Ken Ham: 5-Minute Counter Rebuttal

• The wood that was dated 45,000 years old was inside the basalt (lava) that was dated millions of years old.
• Natural laws have not changed--pointing out Bill's straw man argument and noting that Bill's Naturalistic religious view doesn't account for the laws on nature being constant, but the revelation in Scripture does.
• Ken addresses Bill Nye's repetition of the ad hominem, how Bill was focusing on Ken rather than the issue at hand. The Creation Model is developed by PhD scientists. This is not an appeal to authority fallacy because Ken didn't reference the PhD scientists to prove Creation but rather to refute Bill's no true Scotsman fallacy.
• Ken clarifies the kinds versus species. (Bill Nye smirks.) Kinds are right around the family level. There were likely less that 1,000 kinds on Noah's ark. There was plenty of room on the Ark.
• Tree rings, ice layers, kangaroos getting to Australia are all examples of historical science, which is based on arbitrary assumptions.
• Ken specifically answers the story about ice layers in Greenland. Bill is assuming one layer a year, and we have evidence that conclusively shows that this is way off of what could be possible, even without the catastrophic ice age.
• Dating methods are built on arbitrary assumptions.
• Sharp teeth do not make an animal a meat eater, and Ken gave examples. It comes to interpretation. (arbitrary assumptions versus Divine revelation)
• Missoula doesn't prove anything. Creationists know there have been post-Flood catastrophes.
• There is no evidence that Noah is unskilled. Why would Bill Nye say he was unskilled? Ken points out that Bill Nye is using circular reasoning, assuming Evolution (people before us aren't as good as us) to knock down the Flood, because the Flood and Evolution cannot co-exist. We observe the remains of past technology we can't understand today. We observe the remains of boats that were advanced beyond any wood boat made in modern times.
• Ken Ham addresses the speed of light-the horizon problem. This is a "you too" argument but not a fallacy. If Ken were trying to use this to say that Creation is true, it would be a fallacy. However, the issue is not to disprove the big-bang-billions-of-years-molecules-to-man story but to show that it is not absolutely proven and thus, Bill Nye pointing out that not everything is known about how God actually got the light to Earth doesn't mean that we shouldn't teach and explore both models, Creation and Evolution. There are theories to explain how light got to Earth so quickly.

Bill Nye: 5-minute Counter Rebuttal

"Thank you, Ken Ham, but I’m completely unsatisfied. You did not, in my view, address fundamental questions. 680,000 years of snow ice layers which require winter-summer cycle. Let’s say you have 2,000 kinds instead of 7,000, that makes the problem even more extraordinary. Multiplying 11 by 3.5 we get to 35, 40 species every day that we don’t see. They’re not extant. In fact, you probably know, we’re losing species due to mostly human activity and a loss of habitat."

1. "I’m completely unsatisfied" Bill Nye is again using the logical fallacy of appeal to emotion. Whether Bill Nye is satisfied or not does not affect reality.
2. "680,000 years of snow ice layers which require winter-summer cycle." Bill Nye is repeating an argument that Ken Ham just refuted. Bill Nye is using the logical fallacy of repetition as proof. Rather than answering the refutation of Bill's bare assertion, Bill Nye merely repeats his bare assertion that snow ice layers require a winter-summer cycle. Repetition is not proof of anything. Although there was not enough time to go into detail, Ken Ham showed that the winter-summer cycles are pure assumption--actually, an assertion that doesn't fit the facts. This is based on the logical fallacy of unwarranted extrapolation and the logical fallacy of false cause and effect.
3. "Let’s say you have 2,000 kinds instead of 7,000, that makes the problem even more extraordinary. Multiplying 11 by 3.5 we get to 35, 40 species every day that we don’t see. They’re not extant. In fact, you probably know, we’re losing species due to mostly human activity and a loss of habitat." This is again repeating the same logical fallacy of misused statistics. Bill is making an equation. On one side of the equation are the animals that were on the Ark, which didn't include bacteria, insects, fish, etc.. On the other side of the equation, Bill adds in the bacteria, insects, fish, etc. You would think that Bill would know better. The math works out fine if you use reasonable numbers.
   

"Then, as far as Noah being an extraordinary shipwright, I’m very skeptical. The shipwrights, my ancestors, my family in New England spent their whole life learning to make ships. I mean, it’s very reasonable perhaps to you that Noah had super powers and was able to build this extraordinary craft with seven family members, but to me it’s just not reasonable."

1. "Then, as far as Noah being an extraordinary shipwright, I’m very skeptical." Bill Nye is again using the logical fallacy of personal incredulity. He is using his unbelief as proof, as if his personal beliefs have some sort of impact on reality. They do not. When ideas come to any person that are outside that person's worldview/fake-reality, the ideas will seem to be strange to that person. The fake-reality seems more real than reality itself, so it acts as a filter that doesn't allow new information to penetrate easily.
   
2. "The shipwrights, my ancestors, my family in New England spent their whole life learning to make ships." Bill Nye is using an appeal to authority. The fact that his ancestors were excellent shipwrights by the standards of their day does not mean that they were better than the combined wisdom of a pre-Flood culture. And Bill is trying to project the skills of a century ago back in time 4,000 years. This is a twist on the logical fallacy of presentism, which is unwarranted extrapolation.
   
3. "I mean, it’s very reasonable perhaps to you that Noah had super powers" This is a type of straw man fallacy since Ken Ham made no reference to super powers, nor has Bill Nye demonstrated that super powers would be necessary to build such the Ark. It is also a fallacy of extension, exaggerating Ken Ham's point to make it seem weird or impossible.
4. "to build this extraordinary craft with seven family members" Bill Nye uses the logical fallacy of loaded language, calling the Ark "extraordinary" to imply that it would be impossible.
   
