Bill Nye debates creationism with Ken Ham

[Nero the Giant Whiscash]

@Jolene;

There are only a few major questions which we are currently unable to answer, and probably will not be able to answer. What caused the singularity which produced the Big Bang? Where does our sense of morals come from? How do we define consciousness, and why are we self-conscious? What is my purpose in life? These are the questions that religion is here to answer, why religion exists to this day.

Which is why religion or belief in some higher power or "God" along the lines of Deism or Letsism will most likely exist for as long as there are humans around.

 

[The_Pikachu]

What are you trying to say here? In any case, a creationist view, these bacteria should surely remain stagnant. Why should they develop features that adapt to their surroundings? And why should they develop different traits seeing how they came from the same source?

There could be two animals in the canidae family that were created, and those canidae would breed and create an large variety of dogs.

There is really no evidence of this as far as I know. Why just two? Why not several? It really doesn't hold up very well if you ask me.

In response to the first bolded section, where in the creationist view does it say the bolded cannot happen?

 

[GliscorMan]

@The_Pikachu; I direct you to my post where I state specific things which the new-earth creationist contradicts.

 

[The_Pikachu]

I'm going to preface this by saying that my intention is to educate, not to offend.

There are genetic components which effectively debunk Ken Ham's "family" argument. The homeobox genes.

Homeobox (HOX) genes refer to a set of ~235 genes present in every single animal species. These genes follow similar patterns within all species, and have the exact same pieces of genetic code preceding them. These highly conserved genetics refer to body parts in a similar way to how a person would code in HTML. A head section, a body section, leg sections, arm sections, etc. It's only the content after these pieces (like after a <header> tag) that differ among species. There have been experiments in which biologists removed the highly-conserved "tag" parts of the HOX gene in a fruit fly embryo and replaced them with the equivalent HOX gene extracted from a human cell. The fly developed and grew completely normally.

Source

This might seem confusing to non-biologists, which is why it isn't taught in your average course. But the connotations are clear; the genetics in all animal species shares a common ancestor.

Also, directed to the people above who believe that the origins of life is a hole in the evolutionist argument, I give you the Miller-Urey experiment.

Two scientists, way back in the 50's simulated the early-Earth atmosphere environment in a sealed, closed-system, and added heat radiation and electrical sparks (simulating lightning). This combination of chemicals, electricity, and heat actually created over 20 amino acids, which are the basic building blocks of proteins. In addition, this experiment was adjusted in 2007-2008 to include an extra proportion of certain chemicals that are released by volcanic eruptions, because there is geological evidence of such eruptions having occurred. They managed to produce an even wider variety of amino acids.

Source

There was also a study which determined that RNA could have easily started reproducing itself by accident, given stable conditions. In addition, it is common knowledge in biology that fatty acids (such as phospholipids) naturally form bubbles similar to the cellular membranes found across all forms of life. I don't have links to these, though, because I don't remember the names of the studies.

Now, a common argument for Creationism in general is that it's technically possible. Well yes. But it's also possible that the world was created yesterday, under the same argument. Possible, but not at all probable. Similar to the chance of the molecules in my hand aligning just right with the molecules in my keyboard so that my hand falls into the keyboard, molecularly, and gets stuck. Technically possible, but statistically impossible.

Um, what's his family argument?

 

[GliscorMan]

Um, what's his family argument?

The one which states that species evolved within "families", such as a canine family, a feline family, etc.

 

[The_Pikachu]

Um, what's his family argument?

The one which states that species evolved within "families", such as a canine family, a feline family, etc.

Ok, so what you're saying is that all life forms are similar to each other. This doesn't however mean that there is the ability for one family to evolve into another family. In fact, one could say that having similar life forms points toward the fact that there was an creator, by simply saying that one "God" created it, and use this to say since one thing created it, his creations are similar.

 

[GliscorMan]

Um, what's his family argument?

The one which states that species evolved within "families", such as a canine family, a feline family, etc.

Ok, so what you're saying is that all life forms are similar to each other. This doesn't however mean that there is the ability for one family to evolve into another family. In fact, one could say that having similar life forms points toward the fact that there was an creator, by simply saying that one "God" created it, and use this to say since one thing created it, his creations are similar.

