Bill Nye vs. Ken Ham

Holy cow! Robertson is a loon of the first rank, I can't believe he said this: Is Robertson having an attack of sanity in his dotage?--Percy

Ergo creationists are not dealing in science, but apologetics. But you just admitted this, see bolded portion above. Here we have a bit of projection. Just because this is how YECs think and reason doesn't mean that is how science functions. So many in fact that they couldn't all be alive on the planet at the same time. And so many occupying the same environmental niches that they couldn't compete/survive alongside one another, like the hawk and the pterodactyl. And some like the giant dragonflies of the Carboniferous that require higher levels of oxygen in the atmosphere.
The strata is an evidence against the flood BTW. But you can't reason correctly because of the bolded part above.
If you were capable of accepting true constraints you would have to let go of your written witness.Here is a written witness that also must constrain our theorizing about the past shape of the continents.Real world constraints disprove your false written witness in this manner.
If evidence is found that contradicts a model then out goes the model. What possibilities are we left with? That is how objectively looking at the evidence works. There is no preconceived notion to which the evidence is shoe horned to fit as you claim in science, but that is exactly the methodological approach you take as shown above in bold.

I don't think YOU know what I mean about testing. Stay out of the discussion if you are only going to shoot out accusations.

You didn't prove anything. That article is referring to the NATURE of Geology as interpretive and historical -- which isn't about simple physical Geology but about the speculations about the unwitnessed geological past. It IS interpretive and historical and there is no way around it.Nobody said anything against the usefulness or veracity of Geology either. The point is that when you are dealing with the unwitnessed past you cannot ever have certainty about your theories, which should always therefore be couched in the language of hypothesis instead of treated as Fact and crammed down the throats of people who have a different idea about the unwitnessed past.And that's true, period.

Of course, although when dealing with the absurd claims that come out of it and are imposed on the rest of us as Fact I often doubt it. But it isn't science in the sense that sciences that can be tested in the present are science. What are you talking about? What method has been tested and what does that have to do with what I'm talking about?Take CS's example of the rocks on Mars. It looks like a reasonable guess, a hypothesis, that water was involved in that formation. But how are you going to test that to know for sure since there is now no water on Mars? The rocks look like they once flowed, had some liquid form to them, but the thick forward edge suggests something viscous to me, not water. So it's possible to have different interpretations and not be able to prove which is correct.

Bring the argument over here if you want it addressed.

Sorry, sometimes I forget to qualify the word "past" with PREHISTORIC or UNWITNESSED. I certainly am not ever talking about the past living people have all shared or the historical past for which there are multiple written witnesses.I've also acknowledged that some things about the past are knowable such as the sorts of creatures that once lived. ABE: You can point to their bones and reconstruct their bodies and know that nothing like that is living now. The objection is about all those theories about their age, when they lived and the imputing of time to a rock along with fanciful ideas about what that "era" was supposedly like, all determined from a few bits of things found in the rock, which are better explained in other ways. /ABE These things are all speculative and unprovable / untestable.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Robertson is not reliable on a lot of things. There are unfortunately plenty of Christians who cave in to the claims of what they think is unanswerable science, sad but true. There are quite a few of them here.

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Of course, although when dealing with the absurd claims that come out of it and are imposed on the rest of us as Fact I often doubt it. But it isn't science in the sense that sciences that can be tested in the present are science.

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Well, you need to make a case for there being a major difference there. But OK, the "historical and interpretive" thing is a bit of a red herring.

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What are you talking about? What method has been tested and what does that have to do with what I'm talking about?

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Does it matter ? If something has been done then that proves that it can be done, doesn't it ? How could anyone say otherwise ?

When I deal with the past, as an archaeologist, I can learn a great many things, whether creationists say Yea or Nay!The principal thing we can learn about the past is the dating. That lets us put the everything that we find into a chronological perspective. And from a single dated skeleton I can learn a great deal, including age, sex, stature, pathologies, diet, and genealogy. Now that's a real witness whether creationists say Yea or Nay!And we can put the data from a lot of archaeological tests and construct hypotheses. And then we can test those hypotheses. When successful predictions are consistently made, and there is no significant evidence to the contrary, we can elevate that hypothesis to the level of a theory. Whether creationists say Yea or Nay!Creationists deny that our dating is accurate, but they have never been able to demonstrate why or how. The most they have is empty claims based on their a priori beliefs. You're a poster-child for this.I'll leave the rest of the mistakes in your post to others to correct, if anyone wants to bother. (You wouldn't learn anything anyway.)