5. "able to build this extraordinary craft with seven family members" Bill Nye is assuming, that is, making a claim without basis, the logical fallacy of unsupported assertion. What makes him think that Noah didn't hire help? What makes Bill Nye think that Noah was not skilled after about 500 years of living with people who had similar lifespans to learn and gain skills, and Noah took about 100 years to build the Ark. Plus, God gave the plan and design. And, Noah was used to hearing the direction of God, so what makes Bill Nye think that God would not be directing Noah step by step? God empowers people to do His work. History is full of examples. People who follow Jesus can attest to this in their own lives: when God leads them to do something, He empowers and opens doors for it to happen.
   
6. "to me it’s just not reasonable." Bill Nye is using the logical fallacy of personal incredulity, which he uses a lot. Whether or not Bill Nye thinks something is reasonable is not what makes things true or false.
7. There are scientists at the Creation Museum, at The Institute for Creation Research, at Creation Ministries International who are looking for a final conclusive answer to that very question. There are some who have set out to see if perhaps there might be anything left of the Ark after 4,000 years. This would be a fantastic discovery that would change the world, although no discovery would change the heart of a person who has set himself or herself against God or His commands. The exact design that God used for the Ark is a mystery; we challenge the young people to investigate that very question.

"Then, uh, by the way, the fundamental thing that we disagree on, Ken Ham, is this nature of what you can prove to yourself. This is to say, when people make assumptions based on radiometric dating, when they make assumptions about the expanding Universe, when they make assumptions about the rate at which genes change in populations of bacterial in laboratory growth media, they’re making assumptions based on previous experience. They’re not coming out of whole cloth, so next time you have a chance to speak, I encourage you to explain to us why we should accept your word for it that natural law changed just 4,000 years ago, completely, and there’s no record of it. You know, there are pyramids that are older than that. There are human populations that are far older than that, with traditions that go back farther than that. And it’s just not reasonable to me that everything changed 4,000 years ago, by everything, I mean species, the surface of the Earth, the stars in the sky, and the relationship of all the other living things on Earth to humans. It’s just not reasonable to me that everything changed like that."

1. "Then, uh, by the way, the fundamental thing that we disagree on, Ken Ham, is this nature of what you can prove to yourself. This is to say, when people make assumptions based on radiometric dating, when they make assumptions about the expanding Universe, when they make assumptions about the rate at which genes change in populations of bacterial in laboratory growth media, they’re making assumptions based on previous experience. They’re not coming out of whole cloth" Bill Nye is focusing on the wrong problem, the framing fallacy. It is not what you can prove to yourself. It is about what you can really know. Part of the problem is an equivocation on the word, assumptions. (see example) Bill's assertion that assumptions are a reliable basis for conclusions is not proven, so this assertion is a hysteron proteron fallacy. If you allow yourself the leeway to make just one assumption, you can prove anything to yourself. Anything! But assumptions are not rational when they are treated as if they were facts. So, are we just supposed to take Bill Nye's word that his assumptions are better than other people's assumptions and more to be trusted than those of others who disagree with him? The fact that people use assumptions and other made-up stuff is the reason that two people can look at the same Creation (or the same Bible) and come to radically different conclusions. To become dogmatic about conclusions that rest on assumptions is not wise. Most assumptions are undisclosed and not even detected by the person making the assumptions. Bill sees a small part of this problem but is still defining it wrong, so he can never solve the problem unless he changes his mindset. The problem is a comparison between two things, yes. One of those things, as identified, is whether it is valid to think there are things "you can prove to yourself" (make yourself believe something) by making assumptions. That's the problem. Anyone can do that all day long. Bill Nye has not considered whether you can actually prove something to be true in the real world by making assumptions. The other thing, which Bill has not considered, is whether you can know anything by revelation. This brings us to the old philosophy of rationalism. Unfortunately, the word, rationalism, and the word, rationalize, sound a bit like the word, rational. However, they are roughly the opposite in meaning. To rationalize is to think something irrational and make believe that it is rational through the way you think or talk about it. On the other hand, Rationalism is an assumption, a philosophy, a religion, that says that the human mind can create knowledge, miraculous revelation, without the benefit of either observation or Divine revelation. So the disagreement is about the nature of what you can know, not what you can prove to yourself, since you can prove things that are untrue to yourself. How can you know something? Is it more reasonable to say that the human mind miraculously reveals knowledge or that God miraculously reveals knowledge? The question stated another way is this: Is the human mind a god, or is God God? And this is the argument in a nutshell. Both are looking at the same Creation and using the same scientific method and scientific tools. Bill Nye worships his own mind and the minds of those who tell him what he wants to hear. Ken Ham worships God.
   • Feedback: Radiometric Dating and Proof
   • Answers to Questions about Radiometric Dating
   • Does Radiometric Dating Show that Rocks are Millions of Years Old?
   • Radiometric Dating (Video)
   • Fallacies of Radioactive Dating of Rocks
   • Does Radiometric Dating Prove the Earth is Old? (Video)
   • Radiometric Dating Breakthroughs
   • Radiometric Dating Q & A
   • Radiometric Dating the Age of Earth
   • Radioactive Dating Anomalies
2. "This is to say, when people make assumptions based on radiometric dating, when they make assumptions about the expanding Universe, when they make assumptions about the rate at which genes change in populations of bacterial in laboratory growth media, they’re making assumptions based on previous experience." Bill Nye is using one of two fallacies. He is most likely equivocating on the meaning of the word, assumption, which is quite common among the people Bill is likely to associate with. Here is an example from the Berkeley website. Bill may be using the logical fallacy of false cause and effect by saying that assumptions come from previous experience. If there is a previous experience, that is empirical. Empirical observation, that is experience of reality, is not assumption, nor can it generate assumptions. Assumptions come from the imagination, from the worldview/paradigm/fake-reality that is built in the human mind. Assumptions may be rationalized, but they cannot be proved. They are always arbitrary. On the other hand, Divine revelation has a source other than the human mind. It is not arbitrary. However, the human mind is very skilled at adding assumptions to Divine revelation or using assumptions to take some parts out of Divine revelation, and the human mind is extremely deceptive. We see this at work in many of the interpretations of what can be plainly read in Scripture or plainly see in Creation around us. Bill is also using an appeal to rationalism.
   
