Bill Nye has a new book coming out in November, Unstoppable: Harnessing Science to Change the World
This has Ken Ham annoyed. Don’t you know that if you look at everything through the lens of the Bible, you don’t have to worry about climate change? He gives a nice succinct summary of his version of climate history.
Originally, the climate was created perfect, but sin changed everything (Genesis 3), and we no longer have a perfect climate. During the global Flood of Noah’s day about 4,350 years ago the climate was radically changed when the surface of the Earth was reshaped by the Flood. The Flood was followed by an Ice Age, which further changed our climate, and climates have gone up and down since. Fluctuations can happen quite quickly and are not cause for grave concern in regard to man’s supposed impact as Bill Nye claims. So when you start with God’s Word, you have an entirely different worldview through which to view climate change and therefore you reach entirely different conclusions about the nature and severity of it. It is true that Bill Nye’s religion of evolutionary naturalism causes him to wrongly interpret climate change. So, in essence, Bill Nye’s new book is indeed a religious book!
I don’t even know what “perfect” climate is.
But I do know he’s wrong. When your “worldview” is based on false facts, it crumbles.
There was no global flood in the 24th century BCE. There is no evidence at all for it, and lots of evidence against it. There were civilizations in Mesopotamia, the Indus valley, China, and Egypt concurrent with this imaginary flood; they didn’t suddenly snuff it, and kept making records, totally unperturbed, throughout this period when they were supposed to be busy drowning. Almost immediately after the date of Noah’s flood, Sargon of Akkad started building his empire, taking over hosts of cities along the Tigris and Euphrates. Was Sargon on the big boat? How did populous cities suddenly appear within a decade or two of their total destruction and the depopulation of the planet? People don’t breed that fast!
The last ice age ended about 11-12,000 years ago. If it had occurred sometime after 2350BCE, you’d think someone would have noticed, especially the northern Europeans who’d be living under a kilometer or two of ice.
I do agree entirely with his statement that when you start with God’s Word, you have an entirely different worldview through which to view climate change and therefore you reach entirely different conclusions about the nature and severity of it.
I would reach different conclusions about how the world operated if I believed that magic worked and that fairies propelled themselves through the sky on farts made of CO2 and methane. That doesn’t make your conclusion true.
And that last nonsense…Bill Nye accepts the best available evidence, which leads to certain necessary conclusions. That is not religion. For it to be religion, he’d have to have faith in spite of the evidence, like a certain religious fanatic who demands acceptance of obvious historical and scientific counterfactuals.
I admire Ham’s ability to respond with “no YOU!” when he’s not even being addressed. It’s really something.
Whereinhell is there an ice age in the Bible?
@chigau
Fun fact: A talking donkey is widely regarded as a metaphor for ice ages.
(Fun fact #2: The above fun fact is actually a mirthful mendacity.)
depending on your definition of “quick”. Previous climate changes took thousands of years, to do the same as what has recently happened in only a hundred.
We looked for natural causes, yet a significant forcing factor is consumption of fossil fuels (with pretty clear correlation of the two variables).
But, true, when you look through bible lens, all climate change from ice age to temperate have occurred quite quickly. (~6000 yr time span)
When one disregards facts and values stories more highly. *blech*
I love it when Talibangelicals try to claim that an unwitting humanity can foil the plans of the all-knowing, all-powerful Creator of the Universe. It’s like we are the Inspector Clouseau to God’s arch-villain or something.
Watching religious people use “religion” as nothing sort of an insult, never gets old.
@ PZ:
Well obviously a perfect climate is a climate in which a couple of humans can walk around naked without being too hot or too cold and not getting sunburnt. You know … nice sun with the occasional fresh breeze around the privates at noon.
What do you mean “such a climate would be fatal for arctic animals like penguins or polar bears; or many tropical animals and plants”? Hey look at that! two gays want to get married! Worry about that, not such silly things like scientific facts.
I wonder what Ham’s answer would be to the question of why God didn’t just fix things after Adam and Eve ate the fruit. Perhaps it’s because the early version of God in Genesis wasn’t omnipotent, and couldn’t fix stuff that was broken. Not that Ham would believe that, there’s no way God could evolve.
Hamster wrote (in that article linked to):
ah so. depends on one’s definition of “true”, I suppose. I know the Bible is claimed by its fans to be actual history, but, once again, such claims need supporting documents corroborating events described in a document allegedly history. We look all over for such corroborating documents, and they rarer than fossils, which are millions yrs older.
Notice, also, that Hamster kinda jiggles his “holy timeline”, throwing a 10,000 in there, which, according to his “true history book”, is beyond the book’s scope of coverage.
I too, like @2, question how the IceAge was documented in that “true history” book. Ham, I suppose, will just say he “knows” it was in there, but the chapter just got omitted in one of the translation boondogles.
