Throwing Ham under the bus

Here are some comments I've run across regarding the Ham/Nye debate:

"I still respect Ken Ham a lot. I think he's doing tremendous work for the Kingdom and am not pleased at all by professing Christians who seem all to eager to throw him under the bus." 

"Give me a break! Like I said to disgruntled Christians, how about praying for Ken Ham instead of criticizing him? Is it Ham's fault that they promoted the debate better than Dr. Craig? Does the average Christian need 2 doctorates, etc. to do apologetics? Man...some Christians never have enough to complain about." 

"I had families from church over to watch the debate and there were 7 kids. Most of those kids got was Ham was saying. Now, had this debate featured a "higher level" Apologist who used more technical terms, those kids probably would not have followed."

i) I'm going to begin by saying some positive things about Ham. I appreciate the fact that he's been an outspoken critic of Peter Enns. That's more than I can say for the grand muftis in the PCA. Why is Enns still an elder in good standing in the PCA? He's been a ripe candidate for a heresy trial for some time.

Likewise, I appreciate the fact that Ham founded AiG. That's a very useful resource.

In interviews, Ham said he challenged Nye to a debate because the scientific establishment has silenced public debate over evolution in primary and secondary education, so this is a way of bypassing official censorship. Going over their heads to directly address the general public. That's why he also does the talk show circuit (The O’Reilly Factor and Fox and Friends in the Morning; CNN’s The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, ABC’s Good Morning America, the BBC). I think that's a commendable strategy.

ii) There's a right way and wrong way to score the Ham/Nye debate. For instance, you had old-earth creationists who said he lost because he defended young-earth creationism, and you had theistic evolutionists who said he lost because he defended young-earth creationism. But that's the wrong way to score the debate. Since he is a young-earth creationist, that's going to be his frame of reference. The proper standard of comparison would be the most sophisticated exponents of young-earth creationism. Did he bring to the debate the best that young-earth creationism has to offer? 

Now for the other side of the argument:

iii) Ham doesn't know his limitations. And that's not admirable. That's prideful. Given that he's recruited a number of contributors to AiG who have the expertise he lacks, why didn't he tap his own talent pool? Instead of presuming to spearhead the debate himself, why not volunteer one of his AiG contributors? Why not challenge Nye to debate one of them?

It's possible that Nye would have declined that challenge. However, since Nye is very self-confident, it wouldn't surprise me if he'd accepted the challenge. That would have given Nye a much stronger opponent. Consider Jerry Coyne's damning admission:

I hope that, in the future, Nye is not so emboldened by his success in this debate that he starts debating creationists. Eventually he will run into one that is not as Ham-handed as Ham, and he’ll lose badly.  

http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2014/02/05/who-won-the-big-evolutioncreation-debate/

iv) The debate question (“Is creation a viable model of origins?”) was so broad that it was practically impossible for a creationist to win. Nye can hurl too many objections at his opponent. There's not enough time to respond to the objections. So the debate question needed to be very narrow.

Sure, Nye could still go off-message, but in that event his opponent could the remind the audience that Nye was tacitly conceded that he lost the argument whenever he felt the need to change the subject.

v) Some Christians think we should go easy on Ham. Do they think your kid's high school biology teacher will go easy on Ham style arguments? Do they think your kid's college astronomy or geology prof. will go easy on Ham style arguments? If you send your kids into battle with light armor, they will return in bodybags. 

vi) No, the average Christian doesn't need two doctorates to do apologetics. But that misses the point. If you're going to defend Christianity on a national stage, then that raises the bar. Likewise, science is very specialized. You can't just bluff your way through a scientific debate if you lack scientific expertise.

vii) There's more to Christian faith than arguments. Some Christians don't need arguments. They've experienced God in unmistakable ways.

But if you are going to argue for the faith, then your argument should be able to withstand hostile scrutiny. It's pointless to argue for your position in the first place unless you have good arguments. A bad argument is worse than no argument. 

viii) I'm not clear on how Ken Ham relates creation science to biblical authority. To judge by the debate reviews, he seems to use the Bible to defend creation science rather than using creation science to defend the Bible. If so, that's backwards. Isn't the point of creation science to give scientific reasons for believing Gen 1-11? So Ham needs to defend creation science on scientific grounds. Creation science is supposed to provide supporting arguments for Gen 1-11, as well as scientific objections to Darwinism, &c. 

Moreover, to judge by the debate reviews, he appealed to biblical authority without giving the audience reasons for believing the Bible. But in a national debate, where many members of the TV audience are unbelievers, that's not something they will take for granted.