Bill Nye the Science Guy Debated Creationist Ken Ham

The argument comes down to those goddamn 4,300-year-old dinosaur bones, the very bones of our ancestors' playmates. "No one is going to convince me the word of God is not true. No one is going to tell me the flood is not true," states Ken Ham to a crowd of 900 spectators at the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky, where Ham is debating Bill Nye the Science Guy on the merits of creationism versus evolution. The audience of Kentuckians hangs on Ham's every thought, as he claims that all dinosaur fossils are simply remnants of Noah's biblical flood, and that this story is a historical, scientific fact. His voice gets stern: "Kids aren't being taught critically or correctly!"

I'm looking for someone to meet eyes with, to give the knowing wink that confirms this is complete bullshit, to perform the secret handshake of sanity. But I don't find it within this hall of citizens mostly clad in Cosby sweaters.

The exchange is getting heated, and a lot is on the line. The Big Bang theory is being held directly against the belief that the world was created in six literal (not metaphorical) days. In a different era, this Kentucky audience would be gathered in a courtroom watching science teachers on trial for teaching Darwinism to their children in public schools. At tonight's super-debate, creationists get their moment in the media sun, like an ugly girl who's happy she's finally getting all the attention. Tonight, science is pitted head-to-head against fairy tale. In one corner: natural history. In the other: a large, invisible magic man who created everything. This is the year 2014.

"Show me one piece of evidence, and I would change my mind immediately," retorts Ham's bow-tie-sporting opponent, with arms madly waving. The free world has elected TV's Bill Nye to defend evolution over creationism. OK, he's not a real scientist, but a man who once played The Science Guy on TV. (Apparently, the MythBuster guys were busy.) Galileo, Francis Bacon, Descartes, Hugh Miller… and now, Nye. Between stints on Dancing with the Stars, he has chosen to go mano-a-mano with creationist Ham. It's a media-frenzy-spectacle that would make Carl Sagan openly weep.

Yes, it's come to this: the culture war as live entertainment. Red state versus blue state—WWE-style. The liberal elite against those who demand that Duck Dynasty merchandise return to Cracker Barrel. Two men enter; one man exits. Go logic!

Big Bang Theory? You've Got To Be Kidding Me. God!

I've traveled to Kentucky to witness creationist Ken Ham duke it out for God's army with a home-field advantage—at the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky. My camera's charged. I have two pens and a new notebook. Off to a debate on evolution in front of a crowd of non-believers; how can this not be a good night out? As my radio scans a roulette of Jesus stations, a brown road sign trumpets the unaccredited Creation Museum at the next exit; farther ahead, a stone wall with depictions of 4,300-year-old dinosaurs marks my destination. (Is an unaccredited museum like an unaccredited zoo—three chimps, a dog, and a cat wearing sunglasses?) This is founder Ken Ham's $27 million Crazy Horse monument.

Arriving an hour and a half before the big showdown at the Garden of Eden Corral, the parking lot is already a sea of cars and big TV production trucks. A Waiting for Guffman nervous buzz resonates throughout the museum. (The world has come to our small town production of Guys and Dolls—right here in our auditorium.) The sign on the unaccredited museum door requires that visitors be respectful to the ideas expressed within its hallowed grounds (i.e., don't openly mock the insanity). The Creation Museum's motto, "Prepare to Believe," sounds like Criss Angel is about to perform a magic show.

"Are you excited about tonight's debate?" I ask a motherly volunteer at the door.

"We're not supposed to talk about it," she says from inside the 70,000 square foot hall of misinformation—where kids can get their photo taken while riding a lifelike dinosaur (the way God intended). "We want to make sure we get all the information right."

The debate will be live-streaming into schools around the country. The superhero matchup has been in the brewing for 14 months after Bill Nye posted a YouTube video, called "Creationism Is Not Appropriate for Children," which has garned some 6 million views.

Security for a creationism debate is intense: a row of uniformed sheriffs, bomb-sniffing dogs, attendees passing through TSA-style metal detectors, weapon pat-downs. A middle-aged blond woman has a security wand waved over her.

"Why all the security and the security dogs?" I ask a uniformed guard. (Aren't religious fanatics only supposed to bomb abortion clinics?)

