are these debates are still debatable is because there "is" a degree of uncertainty because of these limits.

Let me give you an example about radiometric dating. I can speak in the terms of carbon-14 (I know, it's a relatively short half life compared to the ones discussed in the debate, but I'm a molecular biologist, not a geologist so I'll give you a good example of why uniformitarianism assumptions can err.) Carbon-14 is an isotope of Carbon which typically has the mass of 12. It is produced by cosmic rays from the sun when it reacts with nitrogen in a mechanism that we don't need to know/care about. Carbon-14 ends up in carbon dioxide CO2 which plants will utilize in photosynthesis. Since C14 comes from the air, when the plant dies, no more C14 can enter the plant. C14 decays within 5,000ish years. To calculate how long the plant has died, you'll analyze the amount of remaining C14 in the plant. Via the equations of radioactive decay, you can calculate how many years it has been since the plant was alive. Now a good uniformitarianist that you are, you need to plug in a number for "what is the baseline C14?". You'd plug in the C14 amount that we'd typically see today. That's the bases of uniformitarism. It's based of the atmosphere that we live in now.

But our atmosphere wasn't always like this and this is certainly something that we can only observe via artifacts of the past. That being said, what we "don't know" is greater than what we "do know". During a more tumultuous time period, even increased volcanic activity can give erroneous readings because the excess CO2 is not of the heavier isotope. What if this particular volcano was erroded so there is no evidence it ever happened? If the human race did cease to exist a few thousand years from now and aliens didn't make the connection between human use of natural resources and CO2 emissions, that could have affected their radioactive dating of C14 as well. This is plausible if they didn't have a complete picture of the human race. We don't have a complete picture of the past either. A volcano erupting like this in our time period is unlikely but just because we don't see it doesn't mean it didn't happen. If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, did it fall?

Scientists need to acknowledge what is uncertain. This is what these debates are really about. For some, this is encouragement to find the answer to your questions. For some, it's a neat mental exercise to really understand the limitations of what we can infer with the type of information we have. For the origin of life, we still can't create an organism from entirely random organic molecules. We still can not demonstrate macroscopic evolution. These are critical questions that biology has not been able to answer nor replicate, a critical gap of knowledge that unifies our theory of evolution. This needs to be brought up and people can't stop questioning.

Couldn't you simply overcome that flaw in uniformitarianism by simply comparing multiple forms of dating? If many different methods all point towards the same thing, then why should there be any real reasonable doubt?

Well, that's the problem. Not all forms of dating point to the same dates.

Striking out for now, I'm not convinced with either answer until I see a chart of a an experiment that tabulates this. I will reserve for when I'm at work when I have access to journals.

I'm not exactly familiar with all of this science you're clearly versed in lol. What's the discrepancies? Are they in agreement to a point? I vaguely remember someone in high school, probably trying to dumb it down a metric f*cktonne, telling me something like radiocarbon dating is tricky because it's parabolic in nature or some such.

Not my field of science obviously lol.


This disgusts me on so many levels. Seriously, they're so far in denial that instead of embracing evidence that causes doubt in them, they would try to erase it and lie to others about it. These people recognize what they're saying is false, so they have to lie because it's just more convenient for their argument that they themselves have found doubt in, which they must have now because they wouldn't need to alter the damn info if it didn't.

Uniformitarianism doesn't stipulate that conditions remain constant like in your example. It says that laws and processes, such as radioactive decay, remain conserved through time and across distances. So the conditions of the atmosphere have changed but the rate at which process of decay stays the same. Can corrections be made for atmospheric composition? ***, I dunno. I don't work with isotopes, but the point is the assumption that decay remains consistent is what allows for estimates with a measurable level of uncertainty.

The underlined phrase is what the creationists are latching onto. As long as that uncertainty is not zero (an impossibility), they're looking to fill that gap with their ramblings over "origins science" or "God did it". I don't know a credible scientist alive who would not acknowledge uncertainty. They'd be laughed out of peer review.

I have no qualms with the limitations of research. It's just a reality. I don't object to it being brought up because it's something all scientists have to deal with. What I object to is the insinuation that because our collective knowledge is incomplete science is therefore incapable of providing reliable answers in the same way creationism facetiously claims to do.

