I watched the televised debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham and was very disappointed at the incredibly ‘kid gloves’ approach that Nye used in his argument. I found him being overly careful in making his opponent feel comfortable and would have LOVED to see him break out into a more Hitchens-like surgical strike into the heart of Ham’s rebuttal! The gloves needed to come off in order to guarentee a more decisive victory on behalf of Evolution. Whereas Nye did furnish the required proof and Ham gave forth with the tired old ‘Young Earth’ bullshit, Nye still would have lost if not for subject matter only. As Hitchens was fond of pointing out, “That which can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof.” and Ham, of course did no such feat in the proof department!
The standard still goes that you cannot make the ridiculous ever seem like other than what it is; ridiculous, and you would have to be living under a scientific rock to believe that you can’t find objects in a field that are older than 6-9.000 years. I have rocks in my posession that are WAY older than that and to refute that, you have to be living with your head in the sand. I could care LESS if the inventor of the MRI is a Young Earth Creationist, it doesn’t make the ridiculous any more valid! This is a religious OPINION and NOT one that is held in high regard by anyone of logic and reason. I cannot believe such nonsense and am amazed when I hear of educated people who do. As Nye said, you are ignoring what is in your own back yard when you believe in Creation. These thoughts are shared by many and, thank science, are spreading like wildfire as more people identify as ‘Nones,’ meaning affiliated with no religion or gods.
I certainly hope that our beloved ‘Science guy’ grows some debate testicles if he plans any further forays into argument, because he is a good speaker and his ideas are shared by the reasonable all over the world. The Milquetoast approach has got to go and the barracuda needs to emerge. Debate is about theatrics as well as facts and if you have the right formula then you can easily win the match. The late great Christopher Hitchens was a prime example of an opponent who crushed the opposition. His facts coupled with his incredible savvy kept many great debaters grabbing their flaming asses in pain. Hopefully Bill will take a few pages from Hitchens and blast the next opponent.
hitchens67 Atheism WOW!! Logic and reason campaign 
I thought Nye won, though: he just had to point out the things older than 10,000 years. Ham did moderate propaganda- his slide of two people looking, puzzled, at a fragmentary skeleton might have encouraged some on his side- but Nye had the facts. Better to try to infect his audience with his enthusiasm for the truth, than to spend too much time blasting the rubbish.
Yes, Nye had the proof. I posted a Youtube vid of some of the things that people do that are bullcrap to win debates. It’s something like 25 things that creationist do or 25 Creationist fails. It was a great eye opener on how to debate bullshitters.
Very briefly I followed you, and unfollowed when I saw how much you had posted today. Your posting level is absolutely fine, I have no complaint about it, but I unfollowed because I read most of what I follow, and comment a lot, and this was too much. I would prefer (of course your blog is up to you) one post with lots of things you happen to like, with pictures copied and pasted in or uploaded as files. Wishing you well.