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 "The idea of deep time ... explains so much of the world around us," Bill Nye said in the viral video.
August 31st, 2012
04:34 PM ET
Creationists hit back at Bill Nye with their own videoBy Eric Marrapodi, CNN Belief Blog Co-Editor (CNN) - Bill Nye's viral YouTube video pleading with parents not to teach their children to deny evolution has spawned an online life of its own, with prominent creationists hitting back against the popular TV host. "Time is Nye for a Rebuttal," Ken Ham the CEO of Answers in Genesis writes on his website. Answers in Genesis is the Christian ministry behind the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky. Nye's criticism of creationism went viral earlier this week, after being posted last Thursday. "I say to the grownups, if you want to deny evolution and live in your world, that's completely inconsistent with the world we observe, that's fine. But don't make your kids do it," Nye says in his Big Think video, which has been viewed nearly 3 million times.
Ham writes that Nye is joining in with other evolutionists who say teaching children to deny evolution is a form of "child abuse." That idea comes in part from the atheist scientist Richard Dawkins, who in his book "The God Delusion" argues against exposing children to religion before they are old enough to fully understand it. CNN’s Belief Blog: The faith angles behind the biggest stories "At AiG and the Creation Museum, we teach children and adults the truth concerning who they are in the Creator’s eyes — and where they came from," Ham writes. "We tell people that they do have purpose and meaning in life and that they were created for a purpose. "No, we are not just evolved animals as Nye believes; we are all made in the image of God." Ham is the public face of a group that academics call Young Earth Creationists, though they prefer to be called Biblical Creationists. They believe in a literal interpretation of the creation account in the book of Genesis found in the Bible. The Creation Museum also produced its own rebuttal video on YouTube that features two of their staff scientists, both Ph.Ds, David Menton and Georgia Purdom. "[Nye] might be interested to know I also teach my young daughter about evolution and I know many Christian parents who do the same," Purdom says in the video. "Children should be exposed to both ideas concerning our past." For the past 30 years, one popular method for Creationists to advance their cause has been to make an equal-time argument,with Creationism taught alongside evolution. In the late 1980s, some state legislatures passed bills that promoted the idea of a balanced treatment of both ideas in the classroom. In 1987, the issue made it all the way to the Supreme Court, where a Louisiana "equal-time law" was struck down. The court ruled that teaching creationism in public school class rooms was a violation of the Establishment Cause in the Constitution, which is commonly referred to as the separation of church and state. A key point between most scientists and many creationists is the timing for the origin of the world. Your Take: 5 reactions to Bill Nye's creationism critique Nye's argument falls in line with the vast majority of scientists, who date the age of the earth as 4.5 billion years old and the universe as 14.5 billion years old. "The idea of deep time of billions of years explains so much of the world around us. If you try to ignore that, your worldview becomes crazy, untenable, itself inconsistent," Nye says in his viral video. Young Earth Creationists say the weeklong account of God creating the earth and everything in it represents six 24-hour periods (plus one day of rest) and date the age of the earth between 6,000 and 10,000 years. "Yes we see fossils and distant stars, but the history on how they got there really depends on our worldview," Purdom says in the museum's rebuttal. "Do we start with man's ideas, who wasn't here during man's supposed billions of years of earth history or do we start with the Bible, the written revelation of the eyewitness account of the eternal God who created it all?" Follow the CNN Belief Blog on Twitter Polling from Gallup has shown for the past 30 years that between 40-46% of the survey respondents believe in Creationism, that God created humans and the world in the past 10,000 years. The most recent poll showed belief in atheistic evolution was on the rise at 16%, nearly double what it had been in previous years. The poll also found 32% of respondents believe in evolution guided by God. |
  About this blog
The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team.  |
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I would like to see the prove that the first living being just appear from the nothing, like magic, on its own.
any ways that theory is as fantastic as the Bible telling us God made a mud dummy and blew in live
where is the prove that DND information wrote itself? what was the first living being an amoeba? ok! and how did it spawn itself? how its genetic information created itself to give rise to to such being?
And I dont deny evolution! but where is the missing link? did they fond it yet?
So where did we come from?
What is the observable evidence?
I don't know, no body knows, scientist don't know and they should be humble and recognised they don't know instead of trying to make a theory a fact so they don't look fullish
Wouldn't want to look FULLISH now would we?
Where did your alleged "god" come from, then, since something cannot come from nothing? It can't have always been there.....had to have a CAUSE!
"I don't know, no body knows, scientist don't know and they should be humble and recognised they don't know instead of trying to make a theory a fact so they don't look fullish"
what are you on about? science making a theory a fact to avoid looking foolish? do you seriously actually believe this nonsense you spouted? honestly? do you have such contempt for science that you think they make stuff up? Science constantly pushed to investigate and discover, its because they dont know things that they push forward rather than deciding that it was magic so no need to investigate.
Elena, YOU should be humble and recognize that YOU don't know the evidence for your own questions. Don't say that science doesn't know, because we've got darned good evidence for it.