Edit: Rephrasing

Which also happens to be the basis for most forms of government. Laws are interpreted from some divine source, whether it be nature and/or god/s.

You follow these divine laws hanbded down from the "so-called creator of the universe rules you must follow if you want to enjoy" eternal happinessfreedom.


Natural or divine law is a common concept in government/law, edit: it isn't solely found in theological texts.

Cough cough free-will.

This might be because the unexpected discovery stories are more memorable. These make the best stories. Before we get into another argument where we start listing every significant discovery that was unexpected vs expected ("significant" is highly subjective anyhow), I will divert to your second statement which will answer this first one.

The ability to process data and create new hypothesis from previous experiments is no doubt a very important skill for any scientist. But you have to realize that even from the most serendipitous "out of your original yes/no scenario", there is still need for the scientific method to follow up your findings.

Alexander Flemming wasn't working on anti-microbial agents before he discovered Penicillin. He was working on lysozyme, a protein in your eye that has anti-microbial properties. Even if his lysozyme experiment failed due to a contaminating mold (outside of original yes/no scenario), he still had to follow through the scientific method I had described to confirm that it was indeed an antibiotic and not simply pH, nutrient competition, etc. Then he had to make sure that this stuff didn't kill human cells, cause an immune response, etc. The glory of the antibiotics was not because of the serendipitous finding of the mold, but to how he was able use the scientific method to understand what the mold was doing. And yes, all the rest of the questions he asked from then on were basic hypothesis testing.

Then, quite frankly, they are horrible students/researchers/scientists.

If they don't understand that there are tons of decisions that are made in the methodology/data selection on how to set-up the experiment, what data will be used, if that data needs to be cleaned, what methods are being used to test this hypothesis, why were those methods chosen, what are the up-sides/down-sides of those methods, and many, many more choices the researcher has to make, then they have:

a) never set-up an experiment where they have to write a paper or document their steps/conclusions
b) they suck as researchers and so do their teachers
c) they are laymen and have no idea what they are talking about nor are they willing to look stuff up

There is skepticism involved, by other researchers in the same field, adjacent fields. Now, laymen who do not have a full understanding of the subject (or even a remote understanding of the subject) may not be skeptical but that is a different problem.

To a lot of individuals science/technology is nothing short of magic since they do not understand the processes involved. How many TV shows/movies/news programs have you seen where they are trying to explain computer programming/hacking/surgery/nanotechnology/aerodynamics/etc where they are completely and utterly wrong?

Joke for a statistician (or anyone who has used linear regression). On a show I watched recently a guy broke into an alarm system by "generalizing the least squares". Seriously.

One pet peeve I have with most news organizations is the lack of understanding journalists have and then the lack of citations. They write a "summary" of a scientific paper that is usually so wrong I want to scream and then they don't even list the name of the paper or cite the damn thing. That makes it rather difficult/annoying to do due diligence and check-up on the "facts" presented.

I have nothing to argue about the laws of processes of radioactive decay. But to confirm your doubts, by using uniformitarianism, you automatically assume the same atmospheric conditions. Not only are the laws are uniform, you have to make the basic assumption that the air composition is exactly the same as it is now because there is no way to "take a sample" of 30,000 year old air held at 0Kelvin. (I wonder if things decay even at 0 Kelvin... I'd assume not but, ops SQUIRREL!) This leads to problems with accuracy, which is exactly my point.

Free-will is a contradiction if determinism is considered true. Judeo-Christianity is determinist. God is omniscient and therefore knows past, present and future, necessitating the idea of fate.

Biology is hardly statistical science. It's based largely off logical assumptions. You cant snap your fingers and make a bacteria produce a specific statistically expected gene via "natural evolution." It just doesnt work like that.

I could reproduce millions or billions filial generations of s. aureus bacteria, in the appropriate natural setting, and not one would produce the gene responsible for methicillicin resistance. Why? It's not because it contradicts statistical science...but because that's the way biology works.

Is that to say that methicillin resistance is not a desired gene in the s. aureus species or that a biologist doesn't understand the species? No. It's because replicating the conditions of both evolutionary and social-ecological to the dot is impossible.

Without turning this into a bible quote-fest. The bible gives examples where God tests man's faith. These are prime examples which contradict pre-destiny.