No, this is a crucial and central issue in this debate and it needs to be recognized.The accusations of creationists that we oppose Science are false and it's all related to the problem of the different kinds of science, the sciences of the PREHISTORIC UNWITNESSED past versus the testable hard sciences. This is a real and important distinction. Creationists have NO problem WHATEVER with the REAL hard sciences as I've said over and over and Ham argued in the debate as well, where he had video of creationist scientists who asserted their YEC beliefs although they do solid productive real science. THIS HAS TO BE ACKNOWLEDGED. It's a big fat lie to keep characterizing creationists as antiscientific.As for making a case, CS's example of the rocks on Mars works. Water MAY explain it but you have no way of proving it.The standard interpretation of the Supergroup beneath the Grand Canyon is an example I also brought up. You can't know or prove that it was ever the root of a mountain range and presenting that mere hypothesis as Fact is false science.You also cannot prove that humans and apes are genetically related, and treating THAT as fact is fraudulent science.You also cannot prove from a collection of different kinds of eyeballs possessed by a variety of different creatures that the human eye evolved, and to call it fact is fraudulent science.When you have an hypothesis call it a hypothesis. Stop pretending you know things you can't know. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Then, back to the question of why has no one...in recorded history....pointed out these multiplying species? According to the flood model you would have 11 new species every day, all starting from the same geographical location (Mt. Ararat) throughout the entireity of human civilization(post-flood), where are the recorded mentions of this? Of course, now you'll say that it was commonplace so no one remarked on it, but com'n stop with your special pleading. Your method is not science because it refuses to predict future results, does not accept all the evidence, and showhorns in a placeholder for things we don't understand.Your boy Ken Ham did the exact same thing you are doing throughout the debate and ignored evidence without trying to give a different explanation outside of "God tells me it's this way, so that's how it is." If you want a magic man in the sky who can change the laws of nature and have animals evolve at a rate that is completely unfathomable to modern evolutionary thinking, and a canyon carved by magic water that sorts items differently than every other example of water we have plus can carve an enormous canyon in ways that have never been observed then feel free to believe that and teach it within your church. But don't, for one second, consider it science because it spits in the face of everything that science is and that is pure disrespect for the individuals who have chosen honesty over blantant falsehoods and completed their jobs regardless of their beliefs. Enjoy your magic solutions, I'll trust in evidence.

What "multiplying species" are you talking about?I really didn't follow that part of the debate, sorry, so I have no idea what the issue is. Nye made a lot of remarks that didn't relate to anything I could see. If you want to make a case out of this, do so but you'll have to explain it all from scratch.All I'm interested in here is the general principle that creationists are not antiscientific and have no problem with actual testable science and that the false accusation of antiscience is due to the failure to recognize that there is a real difference between the sciences of the untestable unwitnessed prehistoric past and the HARD sciences where you can replicate and test their claims. This really should be acknowledged.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

They do this science based upon the known laws of nature and the ideal that these laws will act nearly identical no matter the circumstances, not on creationist hokum. Or, such as the astronomer he showed, they must posit a lying deity that would create light already in motion otherwise there is no way billions of stars should be visible to us.

Starting from the 7,000 kinds originally posited by Ken Ham, to get to the current number of species in the world from the ark, 4,500 years ago, these species would need to be micro-evolving at the rate of 11 new species every single day. Now Ham is claiming kinds only total 1,000, which brings the number of species every day up to 33 new species. How have no humans, who also would have started from the Ark landing spot same as the animals, seen these species multiplying and evolving at the rate required for your scenario. You claim Bill Nye made points that did not affect anything, but these directly shows the ludicrous insertions into known mechanisms that creationist must go through, completely on the base of zero evidence (during a time when humans could write, too). Simply Amazing!