Bill Nye has become one of the most resolute defenders of evolution ever since his now-famous YouTube video declaring that fundie parents are harming kids by teaching them to deny evolution. You may know that The Science Guy went into one right-wing minefield by debating Ken Ham at the Creation Museum earlier this year. Well, last week he walked into another one--Newsmax TV--to promote his new book, "Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation." His message was blunt: Ham's outfit, Answers in Genesis, and others like it are raising kids to believe that thinking critically is verboten, and thus are putting our future ability to innovate in danger. Watch the whole thing here:
When I was digging more into this for a story I wrote at Liberal America, I couldn't help but notice--the strongest evidence for Nye's case comes from the creationists themselves. A significant number of creationists have moved away from poking holes in evolution to claiming that you have to reject it altogether since it cuts God out of the picture entirely. I actually heard this as early as my college days, when I happened on a creationist site which claimed that evolution is invalid because it "makes atheists out of people and lowers morality."
The worst offender in this is Ham. He contends that if you believe in evolution, you believe that man is "accountable to no-one," and that evolutionary theory has eroded society's Christian foundation. For almost three decades, he's used a "castle" illustration to demonstrate this--a version of which actually made its way into an Atlanta high school biology lesson.
Answers in Genesis' own statement of faith quadruples down on this, saying that no evidence is valid "if it contradicts the scriptural record." Translation: no matter what evidence you have, if it doesn’t jibe with the Bible, you can’t even consider it. And now at least one potential presidential candidate, Ben Carson, is on record as buying into this line. If there was any doubt that creation science and its bastard child, intelligent design, are NOT science at all, this should clinch it.
You can reason with people who just try to knock holes in the evidence for evolution. But people who say it's not valid at all because it doesn't jibe with the Bible? Nye isn't kidding--anyone who is teaching their kids this is telling their kids not to think.