Well, obviously the penguins and polar bears were changed by sin, too! They used to be smaller, thinner and well-adapted to perfect climate until the major diet change from the Fall caused them to put on extra pounds from eating animals instead of plants. Then the accumulated stress from the Flood, as well as their long trip to their current habitat on the backs of floating vegetation mats, was so intense that they turned to binge eating to cope for years, becoming the big, fat, cold-resistant creatures they are today. The penguins ate so much that not only did they lose the ability to fly, but when they hit max capacity the fat just started turning into more feathers.
Duh.
I love the fact that Ken’s coup de grace is that his opponent is writing a religious book. Is it because we all know religious books are full of shit? Or is it some lame attempt at hurting the atheists feelings by questioning the “purity” of the atheist’s atheism?
What is Hams idea here? Does he think people who like Nye and/or science in general slap their forehead and go “Ham is RIGHT, Bill Nye is just another religious kook!, Maybe I should change my preferred religious kook?”
I had no idea. It must really have sucked being an ark survivor. First everything gets wiped out by the rising water, including the food supply. After the waters finally recede and the occupants get to step on soggy soil again everything apparently freezes over. And just to add insult to injury anyone who drowned, starved, froze or otherwise snuffed it would go straight to hell to burn for all eternity.
Thanks, Lord, your mercy truly knows no bounds.
Yah, screw the crops. I get my food from the supermarket. And water comes straight from the tap.
Unless you were one of the dudes. I mean, the world’s not going to repopulate itself. 8 people to 7 Billion. That’s a lot of erm… “Repopulating” *wink wink nudge nudge*
Job 38:22-23: Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail,
which I have reserved against the time of trouble, against the day of battle and war?
I was going to ask that. The chapters immediately after the flood don’t indicate any particularly different climate. Actually wouldn’t it be really hard to be grow a vineyard in an ice age as Noah did?
It is, of course, retro-hypothesizing. Hmm, we have this scientific evidence of an ice age; how can we fit it into the biblical textual time line? Well, A flood changes landscapes and climates so it must have been right after the flood. The annoying thing is Ham would argue that retro-hypothesizing is actually good science.
“So, in essence, Bill Nye’s new book is indeed a religious book!” Because methodology is religious faith. At this point I’m not surprised.
@Anders:
No. I think that’s a defense. There are conservative Christians who can think critically and examine evidence. Maybe they don’t do it around religion, but they can do it – doctors, lawyers, etc. Since the Enlightenment, religion has been losing the followers with those skills as soon as they start using critical thinking in areas related to their religion.
I think he’s saying to the Christians on the margins of his message, “Don’t critically analyze their information or its sources: it’s no more subject to critical analysis than the bible.”
Ham is such a silly goose. Everybody knows the world ended on May 21, 2011, or possibly on October 21. Harold Camping said it would, and he read the Bible at least as much as ol’ Hambone has.
So… Noah invented ice wine?
NO.
Evidence.
For.
This.
At all.
We know what evidence a flood leaves behind.
There is NO evidence of a world-wide flood. We can calculate how much water it would require to flood everything to the top of Everest, and there just isn’t that much water in the world.
It would also not be possible for the “refugees” in the ark to survive, as the atmosphere would be too thin and oxygen-sparse at that elevation for them to live for more than a few days, let alone over a year.
To which Hamm would ask, “Were you there?” and I would reply, “I don’t need to be standing in downtown Tokyo right now to know that the city exists and there are people living there.”
Usernames@19: are you sure about your air pressure claim? You’d still have the same mass of air, pushing down on a surface that is only slightly larger (an extra 8 km radius starting from about 6400 km is not a huge difference). I’d expect to have about the same sea-level air pressure after that.
There are indeed answers in Genesis. They are of course wrong answers.
Usernames! (╯°□°)╯︵ ʎuʎbosıɯ, if sea level rises, the air mass rises with it, so there would not be an appreciable thinning of the atmosphere.
@ #17:
The world ended in 2008. Weren’t you watching?
http://the-end.com/2008GodsFinalWitness/?gclid=CJXAw73k_JMCFQQmGgodjx_bWg
re 21:
ack, your mistake is trying to use science to refute the bible claim. if flood water raises the boat higher than the tallest mountains, the air there will be exactly the same as it is without the flood, air is thinner there and Noah survived through some unmentioned divine intervention to provide him with that oxygen stuff science has concocted to deceive us.
Well in Pleasantville it’s sunny everyday with 72 highs and 72 lows.
Perfect climate? Easy.
And so on.
leerudolph @ # 14: Job 38:22-23…
Oh, so close! Job 38:29 –
I wonder how Ham accounts for this “evidence” of his god having a uterus…
Well in Blaine, Missouri (“Waiting for Goffman”) there a circle where the weather where once you go into that circle, the weather never changes. It is always 67 degrees with a 40% chance of rain.
If there were a world-wide flood, where did the water go?
Of course science is a religion The scientists and the others who follow it worship a false god. That god is the devil the prince of lies
The christian god is the true god because he said so!
and it is written in the bible!
uncle frogy
@26 Pierce R. Butler:
Easy, it was ‘borrowed’.
Question for the fundies:
Did Noah take the whales onto the ark or did they have to swim along behind?
