I did not watch the debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham. I have been reading the various reviews and most of them seem to think that Nye had the better of it. It is of course hard to conceive of anyone losing an argument to someone who believes that the Bible is literally true and that the Earth is 6,000 years old but, as I said earlier, in these kinds of debates who emerges as victor or vanquished has little to do with whether they are right or not but more on the quality of the rhetorical tricks employed.
Albert Mohler, an influential evangelical and also a young Earth Creationist like Ken Ham, was present at the debate sitting in the front row and he gave what seemed to be a pretty even-handed summary of the proceedings. The fact that he did not unequivocally give the victory to Ham suggests that Nye at least held his own and was able to handle the theatrics adequately.
Pat Robertson, on the other hand, in his review seems to want Ken Ham to put a sock on all this talk of a 6,000-year old Earth because he says it is absurd and makes Christians look foolish. Robertson seems to be a theistic evolutionist, one who thinks that his god was guiding the process, giving evolution a nudge here and a push there, so that we have the world we now have. He needs this because of his idea that human beings are special in his god’s eyes and had to be planned from the start.
This is not the first time that Robertson has inveighed against young Earth doctrine. I wrote last year that Robertson has been slowly nudging towards more acceptance of science and Ham scolded him for it back in 2012.
I did listen to the debate, and thought Nye acquitted himself rather well. Old Earth creationists and theistic evolutionists (who I suspect outnumber the young Earth types) have no use for Ham, but they are more moderate generally and sit on the sidelines in the debate.
Lenski’s work on the evolution of bacteria at Michigan State was badly misstated by Ham, but Nye was not familiar enough with it to call him out. He did a great job on tree rings and ice cores though, which people are more likely to understand.
I wonder if Robertson doesn’t like Ham because Ham is demonstrating that YEC is a loser from a market perspective, and Robertson definitely likes the $ to roll in. Ham’s museum and ark theme park seems destined to sink, and Robertson thinks he’s bad for the brand.