3. "This is to say, when people make assumptions based on radiometric dating, when they make assumptions about the expanding Universe, when they make assumptions about the rate at which genes change in populations of bacterial in laboratory growth media, they’re making assumptions based on previous experience. They’re not coming out of whole cloth" The assumptions are not coming out of whole cloth, but they are not coming from experience either. Bill Nye is using the logical fallacy of argument by half truth. If we define the word, assumption, very broadly, so that it can mean things that are testable and also things that are not testable (as Berkeley does), then the ones that are testable are empirical (from experience), but the ones that are not testable are still arbitrary. Assumptions come from the worldview/paradigm/fake-reality. The fake-reality seems more like reality than real reality to the person who owns the fake-reality. A fake-reality is usually shared by a community as is the case with the big-bang-billions-of-years-molecules-to-man community. There is a part of their worldview that is shared among them, which is even more deceptive because this now makes for confirmation bias. This brings us to the logical fallacy of proof by fake-reality. To the person or group that has a fake-reality, the elements of that fake-reality seem to be obvious. Anything that doesn't fit into that fake-reality seems to be absurd and irrational; it seems to be unreasonable. Every person thinks that he or she is a reasonable person, and they think that people who don't agree with them are unreasonable. That is why they seek out people who are like-minded who can confirm their bias regularly. In fact, they will make it hard for people who are not like-minded to work with them. Assumptions come out of the fake-reality. Fake-realities are based on arbitrary assumptions, made-up stories, outright lies, irrational thinking, and, as Bill Nye has pointed out, past experiences. A lie usually is 99% truth with just a twist of something that is not true.
4. ". . . so . . ." Bill Nye is again using the Neuro Linguistic Programming technique of joining two unrelated thoughts to make it seem as though one thought supports the other--but they are totally unrelated. Breaking down Bill's logic, using therefore instead of so: "Assumptions are based on experience; therefore, the next time you have a chance to speak, rather than answering the question at that time, I want you to refute a straw man argument, since I am falsely asserting that you say that natural law changed 4,000 years ago." Does the thing Bill said before saying "so" prove the thing or mandate the thing that Bill said after saying "so"? No. In addition, Bill has so many fallacies nested in so few words that the human mind cannot sort through them as they are happening.
   
5. ". . . next time you have a chance to speak, I encourage you to explain to us why . . ." This is a variation of the tactic of tossing the elephant, a tactic Bill has used repeatedly in the debate. Bill Nye is aware that the next time Ken Ham has a chance to speak, he will only have enough time (debate rules) to answer the question that comes up at that time. Tossing the elephant, sometimes known as throwing mud at the wall to see if anything will stick, is the tactic of just throwing out a lot of nonsense hoping that there won't be the time or the will to answer all the nonsense. This may seem like a diabolical tactic for Bill Nye to use, but Bill Nye is an Atheist. Under post-modernism, there is no right or wrong. Ethics are defined individually with no standard, so there is no ethical or unethical. There are only winners and losers. Students are advised to be winners, and that includes not getting caught in anything that can cause problems for self.
6. "I encourage you to explain to us why we should accept your word for it that natural law changed just 4,000 years ago, completely, and there’s no record of it." Bill Nye is using the logical fallacy of proof by repetition and the logical fallacy of straw man and the logical fallacy of assumptive language and the logical fallacy of the question-begging loaded question, and the logical fallacy of the outright lie. This is an illustration of how many fallacies can be nested into a single statement, or, in this case, a single question. Ken Ham had just spent some minutes correcting Bill Nye on this same straw man argument moments earlier, and now, Bill Nye completely ignores that reality and goes back to trying to put words into Ken Ham's mouth in an unbelievable way. What Ken Ham referred to was that Bill Nye uses arbitrary assumptions, the assumption that there is no God, the assumption that there was a big bang, the assumption that there was no Creation week, the assumption of molecules-to-man, the assumption that there was no Flood, the assumption that each ring in the snow is representative of a summer-winter cycle, and many other assumptions to prove to himself the very things that he is assuming. That is circular reasoning. Ken Ham calls this historical science as opposed to observational science that allows us to test things in the present. Bill Nye specifically said that Ken said "that natural law changed." To assert this, using assumptive language to presuppose the statement into a question, Bill Nye is telling an outright lie. It is not uncommon in debates for one person to knowingly lie, possibly hoping to irritate the other person to the point where that person finds it difficult to control himself. That would be consistent with a post-modern paradigm, but Bill Nye may not even know his motivations for re-stating a known lie right after it was clearly refuted.
7. "You know, . . ." Bill Nye is using the logical fallacy of the presuppositional phrase. It is, in fact, a bare assertion fallacy, presupposed into a sentence using assumptive language. What makes Bill Nye think that Ken Ham knows that his claims are true? Of course, Bill doesn't think this is true, yet he is presupposing it into the statement: "You know, . . ." In essence, Bill Nye is saying that whatever he says next is true and everyone knows it, so don't question it.
8. "You know, there are pyramids that are older than that. There are human populations that are far older than that, with traditions that go back farther than that" We don't know that there are pyramids that are older than that. Bill Nye is using the logical fallacy of bare assertion, making statements without any evidence to back them up. If he were to take time to give evidence, that evidence would be seen to be based on stories and arbitrary assumptions, not the type of thing on which to make eternal decisions. (the reality)
   