But that is the difference! The beauty of science and scientists is that they recognize science is not statements of eternal truth. They make hypotheses, test them, revise them, and make conclusions on the evidence available at that time. As more evidence and observations become available, they revise these ideas. Religion is dogma and states things as eternal truths, hence there is no arguing against it. Which would you rather support, a community that tries its best to disprove and prove every tenet it puts forth, or a community that tells you to believe it based on faith and that everything is an eternal truth that can never be refuted. Scientists do not think they know everything, but they use facts and evidence to back up their assertions and admit that their understanding of the natural world is constantly in flux. Science is a dynamic process, it is not a stagnant collection of facts!
What missing link are you talking about???
"You evolutionists" – you mean regular scientists that work on giving you cures for disease and saving your babies? If you don't know enough about evolution, that's okay, just admit it, leave well enough alone and appreciate the fruits of scientific understanding of evolution. I find that generally, people with high school "knowledge" of evolution don't understand it. High school biology textbooks were not made to cram in that many facts and sources and proofs. To even begin to understand evolution, you need to have taken an entire evolutionary biology and statistics course, not read a tiny chapter about it. It takes a huge textbook to cover evolution, not a chapter. It also takes a huge textnook to explain how each organelle in the cell works, but I don't see people in a furor claiming that they don't believe that the Golgi is involved in protein trafficking because your textbook offered no real proof of it. High school bio is not designed to fully explain science, just to be an intro to it for those that will continue studying it in college.
Don't prevent other people from learning about and becoming future scientists. This country is better than that. This is not some third world country where we burn women for being witches because someone in the village caught a disease. We used to be a country of innovation, proud of when our children learned more than we did. We used to be a leader in biomedical science. What happened?
I have always believed in evolution, but I disagree with your statement that you need to take a course to fully understand it. It's a pretty simple idea that you can get from a book. Or really just thinking about it with an open mind. 20 years ago in Georgia of all places, the high school teaching of evolution was very detailed and simple to understand. I think the problem is people are brainwashed by religion at an early age and become closed minded and often there is simply no turning back. Plus most people have extremely lazy and sluggish minds that even thinking about something different causes such agony they just revert to what they've been told all along.
Creationism is a religion or part of a religion. You have the right to teach that to your children, but it should be taught as a religious belief and not as a scientific belief. Creationism shoulf not be taught in public schools, which should stick to science. In a religion, anything can be true. It occupies a different realm than science. So if someone has a religion that believes the earth is 10,000 yrs old – or 10 yrs old or 10 minutes old, you cannot argue with that.
Teaching of creationism actually poses a threat to National Security in the near future.
Remember the "Sputnik Scare". The teaching of the STEM studies kicked in and we surpassed the Soviets in the space race.
Now enter the Chinese with their successful launch and return of 3 astronauts, plus the fact that they top the chart in STEM education, while we are dumbing down the next generation.
Surprisingly, stupid creationists make stupid statements.
If you want to be a creationist, that's just fine with me. This is America. If you want to teach your kids that, that's fine with me too. Just keep it out of MY son's classroom.
Why don't you then teach your kids both sides of the coin and let them investigate and think on their own and make their judgement as to what can be truth!
The same reason I didn't teach them that babies come from the stork.
Elena
There is never total truth.....only evidence of it and science admits it.
So flip a coin, with observable, empirical evidence on one side and belief in a Bronze Age fable on the other.
I feel for the childrens poor muddled minds!
Who edits this?
"Nye's argument falls in line with the vast majority of scientists, who date the age of the earth and the universe as 4.5 billion years old."
The universe is widely accepted to be 14.6 billions years...the earth is not as old as the universe.
The funny thing is the astrologers have claim to see start being born as fast as one day on Earth
One is the earth the other is the universe.
Elena, go back to school and try to stay awake this time. Astrologers are not scientists. Astronomers are. Learn the difference, you dingbat.
I really hope were not bringing astrologers into this conversation, I'm not interested in my horoscope.
Actually the Earth is 4.6 billion years old, and the universe is 13.7 billion years old. I occasionally see that 14.6 figure but that is a bit off.
I think i can believe more in astrologers than astronomers? I remember reading an article where some of them claim to have seen a supernova at the moment it happen, and no they cant have seen it as the star was thousands of light years away!
If the story of Noah and the Great Flood are true, then why did Yahweh kill all animals on land and birds along with "sinful" man? What did they do to pi$$ off "god"? Also, did Yahweh allow amphibians and all purely water-based life forms to survive? If so, why were they spared? The bible doesn't say. Gee what a stupid children's story!
Ha, I bet they would explain it by acid rain. And the God of the old Testament is an angry fellow, he doesn't need a reason to kill anyone off, including babies. It is interesting that every culture has a Flood story – there must have been some event that spawned the original story. But worldwide flood that killed everything? People back then had no idea how big the world was, how would they know whether the flood was worldwide or not?
