Bill Nye was best known for hosting the science program “Bill Nye the Science Guy.” The funny thing about Nye is that he’s not a Ph.D.-credentialed scientist. I bring this up because evolutionists don’t consider anybody an authority on the subject of evolution unless they have a Ph.D. and have peer-reviewed articles. He has a number of honorary Doctor of Science degrees.
In 2010, Nye received the 2010 Humanist of the Year Award from the American Humanist Association, so we know his worldview commitment. There’s a lot to protect by dismissing anything that might call into question the operating assumptions of atheistic, materialistic evolution.
Nye enhanced his public notoriety by debating Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis on February 4, 2014. It was not a very good debate. Ham missed a great opportunity to slam the door on Nye but couldn’t resist debating points that the typical audience could not assimilate. The majority of people need to see things in basic contrast. Ham should have shown the impossibility of evolution from pond scum to the majesty of man, “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Ps. 139:14). He should have forced Nye into an unprovable corner.
Unfortunately, Ken Ham did not take my advice. Here’s what I wrote:
“Evolutionists must demonstrate (1) the origin of matter out of nothing (a topic they rarely want to talk about), (2) how inorganic matter evolved into organic matter (abiogenesis, life from nonlife, spontaneous generation which was disproved more than 150 years ago), (3) the origin of complex information and its meaningful organization (DNA programming for millions of life forms), and (4) a genetic explanation for why it is mandatory that anyone be moral or how morality can arise out of matter. If these four points cannot be demonstrated scientifically as well as observationally, then evolution is nothing more than a modern-day form of alchemy.”
Since then, Nye has been saying some rather ridiculous things about people who are skeptical of molecule to man evolution. Here’s his latest:
“The biggest danger creationism plays, according to Bill Nye the ‘Science Guy,’ is that it is raising a generation of children who ‘can’t think’ and who ‘will not be able to participate in the future in same way’ as those who are taught evolution.”
What does Nye mean when he says that the tens of millions of people who are skeptical about the claims of evolutionist won’t be able “to participate in the future in same way”? Is he trying to say that laws will be passed to keep skeptics of evolution out of certain jobs? Will he and his fellow evolutionists work to make it mandatory for colleges only to allow full-fledged evolutionists to attend?
Here’s a frightening statistic for Bill Nye: Only about 19 percent of Americans believe that humans evolved and “God had no part in the process” as this chart shows:
Nye is kicking against the statistical goads (Acts 26:14) of competing arguments being made even though evolutionists have had a near monopoly on education in the United States. But where there are no institutional gatekeepers to stop the free flow of information, people continue to question the major unproven tenets of evolution. Most people don’t find Nye’s arguments compelling. There are too many unproven arrogant assertions.
Is Nye implying that people who deny the theory of evolution will one day be denied teaching positions at the university level? You may not know that this is already happening. Ph.D.-holding professors have been denied tenure because of their creationist or intelligent design beliefs. A professor who even hints that he’s a creationist of any type will come under academic scrutiny in a way similar to the way Aristotelian scientists worked to discredit Galileo in order to validate their academic positions.
You see, it was the Bible that was being read through the interpretive lens of Aristotle’s earth-centered (geo-centric) cosmos:
“Aristotle—not the Bible—taught explicitly that ‘everything moves around the earth.’ . . . Galileo was condemned, not because the Bible conflicted with observation but because he differed with the church over what authority should be used to interpret it.” ((Philip J. Sampson, 6 Modern Myths About Christianity and Western Civilization (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2001), 39.))
Many modern-day secular scientists, historians, and textbook writers contend that the church opposed scientific speculations like those of Copernicus and Galileo because they contradicted the Bible in some way. The true story of sixteenth-century belief systems regarding science is far more complex and thoughtful than most moderns would have us believe. It’s unfortunate that the textbooks obscure the truth to score academic and worldview points.
Medieval science as practiced by Christians went astray when “the Bible was . . . read through ‘Greek’ spectacles.” ((R. Hooykaas, Religion and the Rise of Modern Science (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1972), xiii.)) The Greeks were right in many of their observations and experiments (the few they actually did), but the West’s almost religious attachment to Greek cosmology was what most impeded scientific advancement.