9. "And it’s just not reasonable to me" Bill Nye is using the logical fallacy of personal incredulity and the logical fallacy of bare assertion. Just because Bill Nye doesn't think that something is reasonable doesn't mean that it isn't reasonable. However, as you will see, Bill Nye builds straw men that are unreasonable so that he can show the fake position (straw man) to be unreasonable without ever confronting Ken Ham's real position.
10. "that everything changed 4,000 years ago, by everything, I mean species, the surface of the Earth, the stars in the sky, and the relationship of all the other living things on Earth to humans" Bill Nye is using the logical fallacy of half-truth in perpetrating this straw man argument. We will examine each of these statements one at a time on their own merits.
11. "that everything changed 4,000 years ago, by everything, I mean species" Species are examples of lost information, change, in the gene pool. Bill Nye is contradicting himself or being unclear. This might just be a slip of the tongue. The species didn’t change 4,000 years ago. This could be classified a straw man argument or an unsupported assertion.
    
12. "that everything changed 4,000 years ago, by everything, I mean . . . the surface of the Earth" Bill Nye is again tripping over the logical fallacy of defining the problem incorrectly (framing fallacy) in that he is saying that he and Ken disagree that the surface of the Earth has changed over time. That is not what they disagree about. Bill Nye is contradicting himself. Bill said that the surface of the Earth changes earlier. It is doubtful that any scientist would disagree with that. But Bill has a real problem with the global Flood. The reality is that global catastrophic Flood would have changed the surface of the Earth in the way that we observe around us today. The billions-of-years geology can't explain many of the things that we can easily observe. The Flood can. Bill Nye is denying that the Flood took place but not providing any evidence that it did not take place, which would be the logical fallacy of unsupported assertion. And he is doing this in spite of the fact that all the evidence points to the Flood having taken place. This is the logical fallacy of denialism.
13. "that everything changed 4,000 years ago, by everything, I mean . . . the stars in the sky" Bill Nye is using a pure straw man argument here. Ken Ham never said that the Flood changed the stars in the sky. That would be ridiculous had Ken said it, but he didn't. How did Bill Nye think of such a thing? Maybe this was just a slip of the tongue or an emotional lack of control.
    
14. "that everything changed 4,000 years ago, by everything, I mean . . . the relationship of all the other living things on Earth to humans" This probably refers to God giving animals for food and putting the fear of mankind into the animals. That is all that changed as far as we know. There may have been other changes, but God isn't telling us of any. So, what convinces Bill Nye that God's revelation is incorrect? He seems to think that this is impossible or ridiculous, but you must show reason for saying that something is impossible or ridiculous if you are going to make the assertion or else it is the logical fallacy of argumentum ad lapidem.
    
15. "It’s just not reasonable to me" Bill Nye is restating his logical fallacy of personal incredulity and the logical fallacy of appeal to common sense.
16. ". . . that everything changed like that." Bill Nye is restating his straw man fallacy.

"And another thing that I would very much appreciate you addressing, there are billions of people in the world who are deeply religious, and I respect that. People get tremendous community and comfort and nurture and support from their religious fellows in their communities, in their faiths, in their churches, and yet they don’t accept your point of view. There are Christians who don’t accept that the Earth could somehow be this extraordinarily young age, because of all the evidence around them. And so, what is to become of them in your view?"

1. "And another thing that I would very much appreciate you addressing" Bill Nye again is using the tactic of asking questions when the format will not allow time to answer them. This particular question ends up being a bit goofy, though.
2. "there are billions of people in the world who are deeply religious, and I respect that. People get tremendous community and comfort and nurture and support from their religious fellows in their communities, in their faiths, in their churches" Bill Nye is using the logical fallacy of understatement again. If that were all that Jesus Christ were about, there would be no anti-Christ movement. Bill Nye would have to find another job. Jesus Christ is about redemption of a fallen world and the restoration of all things to Himself. It is about a daily, personal walk in which Jesus Christ and those who trust Him walk in an every-growing relationship from glory to glory by the Spirit of the Lord. It's about rising to higher heights and reaching to deeper depths in Christ Jesus. It's about ultimate fulfillment.
   
