I while back I saw the now somewhat infamous YouTube video posted by the beloved Bill Nye the Science Guy via the Big Think. If you haven't seen it yet check it out here - Bill Nye's "Creationism is Not Appropriate for Children" . In it, as you may notice from the title, Nye basically dismisses the Creation worldview as unscientific and essentially a backwards, irrational perspective on the universe. In other words, teaching it to children is uncalled for. While there are numerous things I would like to tackle, there is one in particular that gets overlooked more often than not in the noise of the debate over creation and evolution- and that is substance.
By the term "substance" I mean what one of my all time favorite fast food joints used as a marketing tool - "Where's the Beef?" . That is, when anyone makes a claim about anything- what are they really saying and how much is meat is really there versus a fluffy bun? Anyone of us can make any claim we want. Backing it up as objectively true is another enterprise altogether.
A brief synopsis of Nye's stated points of argument:
1) America is still a leading innovator due to our general understanding of science.
2) a portion of our population doesn't believe in science and thus we are all held back as a result
3) Evolution is the fundamental idea in all of life science, in all of biology
4) a denial of Evolution is analogous to trying to do geology without believing in tectonic plates, you're not going to get the right answer, you're whole world is going to be a mystery instead of an exciting place.
5) he occasionally gets people who don't believe and he says "Why not?" ...here are these ancient dinosaur bones, fossils, here is radioactivity, here are distant stars, the idea of this deep time (billions of years) explains so much of the world we live in
6) if you try to ignore all of the above then your worldview becomes crazy, untenable, self-inconsistent
7) grownups, don't make your kids learn what you believe (contra evolution that is) because we need engineers who can build stuff and solve problems
8) in a couple of centuries that worldview just won't exist; there's no evidence for it
Obviously the brevity of this video doesn't allow for any detailed arguments. Still, I find it curious how one can comb through literature, debates, and videos such as this and find the same things repeated over and over. Just what are these same things that you are bound to run into? Assumptions, assumptions, and more assumptions. In argumentation this amounts to question begging, question begging, and yes, more question begging. Calling the above points an argument is actually not even accurate, because, well, it isn't one. It is more or less a laundry list of assertions.
Consider the first two points above. A passive, uncritical viewer of Nye's video might come away with the belief that Darwinian Evolution (DE) is science in the same way that say, electrical engineering is. Thus the viewer might infer that somehow our scientific prowess and progress somehow hinges on our acceptance of DE. But Nye doesn't say this directly, it is implied from two of his statements. It is this implied point that is in my experience the single most avoided point of DE- showing how it is science as opposed to say, a belief system.
Nye compares DE to tectonic plates. In what way are they analogous? We can empirically study and measure the plates in the here and now. While their history is one thing, their actual existence and reality are empirically established. Where is that done with DE? The answer is that it isn't.
Here we have ancient dinosaur bones, fossils, radioactivity, and distant stars... Even if we would grant all of these things as invariably proving deep time (which they don't), how does that get us to DE? Deep time is merely a necessary condition for DE to occur, it is hardly a sufficient one. Perhaps Nye is suggesting that those things are also indisputable facts of science, not subject to any interpreting or worldview bias. In which case he would be further insulating DE from any criticism. But this is only to sandwich question begging in layers. It doesn't give us any substantial answers. Where's the Beef Bill?
Consider his use of the phrase "ancient dinosaur bones." How does one scientifically establish that they are ancient? Or maybe, how has their antiquity been established scientifically? During the nearly 100 years of early geology and paleontology prior to Carbon dating, thinkers such as Hutton and Lyell had already laid the groundwork for paradigm of an old earth. Thus, dinosaurs were already "ancient" before we even got to Carbon dating. The current appeal to C14 and other forms of radiometric dating to prove dinosaur antiquity is much more fashionable than the prior geological axioms, which were logically circular (using fossils to date the rocks, and rocks to date the fossils). And while C14 and other radiometric methods actually contain solid, scientific elements- they still must rely on untestable, non-empirical assumptions.
If we add to this that modern secular geology is finally letting go of dogmatic uniformitarianism in favor of neo-catastrophism (see for example, Reed's "Untangling Uniformitarianism"), then the pillars that upheld the idea of dinosaurs necessarily being ancient are no longer there.
Lastly, point #7 above contains the most devastating seeds of DE's own destruction. If we need engineers who can "build stuff" and "solve problems," where do those things come from? The answer is that they come from the application of intelligence and logic to the world around us, not from uncritical dogmatism.
Did any of the pioneers of scientific discovery use Darwin's ideas to accomplish what they did? Did Francis Bacon use them to lay the ground for the scientific method? Did Louis Pasteur use them in his discoveries? Do you hope your physician studied the evolution of whales so that she can properly diagnose and treat your physical condition?
Here is the question that people like Nye should answer for us backward individuals- What scientific discoveries or advancements can be attributed in part or in whole to Darwin's idea of Evolution?
I think we know what the answer to that one is.
