With the recent creation vs. evolution debate starring Ken Ham (Creation Museum CEO) and Bill Nye (science guy), alternative ideas about our origins have gained some momentary attention. I find this an opportune moment to piggyback, to give my thoughts about this entire debacle. I am convinced of the truth of both Christianity and evolution, and certain vocal evangelicals' attempts to demonstrate a conflict between the two I generally find laughable. A recent article by the leader of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Al Mohler, serves as a good case in point. His article, called "
Bill Nye’s Reasonable Man—The Central Worldview Clash of the Ham-Nye Debate", contains the typical ideas of Young-Earth Creationism (YEC), but in a 21st century twist. The modern, chic YEC is much more philosophically veiled than the ol', blue-eyed creationism of its founding fathers, Henry Morris and John Whitcomb.It doesn't claim that creation is supported by actual science and that evolution is refuted by scientific evidence. It's not about science, it's about worldviews. Presuppositionalism, as it is called, is a purely philosophical apologetic that pathologically views every disagreement as philosophical in nature. It isn't a debate over evidence, but one over how to interpret the evidence.
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| Science guy vs. pseudo-science guy. |
As Ken Ham likes to put it: "Creationists and evolutionists all have the same evidence, it's about the interpretation of the evidence."
This is a genius tactic. It turns the attention away from evidence and over to philosophical sophistry. Evidence doesn't have to be dealt with, for in one single statement the creationist can disregard its very relevance.
I intend this blog post to serve as a commentary on presuppositionalistic creationism. Here are some of Mohler's comments with my comments interspersed. (Comments are fun.)
As any informed observer would have anticipated, Nye based his argument on the modern consensus and went to the customary lines of evidence, from fossils to ice rods. Ham argued back with fossil and geological arguments of his own. Those portions of the debate did not advance the arguments much past where they were left in the late nineteenth century, with both sides attempting to keep score by rocks and fossils.
Digging deeper into geological and paleontological evidence would obviously not be beneficial for the creationist's position. At a surface level both the evolutionary and the creationist position can proffer evidence and arguments for their claims. That goes for science vs. pseudo-science generally. The difference is just that one side is science and the other isn't, and thus only the evidence of the former will hold up under scrutiny. Ham wouldn't want that, so thankfully he had an ace up his sleeve, namely his philosophical distractions. I don't think Nye was adequately prepared for many of Ham's quasi-scientific points, doubly so for Ham's philosophical ideas.
In this light, the debate proved both sides right on one central point: If you agreed with Bill Nye you would agree with his reading of the evidence. The same was equally true for those who entered the room agreeing with Ken Ham; they would agree with his interpretation of the evidence.
Here the presuppositionalism kicks in. Mohler is correct in that creationists would agree with Ham's interpretation of the evidence. That's because creationists don't want to fairly interpret the evidence, they want to maintain Genesis as true even if that means they have to handle the evidence dishonestly. This is odd. The evidence for evolution and an old earth is much more compelling than the evidence that Genesis should be accepted as true.
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| Albert Mohler, president of a theological seminary. |
Mohler continues:
That’s because the argument was never really about ice rods and sediment layers. It was about the most basic of all intellectual presuppositions: How do we know anything at all? On what basis do we grant intellectual authority? Is the universe self-contained and self-explanatory? Is there a Creator, and can we know him?
What?? Mohler experienced the debate from a front row seat, and I over the internet, so there must have been some audio problems for either of us. Or perhaps one of us fell asleep and had a lucid dream of the continuing debate. Those are some of the ways I could explain Mohler's ridiculous interpretation of the debate.
Fact: this wasn't a debate over how we come to know things. It wasn't about the existence of God, or whether we can know such a God. Normally, people assume the cognitive faculties of most other people function essentially the same, and it was upon that basis Nye offered his evidence. He didn't proclaim some novel epistemological theory--he appealed to how we investigate every other scientific issue. Bringing up deeper, philosophical issues is a red herring. The debate was about evolution vs. creation, not naturalism vs. theism.
It is a delusion if Mohler and Ham think they base their very way of knowing on the Bible, an ancient collection of documents written by humans. They are further mistaken if they think debating evolution is the same as debating the existence of a Creator (evolution could very well be a creative mechanism by an external agent).
When asked how matter came to exist and how consciousness arose, Nye responded simply and honestly: “I don’t know.” Responding to the same questions, Ham went straight to the Bible, pointing to the Genesis narrative as a full and singular answer to these questions. Nye went on the attack whenever Ham cited the Bible, referring to the implausibility of believing what he kept describing as “Ken Ham’s interpretation of a 3,000 year old book translated into American English.”
Nye was honest. Ham was honest in offering his position, but his position isn't a proper answer. Unless Ham can explain how consciousness arises in the individual, I don't see how saying "God did it to Adam" solves very much. It might explain Adam, but not anybody else. It is debatable whether Genesis 1:1 describes
creatio ex nihilo, the creation of matter out of nothing, leaving Ham's answer to that question less than satisfactory.
(Nye certainly made some mistakes of his own during the debate; he has no clue about the Bible, so his description of Ham's biblical interpretation was without its intended sting.)
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| Sinister-looking evolutionist. |
Mohler offers his further thoughts:
To Bill Nye, the idea of divine revelation is apparently nonsensical. He ridiculed the very idea.
He did no such thing, but this is how presuppositionalism feeds. It needs to find deep, profound worldview conflict wherever possible, stopping just short of distorting as philosophical disagreements about which ice cream flavour is the most yummy.
