Ken Ham believes in Dragons...

Dalyn said:
Whether an actual scientist believes in a god or not has no bearing on my opinion of their work.
Click to expand...

See that wasn't so hard, was it? So, would a scientist who believed in a God/god be able to go with a (for lack of a better word) accidental or non-preordained start to the universe and still have your support, depending of course on what sort of theory that he/she came up with was?
 
Oklahomahawk said:
See that wasn't so hard, was it? So, would a scientist who believed in a God/god be able to go with a (for lack of a better word) accidental or non-preordained start to the universe and still have your support, depending of course on what sort of theory that he/she came up with was?
Click to expand...

Dude. It is so weird how you think I dodged that question. I feel like we were discussing two different things.

Sure. I feel like my answer already made that clear. I do not care whether they believe in a god or not. It has no bearing on scientific theory.
 
For the record, Sean Carroll puts exactly what I am saying about biases and assumptions starting at the 36-minute mark (or around that time).
 
BedellBrave said:
Mohler puts it fairly well:

"...Both men were asked if any evidence could ever force them to change their basic understanding. Ham said no, pointing to the authority of Scripture. Nye said that evidence for creation would change his mind. But Nye made clear that he was unconditionally committed to a naturalistic worldview, which would make such evidence impossible. Neither man is actually willing to allow for any dispositive evidence to change his mind. Both operate in basically closed intellectual systems. The main problem is that Ken Ham knows this to be the case, but Bill Nye apparently does not. Ham was consistently bold in citing his confidence in God, in the gospel of Jesus Christ, and in the full authority and divine inspiration of the Bible. He never pulled a punch or hid behind an argument. Nye seems to believe that he is genuinely open to any and all new information, but it is clear that his ultimate intellectual authority is the prevailing scientific consensus. More than once he asserted a virtually unblemished confidence in the ability of modern science to correct itself. He steadfastly refused to admit that any intellectual presuppositions color his own judgment.

But the single most defining moments in the debate came as Bill Nye repeatedly cited the “reasonable man” argument in his presentation and responses. He cited Adolphe Quetelet’s famed l’homme moyen—“a reasonable man”—as the measure of his intellectual authority. Writing in 1835, Quetelet, a French intellectual, made his “reasonable man” famous. The “reasonable man” is a man of intellect and education and knowledge who can judge evidence and arguments and function as an intellectual authority on his own two feet. The “reasonable man” is a truly modern man. Very quickly, jurists seized on the “reasonable man” to define the law and lawyers used him to make arguments before juries. A “reasonable man” would interpret the evidence and make a reasoned judgment, free from intellectual pressure.

Bill Nye repeatedly cited the reasonable man in making his arguments. He is a firm believer in autonomous human reason and the ability of the human intellect to solve the great problems of existence without any need of divine revelation. He spoke of modern science revealing “what we all can know” as it operates on the basis of natural laws. As Nye sees it, Ken Ham has a worldview, but Nye does not. He referred to “Ken Ham’s worldview,” but claimed that science merely provides knowledge. He sees himself as the quintessential “reasonable man,” and he repeatedly dismissed Christian arguments as “not reasonable.”…"
Click to expand...

i really am having a hard time understanding why you want to try to paint Nye as similar to Ham

when Nye said he would change his stance on the subject
 
goldfly said:
i really am having a hard time understanding why you want to try to paint Nye as similar to Ham

when Nye said he would change his stance on the subject
Click to expand...

Exactly. This is what happens when you have a person whose thought process is the result of, "I don't know," as opposed to one whose thought process is the result of, "I know." One can change their mind. The other cannot.
 
goldfly said:
i really am having a hard time understanding why you want to try to paint Nye as similar to Ham

when Nye said he would change his stance on the subject
Click to expand...

I've already told you one main reason. A fundamentalist tends to read Ancient near eastern genres of literature woodenly. Both Nye and Ham read Genesis the same wooden way. One accepting it as teaching YEC and believing the teaching so conceived and the other reads it as teaching YEC and rejecting the teaching so conceived.

But as to his "my stance would change" with evidence, it's rhetoric. He so conceives of reality and "evidence" so as to make changing his view impossible. Mohler explains it well.
 
If none of that satisfies you, you could always read about the theory he mentioned, which explains it fully.
 
Dalyn said:
:happy0157: Well, he deals with it again later (40+). Maybe that will satisfy you (I doubt it). You are welcome to count how many times he says, "I don't know." Very interesting.
Click to expand...

I'm about to jump back in and we will see. But for the record - because I want to understand him/you correctly, is he saying that within a set space where there is a vacuum - no matter of any kind in that geographic space - that there nevertheless is energy - "dark energy"? Is that what he is saying?

Or does he mean that there is something there, but we just don't know what it is?
 
BedellBrave said:
I'm about to jump back in and we will see. But for the record - because I want to understand him/you correctly, is he saying that within a set space where there is a vacuum - no matter of any kind in that geographic space - that there nevertheless is energy - "dark energy"? Is that what he is saying?
Click to expand...

He is saying that even in a vacuum there are fluctuations. When he moves into the "opinion" portion of the lecture, he delves a little more into it. Things work very "strangely" at the quantum level.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top