Creation Debate Issue #4: Predictability

Ken Ham presented several predictions made by the Creation model. Bill Nye countered by not acknowledging that the predictions had even been mentioned and by saying that he wanted Ken Ham to provide some predictions. Ken Ham presented more predictions. Bill Nye countered by not acknowledging that the predictions had been supplied and still insisting, in denial of reality, that Ken Ham could not provide predictions. This is known as the logical fallacy of proof by repeated assertion. Bill Nye continued to repeat this assertion throughout the debate.

Bill Nye also spoke of some predictions for the molecules-to-man story, but a fact check reveals that those predictions were misrepresented. They were bogus.

So, after analysis, Creation does provide many predictions. But is predictability something that proves something to be true?

This issue of predictability tends to end up creating a confirmation bias using the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent. This is a formal fallacy and not uncommon.

• Premise 1. If the big bang actually took place, then we would predict finding cosmic microwave background, stars moving away from us, and the ratios of hydrogen, helium and other trace elements having a certain ratio.
• Premise 2. We find cosmic microwave background, stars moving away from us, and the ratios of hydrogen, helium and other trace elements having the expected ratio.
• Conclusion: Therefore, big bang actually took place.

That sounds really logical, but it is a formal fallacy. Let's take the same form an put something obvious in it. Let's apply this same kind of logic to you by someone you know well.

• Premise 1. If you are mean and an evil person, then I would expect that I would sometimes be mad at you.
• Premise 2. I am sometimes mad at you.
• Conclusion: Therefore, you are mean and an evil person.

Premise 1 may be true, and premise 2 may be true, but the form makes the conclusion unreliable. Let's do another one.

• Premise 1. If you don't exist, then I would expect that I would not be able to see you.
• Premise 2. I am not able to see you.
• Conclusion: Therefore, you don't exist.

How many other things could cause someone not to be able to see you? You are too far away, there is a wall between you and the other person, or the person is blind for instance.

So, there were three things that went on during the debate regarding predictability. One was a mind game (proof by repetition) played effectively by Bill Nye where he repeatedly asserted, with a straight face, that there is nothing that the Creation model can predict and ignoring any information to the contrary in a very audacious way. The second is in the fact that Bill Nye's alleged predictions were not real. And the third is that while prediction may provide some kind of confirmation or even probability, perhaps, it is not proof of anything. One of the big problems is that the predictions that actually do work out for the big-bang-billions-of-years-molecules-to-man story are also what you would expect for Creation and the worldwide Flood, so they confirm nothing.