3. "and yet they don’t accept your point of view. There are Christians who don’t accept . . ." Bill Nye is using the logical fallacy of bandwagon again. Whether some people don't accept a certain thing has no impact on whether the thing is true or false.
4. "There are Christians who don’t accept that the Earth could somehow be this extraordinarily young age" Bill Nye is using the logical fallacy of loaded language. "the Earth could somehow be this extraordinarily young age" could be easily reversed to "the Earth could somehow be this extraordinarily old age." There is no substance to this, but it is a logical fallacy of appeal to emotion.
5. "because of all the evidence around them." Bill Nye is referring to evidence that he just admitted was based on assumptions. Assumptions are not evidence. This is the logical fallacy of proof by assumption. He rationalized his assumptions, but his rationalizations were illogical, so they fail. The reality is that the observations that can be made scientifically confirm a young Earth and not one observation conflicts with a young Earth. Made-up stories and arbitrary assumptions regarding those observations, which Bill Nye calls "science," do conflict with what God is saying through the Bible--but they are just made-up stuff so the fact that they conflict is immaterial.
6. "And so, what is to become of them in your view?" Bill Nye is using the logical fallacy of the meaningless question. Though this question is meaningless, it really does point out the basic difference between Bill Nye and Ken Ham. Bill Nye is concerned with opinions and views based on arbitrary assumptions and imagination. Ken Ham is concerned with what God is revealing, with Divine revelation. This is the basic disagreement between ungodly people and those following Christ in submission to His Spirit. What Ken Ham's view of what is going to become of some people is not relevant to anything. The only opinion regarding these people that matters is God's opinion, and God is well able to take care of justice. The question is certainly not relevant to the discussion at hand, and it brings up the question of why Bill Nye would ask such a question. A good question for Bill to ask God would be, what is going to become of Bill Nye in the judgment?
   

"And, by the way, this thing started, as I understand it, Ken Ham’s Creation Model is based on the Old Testament. So when you bring in, I’m not a Theologian, when you bring in the New Testament, isn’t that a little out of the box?"

1. "this thing started, as I understand it, Ken Ham’s Creation Model" Bill Nye almost forgot the ad hominem fallacy, keeping the focus on Ken Ham rather than the issue at hand, and trying to marginalize those who listen to what God says. The Creation Model has nothing to do with Ken Ham.
   
2. "Creation Model is based on the Old Testament. So when you bring in, I’m not a Theologian, when you bring in the New Testament, isn’t that a little out of the box?" Bill Nye is fishing for something here, but he is apparently he doesn't know that the same God Who wrote the Old Testament also wrote the New Testament, that the New Testament builds from the Old, that Jesus quoted from Genesis in the New Testament treating it as historical fact to make points about present reality, and that they confirm each other.

"I’m looking for explanations of the creation of the world as we know it based on what I’m going to call science. Not historical science. Not observational science. Science. Things that each of us can do akin to what we do, we’re trying to out-guess the characters on murder mystery shows, on crime scene investigation especially."

1. "I’m looking for explanations of the creation of the world as we know it based on what I’m going to call science. Not historical science. Not observational science. Science." Bill Nye is using the logical fallacy of persuasive definition and the logical fallacy of equivocation. He is defining the term, "what I’m going to call science" very tightly to filter out those options that conflict with what he likes and at the same time very loosely to include arbitrary assumptions, made-up stories, irrational thinking, and outright lies. This makes it a fallacy of special pleading. He still recognizes observations, tests, repeatability, etc. as part of science, but to be part of what he is going to call science, you must accept all his other arbitrary rules about what must and must not be included in science. This definition is purely for the purpose of winning an argument by hook or by crook.
2. "Things that each of us can do akin to what we do, we’re trying to out-guess the characters on murder mystery shows, on crime scene investigation especially." Bill Nye is confusing science with guessing. This is the fallacy of confusion of terms. It becomes more obvious at this stage in the debate that the real disagreement is not about the actual observations but about how they should be interpreted. Bill Nye asserts that they should be interpreted through the filter of the assumptions that fit his own fake-reality/worldview. Those assumptions would be Naturalism/Atheism, Materialism/Atheism, Flood denial, billions of years, big bang, and the molecules-to-man story. Ken Ham asserts that the scientific observations should be interpreted based on what God is telling us through Scripture.

"What is to become of all those people who don’t see it your way?" Bill Nye is using a logical fallacy of irrelevance. The truth of God is not affected in any way by "What is to become" of anyone or anything. That is an appeal to consequence. Ken Ham could ask the question, "What is to become of those who don't accept Christ?" without fallacy. He could even speak of the consequences in detail, because he would not be proving Christ but giving the reason to take action and accept Christ. Bill Nye is trying to prove that the molecules-to-man story happened because "What is to become of all those people who don’t see it your way?" This is also a logical fallacy of ad hominem, focusing on Ken Ham with the words, "your way." The problem is that Bill Nye is not looking at the evidence and logic that has been presented on its own merits but is focusing on irrelevance, since this discussion has nothing to do with Ken Ham. This is a framing fallacy. It should be noted the logical fallacy works to sway opinions. That is why it is used.

"For us, in the scientific community, I remind you, that when we find an idea that’s not tenable, that doesn’t work, that doesn’t fly, that doesn’t hold water, whatever idiom you’d like to embrace, we throw it away. We’re delighted. That’s why I say, if you can find a fossil that has swum between the layers, bring it on. You would change the world. If you could show that somehow the microwave background radiation is not a result of the big bang, come on. Write your paper. Tear it up. So, your view that we’re supposed to take your word for it—this Book, written centuries ago, translated into American English is somehow more important that what I can see with my own eyes, is an extraordinary claim."

1. "For us, in the scientific community" Bill Nye is using the logical fallacy of persuasive definition, as he defines the scientific community as those who believe in assumptions and stories such as Naturalism/Atheism, Materialism/Atheism, Uniformitarianism/Flood-denial, molecules-to-man, billions of years, and big bang. He excludes all dissenters with this simple litmus test. Since Bill has repeatedly expressed the thought of the scientific community being only those who accept the made up story of big-bang-no-Genesis-Flood-billions-of-years-molecules-to-man, this is an appeal to tradition, appeal to false authority, and the no true Scotsman fallacy all rolled into those two words. Applying a definition to words repeatedly creates Neuro Linguistic Programming-type anchoring, so just mentioning the words is the same as giving all the definitions again--except more effective, because the conscious mind doesn't directly evaluate it for truth or falsity.
   
