A Nye for a Nye, a Ham for a Ham

On Tuesday night, Bill Nye "The Science Guy" debated Ken Ham, founder of the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky. The topic was Creation: Is it a viable scientific explanation of the universe's origins? You can watch the full debate here, or if you don't have the time (it's a whopping 2.5 hours long) you can watch several highlights here.

Overall, I felt the debate was quite civil. Neither side resorted to direct attacks on the other person, nor did they interrupt while the other person was presenting. Plus, the audience was very respectable--no booing or hissing either of the debaters at any time and holding their applause until it was appropriate (though Bill Nye would have done better to gauge how well they handle a joke). I wish our presidential debates were as tame.

But let's cut to the chase. Rather than give you a play-by-play of the debate, I want to analyze what I feel was the most telling point of the debate last night. At two hours and four minutes into the debate, moderator Tom Foreman took an audience question for Ken Ham: "What, if anything, would ever change your mind?"

Ken Ham, for the first time throughout the whole debate, was stumped. He didn't have any slides, any friends to call on, no research prepared for this question. He paused for nearly five seconds before gathering his wits and saying nothing would shake his faith. When the question was posed to Bill Nye, he responded immediately: "Evidence."

This underscores why the scientific community doesn't take young-earth creationism seriously. Ken Ham isn't searching for the answers; he assumes he already knows them. He's only searching for evidence he can use to support his doctrines. This is the opposite of the scientific method, wherein you begin with a question, make a prediction, and hope you find an answer. If what you find doesn't match your prediction, you change the previous assumptions (after verifying the result, of course).

This also highlights the fundamental difference between these two worldviews. Bill Nye--along with every other scientist--is willing to throw out all his preconceptions of the origins of the universe if verifiable evidence can be shown that they are flawed. Ken Ham will continue to assert that Earth is 6,000 years old despite any evidence to the contrary.

That's why that question stumped him. In the five seconds it took him to reach for an answer, he looked like he had never even considered the possibility of changing his mind. The question was a simple matter to Bill Nye, but it was much more to Ken Ham. It was a moral quandary. Essentially the question was  What if I'm wrong?

And to a young-earth creationist like Ham, that's a frightening thought. The whole of his morality is built on the premise that he is right about his literal interpretation of the Bible. He stacks moral absolutes about good, evil, sexuality, race, etc., on top of that one premise. Ironically, this moral structure has all the stability of a Jenga tower. But rather than construct a different worldview, he prefers to stack his tower higher and higher, and you know what eventually happens in a game of Jenga.

Bill Nye, on the other hand, knows better. He embraces the possibility that on any given day someone could discover something that forces him to change his understanding of the world. He says it himself, that the thrill of discovery for discovery's sake is what drives him. He's not looking to validate his beliefs, he's searching for the answers, whatever they may be. No, he doesn't know what the universe was like before the Big Bang. No, he doesn't know where consciousness comes from. But so what? That's all the more reason to wake up in the morning and work towards an answer.

This debate will have people talking for days. The most frequent question you'll hear is, "Who won?" The answer will vary from person to person and if you ask me, I think that's a flawed way to analyze the debate. Instead, I believe we should ask ourselves, "What did this teach me about the issue? Did I challenge my own beliefs or sink deeper into them?" If you gained no new insights, then I'm sorry you wasted your time.

Too Long to be a Facebook Status

If you felt like Coca-Cola's multilingual "America, the Beautiful" ad somehow dishonored this country, then shame on you.

Advertisements infect every aspect of our digitally connected lives. One brief message may not have an immediate impact, but a continual bombardment gradually changes peoples' perceptions of reality. Too often corporations use this to sell harmful ideas, especially to our youth--ideas like the objectification of women, solving problems through violence, or the predominance of white people (specifically men) as a normality. Eventually these ideas become our culture. It casts a damning light on the United States that some of us felt threatened by one advertisement--a 60-second video--as though it were somehow destroying this culture instead of enriching it.

But, for every person offended by the ad, I've seen someone who appreciates it for crossing cultural boundaries and welcoming the country's growing diversity. At least there's some hope.

*blows off a layer of dust*

Been awhile since I've been here. Blogging got hard to do because college, and I mismanage my time wonderfully. Mainly, I've been wasting it by making jokes on Twitter with a whole host of other tweet comedians. It's a fun community, and maybe I'll write about it some other time. For now, I just want to try getting into the swing of writing. I made it my new year's resolution to write more, as I've gotten sorely out of practice. Also, I decided to write at least two songs a month in what I call the Dr. Haskell Challenge, named for the teacher I had last semester who told the class he couldn't consider himself a songwriter if he didn't write at least two songs every month. By those standards, I'm faaaaaar from being a songwriter. And since I love music as much as writing, it only makes sense that I should blend the two. Guess I've got work to do.

I suppose the next step after songwriting is finding an outlet for it. I'd really like to start a band here in Cape Girardeau, but I don't know where to find people interested in playing punk rock music. Or if there's even a band scene in this city. But hey, it's a college town. Maybe I'll ask the music majors. Maybe I'll become a music major. Or a theater major. Or double major, music and theater. Maybe someday I'll write that game-changing musical. I don't know.

Yeah, I've been feeling conflicted about becoming a teacher. I suppose I've always been conflicted, and never really got over it. For a while I felt secure with the decision, because I told myself I wouldn't have to give up the other things I love, like music and theater. If I could I would go back and tell myself to major in music and theater before leaving MAC. Sometimes I feel like I've wasted so much time.

On a better note, I'm listening to Against Me!'s new album, Transgender Dysphoria Blues, and it's every bit as excellent as I hoped it would be. Stream it here if you're interested, and in the meantime, maybe I'll post a review for it sometime in the near future.