Eight years ago, Bill Nye and Ken Ham met to debate evolution vs. creationism. They engaged in the Creation Museum, which was a big mistake — never willingly give the home court advantage to your opponent. Nevertheless, if you ask any biologist how it went, they’ll mostly agree that Nye kicked Ham’s ass. The low point for the creationist was when he proudly declaimed that no amount of evidence could ever convince him he was wrong, because the Bible was absolute truth.
However, even now Ken Ham brags about the debate. He and his followers think he trounced Nye, and specifically think his testimony about the infallibility of the Bible was a clincher. Ham isn’t hiding in shame, he still trumpets the debate regularly.
He didn’t learn a thing, but neither did many people on the other side. I’m still seeing people lining up to debate Kent Hovind, or Standing For Truth (if you don’t know him, he’s a fraud on YouTube) or the “Great” Debate Community, or any of these yahoos whose ticket to traffic on social media is to host debates on “controversial” topics, which usually means putting up an idiot on equal standing with someone supporting conventional science. The more absurd their position, the more inane their response, the more conflict they generate and the more traffic they get.
The loser is always the person who gives respectability to the kook at the other lectern. Learn from this. It doesn’t matter how slick, professional, and clever you are in your side of the debate — at the end of the day, the winner is going to be the one who praises Jesus the most.
to all the readers of this blog who are scientists/rational:
I know we discussed something similar recently – don’t debate with science deniers/creationists/loons – it isn’t how science gets elevated/folks get educated – you just give legitimacy to the other side (that has not earned it)
plus they’ll use it as propaganda, and I have no desire to aid them in their ministry – why would you?
If it’s “even if just 1 person in the audience gets convinced that the loon is peddling nonsense, it’s a win for humanity” motive is better served in just ignoring the loons and promoting the truth instead, or criticizing/exposing the lies in a forum of your own choosing (where the liars can’t twist your comments/move the goalposts/ or employ any other shenanigans, i.e. post a video, write an article etc- but do not give the loons a forum)
don’t wrestle with pigs – you get muddy and the pig likes it
Off topic, but it works in presidential debates too. Remember George W. Bush stating that Jesus Christ is his favorite political philosopher. None dare call it a category error. Were you expecting John Locke? John who?
The people most interested in “evolution debates” are evangelical creationists, because they’re the ones who think there is something left to debate. If that’s the audience, then yes, praising Jesus is going to bring better returns than knowing any biology at all.
Gping off on a tangent.
The ex-muslim internet debaters have had it easier, because the “dawa” muslim apologists apparently have no experience at all of how to do debates.
David Hiqaqitiu (I probably got the spelling wrong) cheerfully admitted the reality of some rather disgusting hadiths without glossing over it in the manner of other muslim apologists.
And recently when Ridvan aka Apostate Prophet met Ali Dawah the latter behaved as if a debate is a Professional Wrestling event with trash talking instead of arguments. Even a lot of devout muslims were disgusted.
And these are the heavy hitters of muslim internet activism using the English language.
Unlike Christian fundies muslim Internet activists adressing a western audience (or english-speaking muslims in muslim countries) seem rather clueless.
Ken Ham is not very clever but he realises he has to project some dignity, as well as sweep problematic scripture under the carpet.
I only recall one moderate muslim -Mufti Abu Layth- with a strong internet presence that is approaching islamic apologia in a seemingly professional and sympathic manner.
Not that I envy the ex-muslim atheists- they face ostracism at a much greater level than ex-Christians.
Jesus was a radical eschatological preacher who adressed a people under Roman occupation. And his concern was the situation of the jews, not Samarians or gentiles. Dubya should stick to “nucular” and “they have misunderestimated me”.
Some things aren’t really suitable for debate, facts being among them. You can’t really debate facts like 1+1=2, it’s just a statement of what is objectively true. Evolution is a fact of biology and is easily observable and independently verifiable.
Evolution vs creationism isn’t a debate about ethics or opinions, it is a conversation where one side presents facts on a subject and the other side Gish gallops, obfuscates, pivots, moves goal posts or just plain lies. Stephen Gould was right in his advice to never publicly debate creationists because they aren’t looking to win but are instead desperately seeking the oxygen of credibility in the public eye. Don’t give it to them.
birgerjohansson@3
No, that doesn’t sound like a winning move. Evangelicals (in my limited experience) understand the need to combine their idiocy with a big smile and a peppering of dad humor. “For they’ll know we are Christians by our smug.” I think this has two effects, not only of creating the false impression of being the reasonable party but infuriating your ordinarily calm opponent.
I snatched myself bald (er) when I heard Nye was going to “debate” old Hambo, and apparently my “NOOOOOOOOOOO!” was just not heard. Nye was doomed from the get go but his ego got in the way. Once old Hambo started repeating, “But, I have the book!” Nye was done. Like Reagan, “There you go again,” nothing Nye could do would break through.