2. "For us, in the scientific community, I remind you, that when we find an idea that’s not tenable, that doesn’t work, that doesn’t fly, that doesn’t hold water, whatever idiom you’d like to embrace, we throw it away. We’re delighted." There are countless problems with the big-bang-billions-of-years-molecules-to-man story. The idea that it is thrown away is an assertion contrary to fact. The Atheistic mindset that has pervaded the most politically powerful of those in the scientific community has demanded that just-so stories be made up to explain away the evidence, a form of denialism. When this doesn't work, false prophecy is used: "science will one day find an answer to this great mystery," as demonstrated by Bill Nye repeatedly during this debate. Sanctions and punishments are assigned to anyone who disagrees, which would be the appeal to the stick fallacy. Anyone who does not strictly base everything on the arbitrary assumptions of Materialism/Atheism, Naturalism/Atheism, Uniformitarianism/no-Floodism, or who challenges the big-bang-billions-of-years-molecules-to-man story will not receive tenure and will not be published in the secular humanist scientific journals. This is well known and scientists who disagree know to keep silent. For this reason, Bill Nye is using the fallacy of the outright lie. Bill Nye is presenting a false open-mindedness that doesn't exist in reality. This is the logical fallacy of the outright lie. Disagreements on these issues are not tolerated in the "scientific community." Go ahead and disagree on anything else. But it will not be tolerated if you challenge the rigged game, the circular reasoning of assuming the big-bang-billions-of-years-molecules-to-man story to prove the big-bang-billions-of-years-molecules-to-man story. Bill Nye is also committing the logical fallacy of self-refutation, since his current statement conflicts with statements in which he implied that scientists who don't accept the big-bang-billions-of-years-molecules-to-man story are not real scientists. Of course, he was careful to use innuendo, using terminology such as "science as practiced on the outside." Bill Nye made it clear that he doesn't want any conflicting information to be available and he acts as if the information that supports Creation and a young Earth should be censored. So he is conflicting with himself, faking open-mindedness while demanding message control.
   
3. "if you can find a fossil that has swum between the layers, bring it on. You would change the world." Bill Nye is using the logical fallacy of the outright lie. Scientists find index fossils in the wrong place all the time, but if that changes the mind of any scientist, that scientist pays a price for his or her intellectual integrity. Once in a while a scientist begins to question  the big-bang-billions-of-years-molecules-to-man story and the assumptions, cherry-picking, etc. that are used in the aging methods, but they lose their jobs or are punished in other ways. Bill is also using the logical fallacy of non sequitur. When Bill brought this up previously, he proposed that the only thing that Ken Ham had to do was to prove that clams and microscopic organisms had swum up through the mud that was settling on them. That is a false test. Clams don't actually swim very much. Once anything is buried in mud, it is difficult to swim. However, there are examples of clams moving up through tens of feet of mud. Those organisms in the lower layer of the Flood sediments are of the types that are not generally mobile enough to escape. This lack of ability to escape is exactly what you would expect with a worldwide, catastrophic Flood. So, this test is quite deceptive. Bill is also using a very common Atheist argument: prove this to me in this specific way or the default is to believe that it is not true. That is the logical fallacy of argument from ignorance and the logical fallacy of proof of falsity by failure to prove. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWLzj_dt1Jg&list=UU23yiJV4Bkagj5dkH-UyHFA
   
   • Would Animals and Plants Found in Unexpected Places in the Fossil Record Change an Evolutionist's Mind?
4. "If you could show that somehow the microwave background radiation is not a result of the big bang, come on. Write your paper. Tear it up." Bill Nye is using the logical fallacy of proof by failure to disprove. That's the flip side of the proof of falsity by failure to disprove that Bill used in the previous argument. Notice the bias. If it is proving what Bill doesn't want to be true, then, unless you prove it using a false criteria the Bill sets up, it is not true. But, if it's something that Bill wants to be true, then you must absolutely prove it to be not true or it is automatically true. This is a great example of how you are able to detect this kind of flimflam using logic. Getting back to the current statement, the implication is that unless you can prove that the microwave background radiation is not the result of the big bang, the big bang is the only scientific explanation possible. At present, no one can prove that the big bang is or is not the cause of the microwave background radiation. The so-called prediction made concerning this, which Bill Nye mentioned previously, turned out to be false, though Bill Nye falsely presented it as a true prediction. This is an example of the logical fallacy of an outright lie. If this logic were sound, then it would also be sound logic to say that unless you can prove that the microwave background radiation is not the result of God stretching out the Heavens, God stretching out the Heavens is the only scientific explanation possible. To claim that the same logic cannot be applied to both is the logical fallacy of special pleading. Of course, that logic is not sound for either. A clarification should be made. It is fortunate that those who follow Jesus don't have to resort to such irrational thinking as Bill Nye is using here. Rather, we know by Divine revelation, which God gives us flowing to us through Scripture, that God stretched out the Heavens. And we know that the Scripture is God's Word without error because each person who is following Christ is led by Christ. Christ leads us and teaches us moment by moment. We are learning to hear His Voice and respond in submission. And God reveals to us that the Scripture is His Word and is without error. In addition, God speaks to us through Creation, and we see one confirmation of the Bible after another as we learn more about science. Every once in a while, a skeptic will come up with an idea that challenges us, but it doesn't take long before the skeptic is shown to be the one in error. We don't base our faith on a Naturalistic/Atheistic view that only compares the Bible to nature and notices the obvious fact that there are no conflicts and many confirmations of everything that is written in the Bible. Faith comes by hearing the Utterance (Greek: rhema) of God. Faith is the gift of God, lest anyone should boast. God speaks into our innermost minds through the Bible (the most checkable), a brother or sister in Christ, the Creation, or through our consciences, when we acknowledge Him, faith comes as a gift to us. A skeptic can claim that we are not experiencing what we are experiencing, but the skeptic cannot rationally defend such a claim. The skeptic must assume "no revelation from Almighty God" to conclude "no revelation from Almighty God." And that is circular reasoning.
   
