Tea party advocate Michael Patrick Leahy here:
Though Tuesday night’s Bill Nye-Ken Ham show was billed as a debate between supporters of evolution and “creation as a model of origins,” it was in fact merely a media event designed to promote two commercial brands and one failing cable network: Bill Nye the “Science Guy,” Ken Ham’s Creation Museum, and CNN.
As the program opened, moderator Tom Foreman of CNN claimed Nye and Ham would debate this question:
“Is creation a viable model of origins in today’s modern scientific era?”
The two protagonists, however, were ill suited to present a full discussion of this question because they represent just two of the five major schools of thought on the issue. Only the two far extremes – atheistic evolution as argued by Nye, and “Young Earth Creationism” as argued by Ham – were represented. Supporters of three major schools of thought that would have vigorously argued in the affirmative – theistic evolution, intelligent design, and “Old Earth Creationism” – were not invited to participate.
Casey Luskin over at Evolution News & Views called it a huge, missed opportunity.
Doubtless. Both Leahy and Luskin are in general right but does anyone really believe that the shards of today’s legacy media would care about a debate about, say, the 600 million-year-old comb jellies that are making matchsticks of Darwin’s “tree of life”? That’s not remotely who those ambulance chasers are.
No, until the day they go under, it will all be “science” vs. “the Bible.” Next question?
Also, from Leahy:
CNN may, however, have succeeded in achieving something it needs badly: getting a bump in its dismal ratings. After the “debate,” Nye and Ham appeared on CNN’s Piers Morgan Live.
If the Nye-Ham media event generates better ratings for CNN, we may soon see Nye and Ham co-hosting Crossfire. Or perhaps Tuesday’s extravaganza was just a pilot episode of CNN’s new game show: Family Origins Feud.
Would it unseat Duck Dynasty at the top?
Follow UD News at Twitter!