One of TV’s best known science educators, Bill Nye, wrapped up this week’s visit to Kentucky by debating the founder of the Creation Museum Tuesday evening.
Ken Ham, the founder and CEO of the museum in Northern Kentucky, challenged Nye to debate the topic, “Is Creationism a viable model of origins in today’s modern scientific era.”
Ham believes science can be reconciled with a belief that the world was created in six days and is only six thousand years old, a view that comes from a literal interpretation of the Bible.
“I don’t know of any other religion that has a book that starts off by telling you there’s an infinite God and talks about the origin of the universe and the origin of matter and the origin of light and the origin of darkness and the origin of day and night," Ham said during the debate.
Ham invited Nye to debate following Nye’s 2012 YouTube video in which he stated that teaching divine creation was harmful to children and to American society.
The man known as the "Science Guy" continued that theme during the debate Tuesday night.
“Kentucky voters, voters who might be watching online in places like Texas, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Kansas. Please, you don’t want to raise a generation of science students who don’t understand how we know our place in the Cosmos, our place in space, who don’t understand natural law. We need to innovate to keep the United States where it is in the world.”
Nine-hundred audience tickets to the event sold out within minutes after being made available last month.
The organization that operates the Creation Museum, Answers in Genesis, says over 10,000 churches, schools, colleges and other groups were planning to participate by viewing a live video stream of the debate.