I think you mistake what his theory is. It isn't evolution from families into each other, it's the evolution of that entire family from a single member of that family, all within the individual family. And no, you'd expect that humans (supposedly being modeled after God) would have little to nothing in common with other creatures.

 

[The_Pikachu]

Um, what's his family argument?

The one which states that species evolved within "families", such as a canine family, a feline family, etc.

Ok, so what you're saying is that all life forms are similar to each other. This doesn't however mean that there is the ability for one family to evolve into another family. In fact, one could say that having similar life forms points toward the fact that there was an creator, by simply saying that one "God" created it, and use this to say since one thing created it, his creations are similar.

I think you mistake what his theory is. It isn't evolution from families into each other, it's the evolution of that entire family from a single member of that family, all within the individual family. And no, you'd expect that humans (supposedly being modeled after God) would have little to nothing in common with other creatures.

I don't remember him saying his family theory. Could you show me him explaining it so I can understand his theory? Also, even though something is in the image of something, it doesn't mean that it has nothing in common with other things. For example, you can mold clay into the image of an ball, but the clay ball will still have the same components as regular clay.

 

[H-con]

In response to the first bolded section, where in the creationist view does it say the bolded cannot happen?

First of, why should it? In a strict creationist view, why should life evolve at all? After all, that's implied. In an intelligent design point of view (which is just rebranded creationism), it doesn't really make much sense for only one colony to be favored over all the other when they came from the same source and had the same prerequisites. It really doesn't add up if you ask me.

Of course, it somewhat depends on what you define as creationism (however, by far a more literal definition is what a lot of people use, and it's what I'm arguing against here). However, seeing how abiogenesis and evolution are somewhat different things, and no doubt there's probably a fair bunch of people that god (or whatever you want to believe in) created life originally and then let evolution do it's thing. I guess we could theoretically prove abiogenesis possible by simulating it ourselves (emphasis on the theoretical bit, as the time scales involved are probably pretty large and replicating exact environments is realistically not going to happen any time soon, although some experiments have been made with somewhat positive results, as posted earlier.), but people would still argue whether or not it actually happened, not just if it can.

 

[GliscorMan]

Um, what's his family argument?

The one which states that species evolved within "families", such as a canine family, a feline family, etc.

Ok, so what you're saying is that all life forms are similar to each other. This doesn't however mean that there is the ability for one family to evolve into another family. In fact, one could say that having similar life forms points toward the fact that there was an creator, by simply saying that one "God" created it, and use this to say since one thing created it, his creations are similar.

I think you mistake what his theory is. It isn't evolution from families into each other, it's the evolution of that entire family from a single member of that family, all within the individual family. And no, you'd expect that humans (supposedly being modeled after God) would have little to nothing in common with other creatures.

I don't remember him saying his family theory. Could you show me him explaining it so I can understand his theory? Also, even though something is in the image of something, it doesn't mean that it has nothing in common with other things. For example, you can mold clay into the image of an ball, but the clay ball will still have the same components as regular clay.

The closest I can find is this summary:

Finches come from a common finch, Ham argues, not another common animal. That’s why Noah only needed one species of dog on the ark. "Dogs will always be dogs, finches will always be finches."

This is roughly 26 minutes into the debate, if you find an online version and care to skim around. It heavily implies that these species have nothing in common, when the HOX genes disprove this. You can take HOX genes from any animal and substitute them into any other animal with no abnormal effects.

 

[The_Pikachu]

Um, what's his family argument?

The one which states that species evolved within "families", such as a canine family, a feline family, etc.

Ok, so what you're saying is that all life forms are similar to each other. This doesn't however mean that there is the ability for one family to evolve into another family. In fact, one could say that having similar life forms points toward the fact that there was an creator, by simply saying that one "God" created it, and use this to say since one thing created it, his creations are similar.

I think you mistake what his theory is. It isn't evolution from families into each other, it's the evolution of that entire family from a single member of that family, all within the individual family. And no, you'd expect that humans (supposedly being modeled after God) would have little to nothing in common with other creatures.

I don't remember him saying his family theory. Could you show me him explaining it so I can understand his theory? Also, even though something is in the image of something, it doesn't mean that it has nothing in common with other things. For example, you can mold clay into the image of an ball, but the clay ball will still have the same components as regular clay.

