Introduction
Bill Nye, the mechanical engineer and well known host of the 1990s Disney/PBS educational show “Bill Nye the Science Guy,” is an ardent advocate of the theory of evolution. On August 23, a video was posted on YouTube titled “Bill Nye: Creationism Is Not Appropriate for Children.” It was designed to persuade people to stop teaching creationism to children and embrace evolution.
Yet for the thinking individual the video simply exposed the muddled thinking of Darwin’s disciples.
Creationist responses to Nye’s video have already been posted on YouΤube. The Institute for Creation Research (ICR) has posted “Bill Nye, Creationism is Highly Appropriate for our Children”
Answers in Genesis has posted “Ken Ham Responds to Bill Nye ‘The Humanist Guy’,” and Creation Ministries International has posted “CMI: Evolutionism is not appropriate for anyone.”
The purpose of this article is not to “reinvent the wheel” by again arguing the case against the theory of evolution (see CMI and Creation Research for further resources), but to show how much muddled nonsense an evolutionist can pack into a two-and-a-half minute video clip.
The Opening Statement
Let us begin with Nye’s opening statement:
Denial of evolution is unique to the United States. We are the world’s most advanced technological so[ciety] … generally the United States is where most of the innovation still happens. People still move to the United States and that’s largely because of the intellectual capital we have, the general understanding of science. When you have a portion of the population that doesn’t believe in that, it holds everybody back. Really.
Really? Nye tells us that “denial of evolution is unique to the United States” and he also tells us that the U.S. is “the world’s most advanced technological society … where most of the innovation still happens,” and then he tells that having a portion of the population denying evolution “holds everybody back.” Now, if denial of evolution holds people back, how is it that the one country (according to Nye) where one finds “denial of evolution” is “the world’s most advanced technological society”? If denial of evolution “holds everybody back,” how is it that the one country characterized by “denial of evolution” is the country “where most of the innovation still happens”?
This may be a small data set, but the facts on the ground here show the opposite of what Nye contends. Contra Nye’s claims, it seems that “denial of evolution” correlates with greater, not lesser, scientific advancement. We remember also that the officially atheistic U.S.S.R., whose worldview and education system revolved around the theory of evolution, lost the Cold War to the “evolution-denying” United States precisely because they were not able to compete economically or technologically with the “evolution-denying” United States.
One would expect a scientist to be able to draw correct conclusions from simple data, and it is not clear why Nye asserts the opposite of what is shown by the facts he himself adduces. At any rate, such a blatant gaffe in his opening statement would seem to stultify Nye’s whole case. But let us continue.
Is Evolution Fundamental?
Nye goes on to assert that, "Evolution is the fundamental idea in all of life sciences, in all of biology … You’re just not gonna get the right answer [if you don’t believe in evolution]."
Actually, the only utility of the theory of evolution in biology is to create jobs for biologists who sit around making up “just so” stories to invent evolutionary explanations for the phenomena we see. Not one practical development from the biological sciences, from eradicating polio to improving nutrition, has necessitated or been facilitated by belief in evolution.
Is Creationism Too Complicated?
Then Nye claims that, "Your whole world is just gonna be a mystery instead of an exciting place … Your world just becomes fantastically complicated when you don’t believe in evolution."
On the contrary, most atheists will admit that the concept of a creator God is not at all complicated (though they themselves reject it). It is belief in evolution that leads to complications and mystery, such as in regards to the origin of life. For example, any examination of the current state of origin of life studies shows that evolutionists are not able to proffer even one remotely viable naturalistic explanation for this (and they know it), which is not surprising since the science they worship has already concluded that life cannot come from non-living matter (the Law of Biogenesis). Mysterious indeed!
Next, Nye avers that, if you don’t believe in evolution, “Your world view just becomes crazy … untenable, self-inconsistent … completely inconsistent with everything we observe in the universe.“
The Argument for Creationism
Once again, Nye has it backwards; the creationist world view is consistent. It is the evolutionist world view that is wildly inconsistent. Consider the following:
“We observe in the universe” that every effect has a cause. Creationists see a cause for the universe and the life in it. Evolutionists must insist that there is no cause.
“We observe in the universe” that, whenever we can trace the cause of anything that exhibits the characteristics of design (specified complexity), it is always an intelligent agent. Specified complexity is never generated by undirected natural processes.
Apropos to the previous point, neither Bill Nye nor any other evolutionist would ever come across, say, a cave painting or an arrowhead and not know that it was made by an intelligent agent. Yet when it comes to the far more complex human brain, they insist that it came about by undirected natural processes.
The scientific method that evolutionists consider sacrosanct has discovered the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which tells us that complex molecules such as proteins and DNA cannot form spontaneously, yet evolutionists believe that this must have happened countless times, since without this the theory of evolution is impossible.
The scientific method that evolutionists consider sacrosanct has discovered the Law of Biogenesis, which tells us that life cannot arise from non-living matter, yet evolutionists believe that this must have happened, since without this the theory of evolution is impossible.
The scientific method that evolutionists consider sacrosanct has discovered that meaningful information such as that coded in DNA cannot be generated by undirected natural processes, yet evolutionists believe that this must have happened countless times, since without this the theory of evolution is impossible.
So every evolutionist believes at least three impossible things every day. To paraphrase Shakespeare, “Inconsistency, thy name is the theory of evolution.”
Nye’s diatribe against creationism, then, fails at every point. In the future, “The Science Guy” should stick to promoting science instead of shilling for the evolution fairy tale that is nothing more than the creation myth of secular humanism.
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