   • Recent cosmic microwave background data supports Creationist cosmologies but not big bang cosmologies
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5. "So, your view that we’re supposed to take your word for it" Bill Nye returns to the logical fallacy of ad hominem. The discussion is not about Ken Ham or his view. Bill Nye wants to attack the person of Ken Ham. The remark, "take your word for it", is a logical fallacy of straw man. Ken Ham isn't asking anyone to take his word for it. Anyone can test Jesus Christ for himself or herself. Whoever seeks Christ finds Christ. And Christ so infuses the Scripture with His Spirit that anyone who reads the Bible is in the Presence of their Creator whether they acknowledge Him or not. Bill is actually committing the logical fallacy of projection, since Bill is asking us to take his word for it. Bill Nye is claiming that his assumptions, that the assumptions of the Atheists are valid. There is no way for us to verify Bill's assumptions. Ken Ham is claiming that the Divine revelation of God is valid rather than arbitrary assumptions. All assumptions are arbitrary or they are not assumptions. Bill Nye says that assumptions are not arbitrary but they come from previous experience, and you can follow the link on the word, assumptions, to see specifically how Bill and the Atheistic lobby rationalize this. This assertion about assumptions is either an equivocation or else it is an outright lie. Assumptions, if they are truly assumptions, come out of a worldview, a fake-reality. We each have one--not just Atheists. And worldviews come from a combination of reality and made-up stuff. They are unreliable. They are part of that deceitful and desperately wicked human mind that defies analysis. Ken Ham says that, if you really want to know, check it out for yourself. That is the opposite of asking you to take his word for it. Anyone who comes to Jesus Christ, who asks Him to make Himself real to them, who comes in submission, sincerity, respect, and with persistence, will find Him. This is not to say that you can come to Him in a double-minded condition, half mocking Him and half serious. God is not mocked. He specifically reveals that the double-minded person will receive nothing from Him. But for any person who is sincere and really willing to submit themselves to their creator, Jesus will come and let them know that He is real. The Holy Spirit will begin to lead and to teach. The Holy Spirit will instruct them that the Bible is the Word of God without error and begin to speak to them through the Bible. This is not the typical human, rationalized faith, which is worthless. This the free gift of faith that comes by hearing (acknowledging) the word/rhema/utterance of God.
   
6. "this Book," Bill Nye is framing the situation incorrectly when he implies that the Bible is just a book. We don't worship the Bible or seek the Bible. God speaks to us through the Bible. Through the Bible, God tells us that it is possible to hear the Bible being read and have the veil (a type of the blinding, fleshly nature) on their innermost mind. (2 Corinthians 3) It is painfully obvious that there are theologies and divisions caused by divergent theologies. That shows that the fleshly mind is being used to understand Scripture some of the time. The Bible isn't a magic book, but God speaks through it if we will listen. And we are only beginning to learn how to hear His Voice and how to discern, which means that we need to remain humble so that the Holy Spirit can correct us. The fact is that no one can really understand the Bible without Divine revelation. No one can read the Bible without the Holy Spirit speaking to them. There is no question that God speaks through the Bible. The question is whether we will acknowledge God and His Utterance, His rhema. When an Atheist reads the Bible and hardens his or her heart (closes his or her mind) against God in the process, that Atheist just becomes more hardened. When an Atheist reads the Bible, asking God to reveal Himself and to show him or her the truth, that Atheist will not be an Atheist long--but only if he or she is sincere, submissive, and committed that if God reveals Himself to them, they will submit their will to God's will. If an Atheist thinks, "Well, I'll just show that God doesn't in any way reveal Himself. I'll ask this non-existent god to come and reveal itself to me and show you that there is no such god," God knows the intents of the heart and will not be mocked. Such a person will receive nothing from God.
   
7. "translated into American English, written centuries ago," Bill Nye returns to the logical fallacy of irrelevance. How long ago God wrote the Bible is immaterial. The fact that some translations are in American English has not affected the originals. God has provided physical evidence that the Scripture has been preserved intact. Among the ten thousand or so ancient texts, there are only two texts that actually have problems, and those two don't agree with each other either, so they can be ignored as aberrations. Those two are the Alexandrian Text and the Latin Vulgate. The other ten thousand plus do agree with each other and confirm their accuracy. Besides this, God Himself confirms to our innermost minds that the text is accurate, and He speaks to us through it. Then there is the fact that the Bible touches on many subjects that could possibly be falsified. And not one such falsification has ever been made despite the active work of many skeptics over thousands of years. Ungodly people have used assumptions and stories to try to make the Bible look inconsistent with itself or else inconsistent with the Creation. However, if you take away the assumptions and stories and actually look into each of the many claims, you find out that the Bible stands and the ones who are inconsistent are those who are attacking the Bible.
8. "this Book, . . . is somehow more important than what I can see with my own eyes, . . ."  Bill Nye is using the logical fallacy of the outright lie along with ambiguity. When Bill Nye talks about what he can see with his own eyes, what is he seeing with his own eyes? This kind of fuzzy talking, innuendo, puts us all in the position of trying to guess what he means. This type of ambiguity is part of the skill set of Neuro Linguistic Programming. He is seeing nothing with his own eyes that is conflicting in any way with what God is saying through Scripture. He is seeing with his own imagination. It is an outright lie when Bill speaks about "what I (Bill Nye) can see with my (Bill Nye's) own eyes" in this context. He is not seeing molecules turning into people before his eyes. He is not seeing billions of years. He is looking at life through a fake-reality that acts as a filter of what he is seeing, so he makes assumptions based on his fake-reality, which is, in turn, based on arbitrary assumptions. Then, he lies and claims that his assumptions and the stories derived from his worldview/fake-reality are what he sees with his own eyes. There is nothing that can be observed in nature that in any way contradicts the history in the Bible. Nothing!
   
