Bill Nye the Science Guy vs Ken Ham Young Earth Creationist 'debate'

[orogenicman]

Originally Posted by AREQUIPA

Yes, we should have Coelacanth fossils in all geologicall ayers if it continued to exist from the Devonian to today.

That assumes that all geologic layers from the Devonian to the present originated in environments where the Coelacanth lived, which is certainly not the case. Moreover, the present species is not the same species as those that lived in the remote geologic past, so to call them living fossils is a bit of a misnomer.

[Heavenese]

Originally Posted by AREQUIPA

Yes, we should have Coelacanth fossils in all geologicall ayers if it continued to exist fromthe Devonian to today.

Of course in a YE or Flood deposit scenario, the same should apply.

It would be interesting to see whether there are any other coelacanth fossils.

Of course, in the global shallow seas of the Devonian rather than the deep oceans of other geological ages the sheer number of coelacanths and the frequency of fossilization opportunities can affect how many fossils we could expect to find.

.....

Apparently there are several species of sub-species of Coelacanth, fromthe silurian - devonian to the cenozoic - over 50 m yrs

Coelacanth - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

They were thought to have gone extinct, but the present Latymeria is found alive today. That is the evidence.Make of it what you will.

Thanks for your answer. The chart (if representing the fossil record of the coelacanth and it's evolution) seems to indicate a jump from Coelacanthiformes Macropoma to Coelacanthiformes Latimeria. Of course it could be because of the deep seas of the other ages that explain the lack of fossils. One thing I criticize the video for is even if this was a problem for long geological time, it still doesn't answer the problem concerning the kangaroos in YEC time scales and so on. Creationists spend more time trying to poke holes in accepted science, while overlooking the many problems in their own models. Even if we successfully disprove common descent evolution, that doesn't automatically mean creationism is right.


A lot of creationists would like to teach the controversy as we say. I would be interested in what exactly would we be teaching other than God created everything? The teacher would just come in and say, "Alright class for today's lesson God created everything. So, what do you want to do for the next 50 minutes?" Haha, that would be the easiest test we would ever take right! Since the answer is God did it. So creationists need substance, which if we don't have any, what are we teaching and arguing?

Originally Posted by TroutDude

I thought Nye talked about not finding kangaroo bones - not fossils. Fossils wouldn't form in the few thousands of years since the (supposed) Flood.

You're right about that. I think I got caught up in the question presented in the video, which is a good one to ask in general. Personally concerning the issue Nye raised, my hypothesis is the theory of rapid evolution right after the flood. That the ancestors of the kangaroos evolved separately on Australia within thousands of years after the flood. A lot of people get the idea that Noah took lions, giraffes, and zebras on the ark. Yet relatively recently, Christians starting putting dinosaurs in the midst of them. That got me thinking. If the dinosaurs were more or less ancient creatures, why are we putting them on the same boat as modern creatures? So just asking the question, if there really was a Noah's ark and he took baby dinosaurs onto it, then all the animals he took on the ark were also ancient in nature. There were no zebras or lions on the ark, but their ancestors. After the flood, a rapid period of adaption and evolution took place that lead to the extinction of many animals, but other animals flourished. The kangaroo evolved separately on Australia, and this evolution was very fast but have now since settled down. That's my crackpot hypothesis you might say. I just need to test it out somehow.

[Oakback]

Sometimes it's just "follow the money"

There are many organizations that may have begun as noble causes. But continue, on and on, because they are now so established, the idea of closing up shop and walking away is unfathomable.

After forcing myself to watch most of the video of Nye cleaning Ham's clock,
this was the only valid reason I could see for Ham's position.

I have to hand it to Nye. He walked into "enemy territory" and hung in there. He had the intellectual honesty to say he didn't know, when he didn't know.

Hopefully, this event challenged more young people to practice good science.
Regardless of their world view.

[Glacierx]

Originally Posted by mordant

Yes. Intelligence is also highly subject to compartmentalization. There is no reason in principle that, say, a brilliant and accomplished nuclear physicist could not be a creationist. It's not going to happen often, because he'd be a pretty tortured nuclear physicist at some level. But people certainly can and do choose NOT to apply the scientific method and/or rational thought processes to certain parts of their thinking, while applying it rigorously to others. Humans are nothing, if not inconsistent.

Creationist is a broad term, and what one finds is that there is a difference between the type of creationist a person is depending on their education and experience. Chances are the nuclear physicist has a much more well thought out view of creationism than the guy who has never engaged in any sort of intellectual experience outside the faith in which he was born into.

Creationism -- and indeed theism -- can be rational and non-dogmatic. Of course it goes without saying that they are often quite dogmatic. The nuclear physicist could be a dogmatic young earth creationist, and yet not suffer from cognitive dissonance because his expertise is in math and physics, not biology and paleontology. It could be that he has more faith in his religious friends, family, and books than the majority of experts in the field of study. This is quite normal since people do tend to trust those whom the know more than they should, especially when a person has little first hand knowledge on the topic. From an evolutionary standpoint, it's actually quite rational as well.

[PanTerra]

Originally Posted by orogenicman

That assumes that all geologic layers from the Devonian to the present originated in environments where the Coelacanth lived, which is certainly not the case. Moreover, the present species is not the same species as those that lived in the remote geologic past, so to call them living fossils is a bit of a misnomer.

It's not even the same sub order.

[TRANSPONDER]

It is a bit of a puzzle that no fossil Coelacanths, or rather no fossils showing the continued survival of species of lobe-finned fish considered to be related to the present Coelocanth have been found in deposits later than Cretaceous.

It was supposed that the dinosaur extinction also took out Coelacanths, but, sinceLatymeria was discovered, it is supposed that some survived. Small numbers or a limited group could be a reason why no fossils from the mammalian - dominated periods have been found.

That of course would be open to an explanation by Creationists. The Flood wiped out all but one Kind- Latymeria, released from the Ark, is that Kind, give or take some micro -evolution or so.

Thus the debate would revert to whether the geological strata represent flood deposits or millions of years of deposits with gradually - evolving lobe - fins found in them.

Certainly though, the discovery of a fossil Coelacanth in a post Cretaceous strata would be be a welcome and rather needy link to the present Latymeria.