Since the Bible says very little about science as compared to what we know today and expresses no comprehensive cosmological theory beyond that God “created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1), the sun, moon, and stars are for observational signs and not objects of worship (1:14-15; Deut. 4:19; Isa. 47:12–15), and the cosmos operates in terms of fixed laws, it was natural to look at practiced and studied theories that might explain how the heavens operate. Aristotelian cosmology was seemingly a rational choice. Unfortunately, it turned out to be the wrong choice.
Galileo expressed it like this: “That the intention of the Holy Spirit is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how the heavens go.”
Here’s what sixteenth-century theologian and Bible commentator John Calvin (1509-1564) wrote on Genesis 1:16:
“Moses wrote in the popular style things which, without instruction, all ordinary persons, endued with common sense, are able to understand; but astronomers investigate with great labor whatever the sagacity of the human mind can comprehend. Nevertheless, this study is not to be reprobated, nor this science to be condemned, because some frantic persons are wont boldly to reject whatever is unknown to them. For astronomy is not only pleasant, but also very useful to be known: it cannot be denied that this art unfolds the admirable wisdom of God.” ((John Calvin, Commentaries on the First Book of Moses, Called Genesis, trans. John King, 2 vols., reprint (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1948 ), 1:86-87.))
The use of accommodating language remains with us today. Sunrise and sunset are terms used even by the most sophisticated scientists. Here’s an example from the NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration:
Nye should know this history. He should also know that, as Rodney Stark writes, “the rise of science was not an extension of classical learning. It was the natural outgrowth of Christian doctrine: nature exists because it was created by God. In order to love and honor God, it is necessary to fully appreciate the wonders of his handiwork. Because God is perfect, his handiwork functions in accord with immutable principles. By the full use of our God-given powers of reason and observation, it ought to be possible to discover these principles.” ((Rodney Stark, The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success (New York: random house, 2005), 22-23.))
Nye has no comparable system of thought that could give credibility and reliability to science, especially since he trusts an evolved brain and an immaterial mind as the basis for declaring what’s true and false. Astounding!
Is Nye saying that someone who denies evolution can’t be an engineer, medical doctor, surgeon, chemist, pilot, musician, computer programmer, artist, or any skilled profession? He would have to dismiss some of the greatest minds and their works the world has ever seen. Nye would even have to reject the operating assumption as to the source of our rights as spelled out in the Declaration of Independence, that they are an endowment of the Creator and not the State.
The thing of it is, I know people in each of these fields, and they are all creationists. In fact, it’s the creationists who are more rational and scientific than the evolutionists. In each of these fields the four points I listed above operate. No one expects life to generate from non-life. No one believes that complicated systems like computer programs will run without organized information.
When I was in college and taking biology, anatomy, and physiology, I don’t recall any of my professors ever arguing that evolution was necessary to do science.
It’s evolutionists like Nye who are irrational and ideologically schizophrenic. They live inconsistently with their operating assumptions in a world that can’t be explained by the major tenets of evolution.
I’ve been reading Ed Catmull’s book Creativity, Inc. Catmull is president of Pixar animation and Disney animation. I don’t know where he stands on the creation-evolution debate. He holds a Ph.D. in computer science. Catmull, with training in physics, describes how watching Donald Duck being drawn and coming to life shaped his desire to enter the animation field:
“The definition of superb animation is that each character on the screen makes you believe it is a thinking being. Whether it’s a T-Rex or a slinky dog or a desk lamp, if viewers sense not just movement but intention—or, put another way, emotion—then the animator has done his or her job. It’s not just lines on paper anymore; it’s a living, feeling entity. This is what I experienced that night, for the first time, as I watched Donald leap off the page. The transformation from a static line drawing to a fully dimensional, animated image was sleight of hand, nothing more, but the mystery of how it was done—not just the technical process but the way the art was imbued with such emotion—was the most interesting problem I’d ever considered. I wanted to climb through the TV screen and be part of this world” (8-9).
This descriptive story explains a great deal about the creation-evolution debate. Donald Duck didn’t just appear on paper. Lines did not converge randomly to create him. An animator— designer—had to conceive and draw him and put him in motion. As simple as an animated feature is to conceive and create, it’s a complicated process taking thousands of individual decisions and actions. But it is not as complicated as claiming that nothing became something and that something evolved into the animator that conceived and put “emotion” into Donald Duck.