BILL NYE AND TONIGHT'S EVOLUTION DEBATE -- RIGHT GUY, WRONG STAGE

So tonight Bill Nye, the Science Guy (and a good guy he is) will be debating Ken Ham, founder of the Creation Museum. The topic: Evolution versus Creation.

Why?

For reasoning people, the matter is beyond debate. Evolution over time -- and the understanding that the  theory itself is constantly refined and thus more clearly understood over time as a result of scientific investigation -- is a fact. It is, in fact, the central fact of life on earth. I am confident that we will discover when (and if) we ever find any, that evolution is the central fact of life elsewhere in the universe. In the scientific community, and among the scientifically educated populace, when it comes to the validitry of evolution, there is no debate.

So, again why have one?

I think that Bill Nye, whom I admire, and whom I met a few times when I was editing OMNI, holds a deep and serious concern for the state oif scientific education and scientific literacy in this country. And he is right -- this is, after all, the country that is home to the Creation Museum, which uses all of the tools of museum display and presentation to show its quarter of a million annual visitors the "truth" of Biblical Creation.

The Science Guy's chances of persuading any believers in that fundamentalist "truth" of the facts of evolution as it is understood it are small to nonexistent. Biblical fundamentalism does not welcome, and often does not permit, debate. Believers in absolute truths are limited by the nature of their beliefs -- rational argument does not apply to them, because their beliefs do not rest upon anything like the rational system of thought that is the fundament of real science.  

But Bill Nye is a showman -- and a good one -- as well as a champion of science education, and I suspect he thinks that tonight's debate will be a good show.

I fear that he is going to be proved wrong, no matter how clearly and effectively he sets out his evidence and makes his points.

The debate is taking place at Ham's facility, which Ham calls a museum, as if it were one, and at Ham's invitation.

By giving this palace of foolishness whatever credibility as a venue for rational discussion his presence confers, Nye risks accomplishing the opposite of what he is setting out to do.

The investment, the architecture, the technology, the care with which the crazinesses of this so-called, self-titled, museum are presented in the same manner as real science museums present their own real, and actually evidence-based, exhibits all serve to paint creationism, and belief in the Biblical account of creation as a scientifically legitimate exploration of our past.

Children, one can easily imagine, would love the place, and come away convinced that the nonsense it contains is a valid explanation of the world which they will inherit.

And because the trappings and the cosmetics and the stagecraft of the place are effective with the gullible, and because as much as a third of our population is gullible, the prospect of Bill Nye failing to make points with the facility's founder on the founder's stage is not pleasant.

But one wishes Nye well. He is fighting the good fight for the cause of science and rationalism, of evidence and investigation and the fact of evolution.

He's just fighting it on the wrong stage tonight.

                                                      *

NOTE: The debate will be streamed live tonight, but I am not providing a link. In order to view the stream you have to give your email address, and it';s unclear who is collecting those addresses, and what will be done with them. The link is easy enough to find on your own, of course.

If you do visit the signup page for the live stream, don't miss the DVDs and other capture of the debate being shilled across the bottom of the page. Some money is going to be made from tonight's event, and I hope that, at least, Bill Nye gets some of it.