9. "is an extraordinary claim."  Bill Nye is using the logical fallacy of personal incredulity. Of course, if what Bill Nye had claimed were true, that it was a random book compared to what Bill Nye and anyone can plainly see, then this would be an extraordinary claim. However, that part about the random book compared to what everyone can see was a lie. The Bible is not a random book. No one has ever seen anything that is in conflict with the Bible. And Bill Nye's fallacy of personal incredulity does nothing to convert those two lies into the truth.
   

"we’re supposed to take your word for it—this Book, written centuries ago, translated into American English is somehow more important that what I can see with my own eyes, is an extraordinary claim. And, for those watching online especially, I want to remind you that we need scientists, and especially engineers for the future. Engineers use science to solve problems and make things. We need these people so that the United States can continue to innovate and can continue to be a world leader. We need innovation and that needs science education."

1. "we’re supposed to take your word for it—this Book [the Bible], written centuries ago, translated into American English is somehow more important that what I can see with my own eyes, is an extraordinary claim." The problem is that this claim was never made. This is an example of the logical fallacy of appeal to extremes, taking what is reasonable and restating it in an unreasonable way that makes it sound absurd. The reality is that there are no examples of anything that can be observed that in any way contradicts the Bible.
2. "and," Bill Nye is using the Neuro Linguistic Programming technique of linking two unrelated thoughts together as if they were connected when they are not. This has a hypnotic effect beyond the simple logical fallacy of faulty analogy or faulty comparison in that the idea tends to bypass the critical thinking process and be injected right into the worldview in the innermost minds of those who are listening. Bill Nye has linked his previous flimflam-filled attack against the Bible, to the fact that we need engineers. There is no link there, except if we were to say that Bill Nye's assumptions and stories equal science and anyone who doesn't accept those assumptions and stories are excluded from science. However, Bill Nye has not demonstrated that arbitrary assumptions, stories, and fake-realities are part or science, nor has he demonstrated that arbitrary assumptions, stories, and fake-realities are superior to Divine revelation. Bill's logic goes like this: "I'm going to falsely claim that I can see the big bang happening, billions of years passing, and molecules turning into humans, and we need engineers and innovations and science education." Those two ideas have nothing to do with each other, but Bill skillfully linked them with the word, and.
3. "And, for those watching online especially, I want to remind you that we need scientists, and especially engineers for the future. Engineers use science to solve problems and make things. We need these people so that the United States can continue to innovate and can continue to be a world leader. We need innovation and that needs science education." Why especially those who are watching online? Why is that important? It's because Bill Nye is on a political mission here. He is politicking. There is no problem with needing scientists and engineers, but there is a problem with saying that they must accept Bill Nye's Atheistic worldview. There is not a single piece of technology that is dependent on a belief in billions of years or on molecules to man. There is not a single piece of technology that is hindered in the slightest by the Divine leading and teaching of the Holy Spirit through Scripture. In fact, the way of thinking that doesn't allow thoughts outside of the molecules-to-man-billions-of-years fake-reality/worldview actually hinders the progress of science. It causes scientists to come up with ideas like vestigial organs, performing millions of useless surgeries with all the risk to life and detriment to health that is involved. It causes scientists to come up with false ideas like thinking that life springs into existence spontaneously or that there is such a thing as a simple cell or that all cells are just a simple lump of albuminous combination of carbon, or that there is junk DNA. Think of all the millions, if not billions, that have been wasted. And that is tax money chasing a religious idea spawned by Atheistic religion. Beyond that, the convoluted thinking that is required to believe the molecules-to-man-billions-of-years fake-reality/worldview incapacitates critical thinking and logic. Bill Nye has aptly demonstrated the convoluted nature of the thinking involved. Bill Nye has presented his case with nothing that is not riddled by irrational thinking. And we have to believe that Bill Nye wasn't just trying to be dishonest, but he actually believes this stuff and thinks this way.
4. "We need innovation and that needs science education." Would you think that the science education that is needed would include open-mindedness and critical thinking? Would you think that this science education should look at the problems with the big-bang-billions-of-years-molecules-to-man story or only present it as a sacred cow that no one dare question? Should students be learning to use just-so stories instead of real science? Should students be taught that logical fallacies make sense? Should students be taught only part of the facts and be given only a single explanation when there is another explanation, Creation, that doesn't violate basic laws of science and logic? Should science education teach students to follow the observations to their logical conclusions, or should students be forced to impose the preconceived filter of the big-bang-billions-of-years-molecules-to-man story rather than following the evidence where it leads?