No Room for Debate

Apparently there's a debate occurring tonight between Bill Nye and Ken Ham.  The topic of debate is creationism vs. evolution.  I wish Bill Nye weren't attending.  The reason isn't because I think Bill Nye will lose the debate.  By attending, Nye lends credibility to Ham.  Ham doesn't need to win people over to his side to win.  Ham wins by convincing people that a debate exists.

There are certain scientific principles so well established that there is no room for debate on those issues.  The earth is round (not necessarily spherical, but round).  It rotates on its axis as it orbits the Sun.  Evolution is how human life came to be on earth.  There are arguments against all three, but those arguments aren't scientific.  Most of those arguments say primitive humans who hadn't developed the scientific method came up with stories to explain the world they saw and we should, too.

I understand that some people may think this is harsh.  But that's what "The Bible says" means in English.  I don't say this as an atheist.  I say this as a Jew, one of the Jews who understands that the Bible (at least the Old Testament, which is the source of the creation mythology) was assembled from stories, many passed down as oral history.  The first collection of those stories into a coherent single collection wasn't until after the death of Christ, when the Jews wanted to distinguish between themselves and their beliefs, and the splinter faction that revered Yoshua ibn Joseph (now known as Jesus Christ), which would, several centuries later, assemble its own holy book based partially on the collection of those Jews.

"Creation Scientists," so called despite paying no attention to science, have created a literature, following, and hedge industry in claiming that religion is science and pointing out missing pieces of evidence in the scientific record.  This method requires one to conflate "absence of evidence" and "evidence of absence."  This method also requires stubbornly refusing to acknowledge evidence supported by others, and claiming that willingness to acknowledge evidence as weakness.  It is also incredibly expensive, and hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent by various political and economic interests to build this movement.

So, when you hear someone say that "Creation science is just religion in a cheap suit," they're wrong, it's religion in an incredibly expensive suit.  Despite the millions spent, however, the "Creation Science" movement hasn't actually swayed a single scientist, and is accomplishing nothing in the field of science.  It has, however, convinced a number of educators to "teach the controversy," and convinced people that a controversy in science vs. creation exists.

It doesn't.  Pope Benedict XVI acknowledged that evolution was right.  The single largest Christian Church in the world says that there's no scientific controversy.  The pope continued to suggest that religion answers a set of emotional questions and science answers factual ones.  At no point did he suggest that science was wrong.  Other religious groups, including most Jews, and the majority of Christians in Europe, have no difficulty with this dichotomy.  But, American Christian Conservatives looking to gain political ground do.  And they've spent hundreds of millions building a false movement with false museums and false science.  And all they want, is to convince the public that there's a debate.

Bill Nye, despite his charisma and good intentions, has provided them with more evidence that there is a a debate.  He's done this by agreeing to go public in a national forum and debate an issue that is established.  Would he debate with a member of the flat earth society?  Probably not.  Would he debate with a geocentrist who claims the earth doesn't rotate and the heavens spin around it?  Of course not.  But he's agreed to debate evolution, despite no real controversy, because he thinks he can convince people not to mislead their own children.

It's a noble thought, but a doomed one.  And, it only serves the goals of a movement desperate to convince Americans that there is a scientific controversy about Evolution.  It builds that because nothing suggests a debate so much as two people both of whom seem educated and informed discussing two sides of an issue.  Bill Nye would have accomplished more by refusing.  Because nothing suggests the presence of a debate less than one man standing alone on a stage.