Bill Nye didn't ridicule divine revelation as a whole, he ridiculed taking the myth of Genesis seriously. And indeed, that is quite reasonable. You have two main views on Genesis: 1. It is the word of God, true in its entirety; and 2. it is a myth invented by primitive people from the Ancient Near East. Nye obviously doesn't hold to 1., so he's left with no option but to ridicule taking as fact what he thinks is an ancient myth. It is comical if people take the Norse origin myth of Ginnungagap
et al. as true. From Nye's perspective, the opening chapters of the Bible are no different.
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| Nye frequently had an urge to push Ham off the stage. |
Says Mohler:
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.
Bill Nye made perfectly clear what kind of evidence would change his mind. It wasn't the kind that would conflict with naturalism or materialism. It was something so mundane as a "fossil that swam from one layer to another", "evidence that the universe was not expanding", "evidence that the stars appear to be far away but they're not", "evidence that rock layers could form in 4,000 years", that kind of stuff. There are many things that could potentially contradict evolution and a 4.5 Ga age for the earth, but we do not find such things. We find an orderly progression in creatures from old rocks to newer ones. We find genetic and biogeographical features that can only be reasonably explained by evolution.
There is no room for change in Ham's mind. The evidence for evolution is compelling, but it
can be explained away if one is wholly opposed to considering it fairly. It's ironic that presuppositionalists are accusing everyone else of "suppressing the truth".
The problem with human reason is that it, along with every other aspect of our humanity, was corrupted by the fall. This is what theologians refer to as the “noetic effects of the fall.” We have not lost the ability to know all things, but we have lost the ability to know them on our own authority and power. We are completely dependent upon divine revelation for the answers to the most important questions of life.
Any view that disparages reason is irrational to hold. 'The noetic effects of the fall' is a buzzword which, in general terms, is used whenever the creationist has a different opinion from his opponent. It doesn't refute any argument, but it confers to the creationist a good feeling whenever he "invalidates" his disputant's position in one single phrase.
To end this blog entry off, I'd like to offer a concise evaluation of the debate. I nominate Ken Ham as the overall winner of the debate. He put out the typical creationist sophistry that Nye, had he been adequately prepared, should have refuted. I was pleasantly surprised by some of Nye's early remarks that indicated a certain familiarity with creationist tactics, but I had another thing coming. It was quickly dissipated by his entry-level, naive approach to evidence against creationism. Radiometric dating and old trees are fine pieces of evidence suggesting an old earth, but of course, these aren't revelations for Ham and his supporters, and uninitiated viewers were probably less impressed by them after Ham's rebuttal. There are standard creationist responses to these, for which Nye didn't seem prepared. When Nye brought up fish sex, my estimation is that the audience was more amused than converted. Nye did bring up the transitional fossil Tiktaalik and its fairly remarkable discovery, but unfortunately, the rest of his presentation wasn't consistently equal in quality. Ham, on the other hand, had an impressive powerpoint, with video interviews and flashy cartoons, and that goes a long way in impressing an audience.
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| They look reasonably amused. |
Winning a debate isn't all there is to a debate, though. I also hereby grant Ham the award for "Most Facepalm-Inducing Speaker". That award goes automatically to any presuppositionalist in any debate. The lack of Ham's trademark question, "Were you there?", was noted, but he still provided sufficient humorous material, which is in the nature of the case when it comes to presuppositionalism. Another of Ham's pet ideas is the historical/observational science distinction, an idea that made its appearance consistently through the debate. Ham wants us to think that there is a difference between the science he agrees with and the science he disagrees with. It's a silly idea, based on imagined differences in how science approaches historical questions and how it deals with more contemporary issues. Ham seems to think that true science doesn't use inferences, only direct observation. However, explanations based on inferences are foundational to many scientific ideas Ham would presumably agree with, e.g. plate tectonics, heliocentric theory, to mention a couple. These ideas are good explanations of what we see around us, and the same goes for evolution.
All in all, a fairly entertaining debate, but I had hoped more of Nye. He didn't seem to push the right questions to Ham, and Ham had usually dealt with what he did push.
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| Adam and Eve already took a bite of the apple, there's nothing Ham can do about it. |
In a positive light, Ham didn't embarass himself by spouting the absolute dumbest of presuppositionalistic ideas. Certain other popular creationists use "arguments" such as:
- In order to know anything, you must know everything or know somebody who knows everything. (Most people would say they know some thing or other, and if they have the most modest amount of intellectual modesty, they'd say they arem't omniscient, leaving them with knowing somebody who knows everything; that is, God; which means evolution is wrong and the Bible is true. Excellent reasoning.)
- You cannot justify reason with reason, therefore you must assume God in order to even reason, (Therefore, Genesis must be true and not a myth.)
- Evidence presupposes truth, and if the Bible isn't true, there is no truth, so the Bible must be true, hence evolution is false.
Ham certainly did put forth some statements related to these "arguments, but he didn't focus entirely on them and thankfully talked ever so slightly about some purported scientific evidence.
On his Facebook page, however, he needn't worry that his apologetic sophistry will expose his teachings as idiocy. With draconic moderation being enforced, only his supporters can voice their opinions, and thus his full-blown presuppositionalism falls in fertile ground. Therefore it is no surprise when, in response to a post-debate challenge posted by Bill Nye on Nye's own Facebook page, Ham refused to answer the challenge head on, and instead raved on about how Nye's worldview can't account for logic. Ham doesn't seem too confident that challenges to creationism can be adequately addressed. I would agree, evolution is the only satisfactory theory of origins in the modern scientific age.
