Ken Ham vs Bill Nye Debate - What can we take from it

One thing I've noted from proponents of evolution (well those that prominantly speak out) is the seemingly earnest belief that they're are no presuppositions that enter into the science. That there is a pure objectivity.

But no scientist is without a worldview, an a priori philosophy that infleuences the way they think. Infact these people often have a staunch materialist philosophy and ascribe science the ability to determine truth.

This brings me to the debate between Bill Nye "The Science Guy" and Ken Ham (of answers in genesis). I'd first like to refer to Albert Mohlers fantastic analysis of the debate:

http://www.albertmohler.com/2014/02/05/bill-nyes-reasonable-man-the-central-worldview-clash-of-the-ham-nye-debate/

Mohler highlights the clash of worldviews of the two debaters.

Here's my thoughts:

Ken ham stuck to the YEC manifesto (I presonally would have liked to see mainly scienctific ideas debated, because I'm not sure how useful argiung for biblical authority is in that context, but that's is AIG's schtick so I guess it's not necessarily surprising). I enjoy wazooloos series on youtube for that reason: he primarily discusses scientific findings from a YEC point of view.

As for Bill Nye, I'd like to discuss his somewhat ideological and naive view on the purity and objectivity of scientifc pursuit.

He himself admits in the debate that there could be no evidence that would convince him of creation. Yet, at the same time insists there is no presupposition and has faith in the self correcting nature of science. However, when it comes to evolution, this most certainly isn't true. For any science, the less is relies on raw empirical data the less objective it is. All data is interpreted but there is only so much you can add your own slant to raw data.

Evolution has fossils (which apart from interpretation don't tell you anything except that an organism lived and no longer exists) the rest the theory projects onto the fossil (ie the fossil record represents the transition from simple to complex organisms from a common ancestor. But, that is not a given. You can assemble fossil data into an overall narrative, but that is by no means definitive. And the notion that all fossils confirm evolution is propaganda. Scientists find confounding discoveries routinely and the evolutionary narrative adapts in one way or another (the theory has so much flexibility to accommodate unexpected findings one has to question if it is meaningfully falsifiable).

I'd also like to bring up the ability of science to self correct. Its arguable that the current system makes paradigms extremely hard to budge, especially those sacred cows of the evolutionary narrative. Questioning of the sufficiency of neo Darwinian explanations to explain what is observed have been buried for years before dissent has been allowable. However, school textbooks continue to tow the line that all evidence points to the standard Darwinian narrative being correct, when this is no longer true.

A good example of evolution not correcting itself in favour of maintaining the narrative is the finding of the transitional fossil Tiktaalik. It was at the time an iconic find, a transitional form between fish and tetrapods found in rocks that predicted it would be. It was widely reported in the press. Yet years later, tetrapod footprints were found in rocks in Poland dating 20 million year earlier than Tiktaalik.

 

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/01/tiktaalik_blown_out_of_the_wat030621.html

 Yet rather than admit they were back to square one on tetrapod evolution, Tiktaalik is still trotted out as a transitional form inspite of the evidence now saying otherwise. Of course, there wasn't much media attention and the original discoverer of Tiktaalik is not so keen to relinquish the title of transitional form for Tiktaalik either.