Wait, are you a statistician, Kara? It'd be nice to not be the only one in here.

I see your point, but the term "observational study" to a statistician doesn't mean the same thing as what you're taking it to mean in terms of biological study. I can elaborate further if you desire.

I just said that constant conditions wouldn't be assumed. That's ridiculous. No one could seriously assume constant conditions outside of theoretical or controlled conditions. Again, uniformitarianism states that the process is conserved. Conditions can influence it, but the fundamental way it works remains the same.

I see your point, and I don't have an issue with acknowledging uncertainty. Quite the opposite. It's an integral part of science. I just really do not like the obfuscation Ham uses to push his own inane view of modern science.

Glancing through your posts, I can't really figure out what the hell you're trying to argue. It seems you know science better than most but you seem to be very upset that science is limited. Are you bothered by people who take certain aspects of science that are beyond their capacity on faith?

Anyhow, you appear to be demanding 100% accuracy. No one is unerring, except your deus if that happens to be your belief. You're not even entering the argument on valid or appropriate terms by demanding that science should transcend mortal limitations, because that demand wouldn't even stand up in a theological debate, much less a scientific or science-versus-theology one.

I'd be curious to know what constitutes an observational study in your terms.

I'm finishing a masters in finance. So, I work with econometrics/fiancial modelling theories/formulas all the time.

Here is how I do it.

Einstein's theory of relativity is only a theory too. It has been much refined since 1945. It still, in the sorry theoretical state it was in then, blew two Japanese cities away killing tens of thousands of civilians.

Not bad for a mere theory eh?

You have no compunction using that line, Chanti, but will haul out your own family who died in the other half of that same conflict when it suits you? That's... rather disgusting.

but but but...

If we're not allowed to have a sense of humor, the nazi's have won!

Well, what else would you expect, really?

Lol somehow we ended up with the nazi again!

Then Yhwh is not omniscient. Omniscient or free-will, pick one; they are mutually exclusive.

e.g.: if a deity knows for truth what choice you will make given a specific set of circumstances, because it knows past, present and future, it is not a test.

Gosh, there were so many topics that it must have been difficult to follow sequentially.

First off, I'll have to address several things. First off, I'm not upset, emotional, distraught etc. I speak from a logical point of view from both sides of the argument. I’ve hidden my viewpoint of the matter in order to play devil’s advocate but I’m sure you know by now exactly which theory I support.

What I hope to accomplish is to make people more informed. Not all creationist attack towards the scientific process are “stupid, silly, dumb” but critically examine the limitations of what science can do. These questions help science advance because it creates new idea and interest in solving problems.

When people stop thinking and automatically say “science” is always right, they are subscribing to the “faith of science” without critically thinking about its limitations. This makes this concept of “science” more akin to religion, which it is not. Limitations need to be discussed and are very important topics to help science advance. Some people contend that we have [s]everything[s]enough that we need to know about what happened in the past. My argument is that we don’t. One of the quintessential pieces of information for evolution, how the primordial soup created our first cell, cannot be replicated. Just because we don’t know doesn’t mean we won’t know. Also, just because we don’t know mean that all we know is invalid. We’re just building a jigsaw puzzle and creationists are pointing to a void saying “You’re missing a piece there”. That’s a reasonable argument, we need to just acknowledge that there is a piece there that is missing. And there is.

I point out that some arguments creationists have for science are sound and logical. Of course, there are many more that I disagree with than agree, it might sound like I was creationist because I cherry picked all the “good” arguments that creationists make.

I receive rebuttals that claim that “we know everythingenough to make our judgements”. That’s statement is the “faith of science”. But the fact of the matter is we know very little and we need to learn more.


Debate Topics:
1. "The nature of science is proving by disproving." (Agree or Disagree)

-In this argument we define the term "science" and create a distinction between "science" as the process of experimental design/hypothesis-testing and scientific theory/understanding.