"Do we start with man's ideas, who wasn't here during man's supposed billions of years of earth history or do we start with the Bible, the written revelation of the eyewitness account of the eternal God who created it all?"
lets see, do we start with science, with all its investigation, testing, reasoning and factual results, or do we follow a 2000 year old book of stone age fairy tales that claims the whole thing is due to magic.
er, i'll take science thanks.
"eye-wittness account"... lol.. I can't believe people buy that nonsense. The problem with teaching evolution and creationism is that evolution proposes theories, and as this article stated; creationism proposes eternal truths – unmovable, unshakable, non-negotiable... More often than not, creationism strong-arms science (because the burden of proof is removed by an archaic text of "eye-witteness accounts," that can never be confirmed...), and so kids grow up with an unshakable core belief in a story, rather than objective scientific proof and theory. The problem with this is that questioning biblical accuracy amounts to blasphemy... So you either believe every shred of nonsense, or you are a heretic... Awesome. Way to forge a nation of brain dead obedient kids. Good call.
Well said....
Ugh. "contributed" That's embarrassing.
Hey, if my dad had put two Eve's on earth at the start, would the population of the world be doubled right now?
Surely you don't believe the upright, talking snake story.
Thank you Ken Ham!
Thanks, Ken. You have contributing to making us all a little dumber.
Argh. "contributed" That's embarrassing.
Religious beliefs totally depend on where you were born. If you were born in Houston, you're 99% likely to be Christian. If you were born in Istanbul, you're 99% likely to be Muslim. If you were born in Delhi, you're 99% likely to be Hindu. If you were born in Tel Aviv, you're 99% likely to be Jewish. Religion is totally subjective.
But science is the same wherever you go. Because science is built on observable facts.
Yes, why did my dad put the catholic church in such a pickle? Oh, that's right, free will. So what are we here for then father?
Modern whales have pelvic bones, WHY? It's NOT an ANOMALY if they all have it.
Cause God had leftover pelvic bones and needed somewhere to stash them?
My oldest son is in medical school where he's taking Advanced Blood Letting with Leeches 501. And my younger just got certified in sailing and hasn't fallen off the edge of the Earth once. I'm so proud!
lol
lol. Well played.... Well played.
Hee. 🙂
My sheeple, down on your knees, but first, get out your wallet and give to the catholic church, as we have lots of lawsuits that need to be settled.
You are one sick puppy and in dire need of psychiatric help.
The Pope supports evolution even.
Prayer changes things ,
Super. There's my daily dose of stupid.
becomes atheism
starts with a DISGRUNTLED EX EVANGELICAL FORTUNE COOKIE COMPANY WRITER!
I'm sorry "Atheism is not healthy for children and other living things", but your assertions about prayer and atheism are unfounded. I notice that you continue to repeat these unfounded statements. Would you like me to recommend a book on Alzheimer's? It may help with this problem.
I did pray that my neighbor who blasts loud music would die and he had a heart attack. He is still alive but no longer blasts music. Based on that experience, I am inclined to believe you. Sadly the other things I have prayed for such as immense wealth, a harem of virgins, a BMW 1200 GS, and a house in the Hamptons have yet to materialize. I'll keep praying though....
To understand evolution you must first set aside facts and reason.
Or study and actually understand the science.
To understand religion, you must first set aside facts and reason.
There, I fixed it for you.
We will study in our country you study in your own no one needs your bull sh it here. There's your sign
TuBeTop would have to grow a brain to do that, Steve. Not much chance of such occurring.
@tom tom
nope
"To understand evolution you must first set aside facts and reason."
except evolution is based on observation, reason and facts. Religion isnt.
To understand random belittling comments you must first put aside morality and compasion for your fellow man.
Cedar rapids
please share the observation for Macro evolution.
To be taken seriously, it's a good idea to know how to spell the words you use, Eric.
I have no time for illiterates who attempt to tell anyone anything.
"Eric – Cedar rapids – please share the observation for Macro evolution."
oh i dont believe i said observation of macro evolution, i said observation....such as the variation of finches observed by darwin. but there have been various experiments that have concentrated on marco evolution, in the context that science uses it not creationists, that have observed speciation changes.
Regardless however of what specific proof, you cannot deny that evolution is based on observation of the world around us and fossil records.
Yes there is evidence to support natural selection...micro evolution. I agree there is no evidence of Macro evolution.
CA: Studying is universal. Some day you may realize that CNN is an INTERNATIONAL site. We will remain here regardless of mindless dribble and constant hate!
Eric, obviously you can't observe macroevolution, only collect evidence of it. There are plenty of things in science that work in that manner, and you seem happy to enjoy the fruits of it (tv, computer, MRIs etc).
Ever wonder why all universities in the entire Southern United States have less number of Nobel laureates than just one college, MIT?
Taking it one step further............. in the U.S. +75% of the population claims to be christian yet the U.S. doesn't even rank in the top 10 globally for academic achievement.
Willful ignorance as required to perpetuate religion is dumbing down the U.S..