Tuesday, February 04, 2014

Hamming it up

So... just watched most of the Nye/Hamm debate.

Until I reached the Hamm Limit. That's the point at which one more misrepresented or just ridiculous statement out of Ken Hamm's mouth makes me want to resort to violence. I just can't stand listening to him prattle on and thinking that, somehow, his creationism is anything like legitimate. Or a realistic alternative to science.

Not once did he offer a single, testable prediction from creationism. Not once did he really *refute* a single point that showed the weakness of that POV.

He did, however, offer vagueness and varnish and a lot of hand-waving and misrepresentation, ironically referring to science as "smoke and mirrors" when he offered the same thing.

What finally did me in and got me just to the limit of being sick of him was his response about stars. Why is the universe expanding? God said it is. Why did God make all the stars and planets? For his glory...

What kind of answer is that? It's NOT an answer. Not in the scientific sense (give me something testable, something falsifiable,) or even in the common understanding. It's a *response.* And the response is one that just highlights how... *sad* creationism is.

Creationism wants to stifle curiosity. Creationism wants to stifle understanding. Science tries to answer questions. It tests things, rejects the bad, keeps the good - and finds more questions to ask with both sets of results! WHY did this fail? WHY did this succeed? What happens if I change this variable? Science celebrates and embraces curiosity and questioning. Religion? "God did it. That's the end. You don't know God's mind, don't question why."

It's just *sickening.*