A bibble literalist I once engaged online tried to rationalise the global fludd by saying that in early bibblical days, mountains used to be much smaller. After all, the world used to be a nice place, and mountains aren’t generally nice places to be on. So, after da fludd, mountains quietly grew to their present size, a bit like mushrooms popping up after a good rain. And I suppose all those mountains soaked up a good bit of the water. See, he had read somewhere about mountains growing over time and thought this was the perfect explanation as to why there were sea shells on Mt Everest.
Perfect Climate: Fiji or Hawaii. They must be what Ham is referring to.
I saw a liberal christian who believed in the worldwide flood.
Ya that reminds me of one verse of the bible I like. The one about building your house on the rock VS the sand. The christian worldview is not built on anything solid or trustworthy.
Obligatory The Onion: http://www.theonion.com/article/sumerians-look-on-in-confusion-as-god-creates-worl-2879
I genuinely admire your ability to keep chasing after these nutcases, PZ.
“I don’t even know what “perfect” climate is.”
Why, the climate in the Garden of Eden before the Fall, of course!
See, you prove Ol’Hambo right.
Checkmate athiest evilutionist!
Let’s grant Ol’Hambo his honesty. He openly admits that he doesn’t care about Earth. Heaven is what matters. And the road to that destination goes first past him (don’t forget to donate!) and than past Jesus. In that order.
Well, it was muggy this summer…
God poofed it away. *sheesh*
Ham version of the Flood is incredibly destructive. To the landscape, I mean – the people don’t seem to count. The fact that the early parts of Genesis mention rivers that still exist, doesn’t seem to register with him. But a mention of ice implies an Ice Age – he agrees that there is strong geological evidence for an Ice Age, and he seems to be fishing for Biblical support (which is what he does with dinosaurs, too).
I’d run a world-wide flood by having lots of rain, and making the seas rise, which would not alter the geography at all, then after letting the waters drain slowly back into my magic hat, I’d say it would rain a little bit more, from all the humidity, washing away all sedimentary evidence. So, Biblical Flood, no evidence – kinda like everything else in the Bible, you gotta take it on faith.
It wasn’t only rain, the Fountains Of The Deep also Burst Forth.
Science™ has Confirmed this.
Google it. You’ll see.
haleyulahallehyhliahellyoulahYay!
Flanders and Swann said it best
Actually they *do* claim the original waters were subterranean and the world was mostly land with the earth’s crusts floating on underwater lakes. Noah called forth the animals from all over the world and they came which was no problem as there were no oceans or seas. Then the springs burst forth and it rained dog poop. The waters receded but now the world was covered with oceans and the earth crusts were now directly on the mantle. The non-middle-eastern animals got off the arc and hopped on the plenty of driftwood and flotsam and drifted to their current continents.
That’s really what many (I think ham included) think.
When I started reading this, I wondered if these people would still believe the bible if it were totally batshit crazy. By the time I finished, I realized, yes, they DO believe it.
wcorvi @43: If the bible were totally batshit crazy?
@6 That’s what it looks like to us, but to them I think it’s more of a defense mechanism for the house of cards that is creationist epistemology. If they can reduce the scientific consensus down to a religion, then they can argue that the biblical creationism is on at least equal footing. There was a caller to The Atheist Experience show a week or two back that was rhetorically ramrodding the idea that all scientific theories are just bald claims, and tried to shout the hosts down when they explained the basis of those claims (i.e. peer review, reproducible, fits with other related models, etc.). They know that science has their beliefs held by the short hairs, and they will attack it regardless of how inane those attacks are.
Isn’t this a step forward for Mr Ham? He’s come to the point where climate change does actually happen. He’s just denying humans have anything to do with it. Could swear i remember him denying it even happens at one time. Ham is a regular progressive in his own way. Much the way continental drift progresses that is.
As far as Ham’s explanation. Bill said it best.
Oh man, I forgot to hyperlink that video. Sorry if that slowed your load time for the thread.
In fact I forget how to hyperlink a video for Pharyngula. I’m such an idiot. I’ll just crawl away now.
Wasn’t it Bill Nye whom I read about a while back, saying that he hadn’t originally thought climate change was real, but then he spent some time with the scientists who had studied it and now he was going to have to go back and rewrite some of his books? I’d like to see Ken Ham come to a conclusion like that. See? Science can change it’s mind. Religion can’t. It’s not allowed to, or it would have to admit that it could be wrong about other things too. With science, being wrong is expected. It’s how we learn and become more right! Learn something Ham.
Humans have NOT survived an ‘ice age’ within the past 5,000 years Liar Ken Ham.
Unlike with human evolution, the dogmatic YEC opposition to man-caused climate change is not obviously biblical in any way. Thus I think it is borderline insane.
There’s more YEC silliness here:
http://blog.drwile.com/?p=13701
Ham hates Nye so much – after Feb 2014 – that he feels compelled to attack a book he has not even read and which is not even about evolution vs creationism.
Not sure why my other (third) comment has failed to appear.