Disagree: The opposition disagrees and supports that science is never about proving or disproving, but the method of acquisition of data. It is a definitional argument of what science is which never explicitly states anything about proving/disproving.
Agree (Keityan): My argument was is that in order to obtain the facts through the scientific method, a scientist needs to constantly ask questions that are binary in nature in order to create larger theories/predictive models. This makes it inherently proving/disproving. You simply can't create a hypothesis (an educated guess) without being right or wrong. Theory on the otherhand, is not about proving/disproving because the definition of a theory is the understanding of topics and is not treated like facts. Facts result from scientific design. Facts make theory. Theories predict.

2. "The [most] significant [scientific] results are the unexpected ones. The results of an experiment are more important when they are outside of your supposed yes/no scenario." Agree or Disagree

Agree: This is brought up by poster. This is an argument by example even though no examples were brought up. (Which is fine, because we can all acknowledge that many critical discoveries were discovered by accident)
Disagree(Keityan): 1. Discovery by serendipity, while powerful, only landmarks the beginning, and not the end of the scientific process. After any serendipitous discovery, there must be a cascade of scientific design to support such discoveries. As an example, I used Alexander Fleming as my example because he needed the scientific method (full of plain benchwork, not as glamorous as his initial discovery of Penicillium) to confirm his initial findings. I also point out that "unexpected findings" create better stories thus are remembered more often.

3. "You don't use science to prove yourself right or others wrong, you use it to BECOME right." Agree or Disagree
Agree- Brought up by poster
Disagree(Keityan)- I disagree because the end product of scientific experimentation is not a "right" or "wrong" answer. It's a process of reaching an understanding. The process, however, is full of binary prove/disproves- this is how we get our facts to support our scientific theories. These theories hold up very well because they explain how things work and are predictive. We know they are predictive because we've studied them experimentally. The end product doesn't result in an answer that is "right or wrong". It just means that no one else has a better model of prediction yet.

4. “The concept of uncertainty is poor argument to make against scientific evidence”. Agree or Disagree
Agree- Uncertainty is a poor argument because we have the evidence that supports a different theory. We do know the conditions of early earth based on very real observations that can be made today. Scientists do rely on the assumption that laws and processes did work the same way back then as they do now (Uniformitarianism), but it's an assumption that needs to be made to be able to study literally anything. For example, what's the point of studying antibiotic resistance in one plate of bacteria if we can't assume that the same processes are occurring in another plate of identical bacteria? There's nothing to be gained from a non-parsimonious explanation of the past (or present) that includes mysterious or unknown forces we have yet to encounter. (While this is a great post, I realize later he never addressed why uncertainty is less salient.)
Disagree (Keityan)- Uncertainty is the process in which science adds more hypothesis to the stack. When you create a hypothesis, you ask more questions about what you are uncertain about. This is the nature of hypothesis testing. Thus, if someone tells you that there is “too much uncertainty” because the artifacts may be too old to be reliable, the goal of a scientist is to create enough facts to prove that it is reliable. Overcoming uncertainty is a process of science, therefore it is no less salient of an argument.

Literally stopped reading at that point.

A stopped clock is right twice a day, but it doesn't mean that you give it any credence as a timepiece. If some loonie happens to point out that science is limited, that is a very long way from wasting time acknowledging his argumentation that is based on pure fantasy.

If you want to talk about the limitations of science, great, but don't do so in the context of defending those who promote ignorance. If you actually buy their crap, don't talk at all. If you're really bothered by the fact that most people lack the training and interest to question inconsequential things (see my point earlier about lightning), I don't know what to tell you. My life is fundamentally ruled by the US tax code and I don't have a clue how that arcane idiocy works. Is that an argument to spend several years trying to study it when I know in advance that I have no more ability to change it than I do to alter gravitation (which I'm well aware is not presently understood by science, either)?

"God is in the gaps" does not help Science.

I'll just stop since our arguments are only tangentially related at this point. I don't know who you're referring when you mention people who think we know everything, but none of those people are in this thread.

This is why people like you are breeding the "faith of science". You block it out. You block it out because it is something that you don't want to hear. You don't like to listen to your own vulnerabilities. By doing this, this disallows science from getting better. Because of this, I encourage you to read it because it might give you insight of how to think scientifically instead of using your preconceived prejudices to judge arguments.


This is exactly what I'm doing because limitations is one of the arguments made against science. It's real. I won't care if Christans pointed it out, scientists pointed it out, gay, lesiban, black, white, Chinese, Indian. It's the argument that counts.