You need to define what you mean by winner though. For e.g. If the number of people who took a tiny step towards accepting the science exceeds the number of people who took a tiny step away from it due to watching or hearing the debate , then isnt that a “win” ? Since neither you nor I have an actual answer to that question , why are you so sure its a loss ?
You’re saying the kook’s audience full of other kooks can’t benefit from hearing counter arguments? Instead they should learn to respect authority? Thats what they think they are doing…
Deepak Shetty@8 It’s impossible to predict the outcome of anything, but I don’t see the logic in choosing an uneven playing field. Are these “debates” the only place members of the audience are exposed to viewpoints about evolution? If so, you’re kind of screwed to begin with. If not, find places where you can present your message without legitimizing those who understand nothing about biology.
Maybe a definable problem is the authoritarian tendency to ignore problems in political messages. I still feel like someone suited for pig wrestling. It’s true, they will performatively act as-if they won. That works on their followers. I’m comfortable questioning their followers about the supposed “destroying” or other inflated language and using the opportunity to show they have no idea what they are communicating about and depend on empty political as-if posturing. Maybe there’s ways to pig wrestle.
Brony, Social Justice Cenobite@11
I hate this kind of language even when (especially when) it comes from people I’m siding with. Spam email with “Ted Cruz DESTROYED”. Really? Well, if your wit is so deadly, how come he’s still occupying a Senate seat? I don’t like Ted Cruz either, but it’s going to take more than Aldous J. Pennyfarthing to get rid of him.
A lot of wishful thinking. Do people really go for this? I guess so or I wouldn’t be seeing it.
@PaulBC 12
It not only works, it’s got more features.
Once someone gave me several videos of feminists being “destroyed”. The videos had nothing of substance from feminists at all, not even a quote or added segment. It was just someone disparaging what a feminist had said. No connections, just conclusions and judgements without connections.
Brony, Social Justice Cenobite@13 In that case, I would say it works against people who are relatively powerless. If someone already has 1 out of 100 votes in the Senate, it amounts to self-soothing more than an effective attack.
I’ll note a very slight exception to the suggestion that “[Ham’s] followers think he trounced Nye:” I work in engineering and I have Christian coworkers who are generally pro-science. I grant they’re not necessarily Ham’s followers, but I recall one expressing disappointment in Ham’s performance. But these Christian coworkers were not about to give up on Christianity, of course. So even though they may have thought Ham “lost” the debate, it’s still not like they were going to learn anything from the debate. Like I said, this is a very slight exception as it still conforms with your overall point that debates generally accomplish nothing.
Looking through the 12 comments that exist as I write this, this also seems to work as a response to Deepak Shetty @8. Seeing how my already pro-science Christian coworkers were saddened by Ham’s performance, I fail to see much hope that people more in the middle would have taken any sort of step to becoming more accepting of science. Sure, I don’t have an “actual answer,” but you know what? Scientists often don’t have the “actual answer” for many things. We still draw conclusions the best we can based on the evidence we have. The evidence we have does not support the idea that there would be many people taking steps toward accepting science. If you have evidence that suggests there are, please present it. (It’s also a bit annoying that Deepak would make a rather anti-scientific statement like that, by the way. It’s not about being “certain.” It’s about presenting evidence and reasoning, as PZ did. If the evidence or reasoning is wrong, point that out. But don’t come to us with statements in the style of “Maybe you’re wrong.” We already know this. Such statements are unimpressive.)
@PaulBC 14
I do see self-soothing features. It’s group self-soothing too. A bunch like to do it at once on occasion, and early in when I challenge this. Short, terse, blunt. Often I only need to do the most offensive 2-3.
There are lots of examples of this. The “steal” was a present tense conclusion that I kept asking questions about.
@3 birgerjohansson
I believe that’s a very real consequence of living in societies with blasphemy laws punishable by death, and routinely so. It’s not a good place for a thinking brain to examine what makes a convincing argument.
Also, I think it’s a demonstration that, despite Jesus teaching that thoughtcrime is just the same as deed, first-world Christians don’t take that teaching seriously at all. Why would they? There is no consequence involved.
As much as I fantasize about getting into such debates and winning them, the reality is that it’s not worth it. One night, years ago I find myself screaming at my relatives to shut up every time they repeated young earth propaganda phrases like squawking parrots after they exposed me to a creationist book being sold in a Christian Catalog that instantly throw me into a fit. In the end, I find that engaging in such debates full of “stern lectures” and repeated propaganda phrases is never worth all that screaming and tantrums.
Now years later, I discovered just how clearly no different they are than Stupid idiot’s clownish followers who repeat everything they hear on Fox “News” and other propaganda networks. Likely they are the same idiots who repeats young earth propaganda phrases Dumb Idiot Ham blares out along with TFG’s Big Lie.
If we’re talking about “winning a debate”, make sure the criteria for winning are the same for both sides. That seems to work with the debates that start querying the audience what they think, and end querying them again, so you have numbers about the audience; but the typical Ham-Nye debate, I suspect the criteria for “winning” on both sides are completely different – and thus, both might honestly be able to claim a win afterward.
@7 Snatched yourself,dare I ask what that means?