The closest I can find is this summary:

Finches come from a common finch, Ham argues, not another common animal. That’s why Noah only needed one species of dog on the ark. "Dogs will always be dogs, finches will always be finches."

This is roughly 26 minutes into the debate, if you find an online version and care to skim around. It heavily implies that these species have nothing in common, when the HOX genes disprove this. You can take HOX genes from any animal and substitute them into any other animal with no abnormal effects.

Ok, correct me if I'm wrong, but Ken Ham is not saying that they necessarily evolved, Ken Ham is saying that the common dog had all the genes to create every single dog. So, how does your evidence disprove it?

 

[GliscorMan]

Um, what's his family argument?

The one which states that species evolved within "families", such as a canine family, a feline family, etc.

Ok, so what you're saying is that all life forms are similar to each other. This doesn't however mean that there is the ability for one family to evolve into another family. In fact, one could say that having similar life forms points toward the fact that there was an creator, by simply saying that one "God" created it, and use this to say since one thing created it, his creations are similar.

I think you mistake what his theory is. It isn't evolution from families into each other, it's the evolution of that entire family from a single member of that family, all within the individual family. And no, you'd expect that humans (supposedly being modeled after God) would have little to nothing in common with other creatures.

I don't remember him saying his family theory. Could you show me him explaining it so I can understand his theory? Also, even though something is in the image of something, it doesn't mean that it has nothing in common with other things. For example, you can mold clay into the image of an ball, but the clay ball will still have the same components as regular clay.

The closest I can find is this summary:

Finches come from a common finch, Ham argues, not another common animal. That’s why Noah only needed one species of dog on the ark. "Dogs will always be dogs, finches will always be finches."

This is roughly 26 minutes into the debate, if you find an online version and care to skim around. It heavily implies that these species have nothing in common, when the HOX genes disprove this. You can take HOX genes from any animal and substitute them into any other animal with no abnormal effects.

Ok, correct me if I'm wrong, but Ken Ham is not saying that they necessarily evolved, Ken Ham is saying that the common dog had all the genes to create every single dog. So, how does your evidence disprove it?

Of course the common dog has all (or virtually all) genes to make every single dog; they're all the same species. But what Ken Ham said, specifically, was that the different species evolved from roughly 200 kinds. This is completely ludicrous considering the genetic, fossil, and physiological evidence we've found so far.

 

[The_Pikachu]

Um, what's his family argument?

The one which states that species evolved within "families", such as a canine family, a feline family, etc.

Ok, so what you're saying is that all life forms are similar to each other. This doesn't however mean that there is the ability for one family to evolve into another family. In fact, one could say that having similar life forms points toward the fact that there was an creator, by simply saying that one "God" created it, and use this to say since one thing created it, his creations are similar.

I think you mistake what his theory is. It isn't evolution from families into each other, it's the evolution of that entire family from a single member of that family, all within the individual family. And no, you'd expect that humans (supposedly being modeled after God) would have little to nothing in common with other creatures.

I don't remember him saying his family theory. Could you show me him explaining it so I can understand his theory? Also, even though something is in the image of something, it doesn't mean that it has nothing in common with other things. For example, you can mold clay into the image of an ball, but the clay ball will still have the same components as regular clay.

The closest I can find is this summary:

Finches come from a common finch, Ham argues, not another common animal. That’s why Noah only needed one species of dog on the ark. "Dogs will always be dogs, finches will always be finches."

This is roughly 26 minutes into the debate, if you find an online version and care to skim around. It heavily implies that these species have nothing in common, when the HOX genes disprove this. You can take HOX genes from any animal and substitute them into any other animal with no abnormal effects.

Ok, correct me if I'm wrong, but Ken Ham is not saying that they necessarily evolved, Ken Ham is saying that the common dog had all the genes to create every single dog. So, how does your evidence disprove it?

Of course the common dog has all (or virtually all) genes to make every single dog; they're all the same species. But what Ken Ham said, specifically, was that the different species evolved from roughly 200 kinds. This is completely ludicrous considering the genetic, fossil, and physiological evidence we've found so far.

200 kinds of what? Sorry, just need to know all the facts to argue. Also, you can break the quote chain if you want.