Creation Museum Founder and Answers in Genesis President/CEO Ken Ham will debate Bill Nye at the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky. on Tuesday, February 4, at 7 PM.
The two will participate in a public face off over life’s origins. The event will offer the public a rare and unique opportunity to hear a prominent creationist and a famed evolutionary theorist fully air their views on life’s origins — something that doesn’t often happen in one place.
Bill Nye is the former host of the popular Bill Nye the Science Guy TV program for children, current Executive Director of the Planetary Society, and frequent pro-evolution guest on TV interview programs.
The roots for the sold-out debate were apparently set in 2012 when Nye lambasted creationists in a Big Think video and proclaimed that teaching ideas contrary to evolutionary theory is damaging to both children and society.
Christians hold the opposing view. That the emptiness of the evolutionary theory are the source of a lawless society and the devaluing of human life.
At the time, Ham and his organization, Answers in Genesis, responded with video critiques of their own. And when an Associated Press reporter contact both Ham and Nye to discuss the back-and-forth, Answers in Genesis asked the reporter to inquire whether the “science guy” would be interested in going head-to-head with Ham.
Nye inevitably agreed — and more than a year later that debate is slated to become a reality.
Ham said that he hasn’t spoken personally yet with Nye, though the two parties are working through their representatives to hash out the details of their debate.
“Right now, we’re still working with his publicist on the terms. We’ve made a proposal to them and they’re getting back to us supposedly [on Tuesday],” he said. “The proposal we’ve made … 40-45 minutes for each presentation, [there will be] time for rebuttal and the moderator will take questions. A normal debate format.”
Ham said he’s hopeful that, despite sometimes being ignored in the mainstream media and public schools, people will see that creationists also have valid arguments about life’s origins.
“People will see a person who is a creationist and Christian who’s prepared to defend position … in a logical and challenging way and I’m hoping that it will challenge many people in regard to the whole issue of origins,” he said.
The creationist thinker also said he’s concerned that generations of children are being taught that they are merely animals and that there is no God. Such teachings, Ham contended, have an impact on how children view both themselves and the world around them.
Ken Ham left a position as a public school science teacher in Queensland, Australia in 1979 after being engaged in part-time creation speaking for three years (primarily on weekends). When he resigned from his teaching position in 1979, Ken used a small retirement payment to buy the ministry’s first photocopier and electric typewriter to start what would later become Answers in Genesis(AiG).
AiG–U.S. saw hundreds of new radio stations carrying the Answers radio program, a huge boost in visits to the AiG website (now averaging around 25,000 visits a day), and several hundred requests each year to conduct teaching meetings. In 2006, the www.AnswersInGenesis.org website received the prestigious “Website of the year” award from the National Religious Broadcasters, a group of 1,300 ministries (including most of the large Christian groups in America). In the previous year, Answers was nominated as NRB’s best radio teaching program.
Be in prayer for Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis as they are used by the Lord on these foundational issues. Since announcing Nye‘s participation, Ham said he’s seen atheists and secularists urging the former PBS host to pull out of the event, claiming that, by debating Ham, Nye is giving credence and a platform to creationist ideas.