"I really can't go into those reasons," he curtly replies.

"Mr. Nye has not arrived, so he will not be accessible to the media," announces the paternal-looking press liaison. (Not surprising; people who've met Bill Nye say he's kind of a dick.)

We, the esteemed media, are whisked past depictions of dinosaurs and children gleefully playing by a river into a small room for a pre-debate press conference with evolution-denier Ken Ham.

After a few awkward moments, Ham (former public-school science teacher and current conservative religious nut) emerges to confront a myriad of microphones and cameras to face the mainstream press. Clad in casual garb, Ham shows pre-debate jitters. FOX News moves in closer. (Perhaps for insights on fighting the War on Christmas?)

The floor is open for questions. I contain myself from asking: "Will you crucify Bill Nye in tonight's debate?" Don't get me wrong: I'm not mocking Ken Ham for having vastly different views on human origins; I'm mocking him for his ultra-creepy views on such things homosexuality ("Secularists continue to promote homosexual behavior as 'normal'"), marrying one's sister (It's in the Bible, so it's really OK), and how evolutionary thought is the culprit behind despised notions such as secular government, feminism, and moral relativism. In Mr. Ham's view, if you compromise one singular point in the Bible, the whole house of cards comes tumbling down until America resembles a daily San Francisco gay-pride parade. Ken Ham is the Alex Jones of religion.

"I tried to think how Bill Nye thinks," Ham astutely explains about his debate-preparation philosophy. (We're not so different, you and I, are we Mr. Nye?) "I did a lot of thinking and praying and asking God for a lot of wisdom."

"What do you think Nye's approach will be?" asks another reporter with a pre-game third degree.

"One of his major points: If you teach children creationism and not evolution, you're going to undermine technology," says Ham. "Some of the secularists have tried to shut down the discussion of origins in schools." Momentum: "If evolution is fact, like the secularists are saying, then why would they be afraid of us debating with them in public?" Answering his own question: "I think they're worried. They know that if we actually give information to people who previously didn't have access to it, they will start to think that maybe the Bible could be true!"

I furiously jot notes. Ham seems content, though his quote also brought to mind something evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins has said about giving creationists a public forum: "I wouldn't expect a gynecologist to have a debate with somebody who believes in the stork theory of reproduction." (Note: Babies don't come from storks.)

So what's really at stake: taxpayers' dollars going to fund creationism taught in public schools, passed off as scientific fact. More than $82 million in taxpayer dollars were given to schools in Texas, Arkansas, and Indiana to teach kids that women were created from a rib of a man in a magical, enchanted garden.

Then a reporter craps into Ham's creationist pool: "It's been said that the debate is good timing on your part due to the funding needed for the Ark park." (Ham's utopian construction of a scale-model Noah's Ark was halted due to lack of funds.) "With the publicity from this event, how would you react to people who would cynically say that's what this debate is all about?"

"It has nothing to do with the funding of the Ark," Ham snaps, his voice quivering to the tune of "They laughed at me at the academy."

"Can you talk about the funding of the Ark part and its status?"

"We're under strict instructions not to talk about it!"

"Thanks for coming," abruptly blurts the press liaison. "There will be someone here to escort you into Legacy Hall."

Awkward. Boom. Media questioning over!

Prepare to Believe

"Hey, guy, that's my spot," bellows a large man with a very long-lensed camera from the Cincinnati Enquirer, becoming territorial over a small corner of the large, packed auditorium. or 70 news outlets are in attendance; rows and rows of cameras poised at a stage littered with bookshelves (books show that something smart is about to happen) and photos of large dinosaurs. The media fanfare would make you expect a surprise visit from Sarah Palin riding in on a winged unicorn. "This should make the front page of the Cincinnati paper," boasts the cameraman's assistant.

The FOX News reporter delivers his pre-debate remote as if this were an epoch-making story that would transform history. ("This just in: The earth is only 6,000 years old!")

"Is this a big news event for you?" I ask a TV cameraman who looks like Philip Seymour Hoffman (RIP).

"This is more of a sporting event," he smirks.

Heroic new age music reverberates; a PowerPoint slide reads: "Biology. Sociology. Astronomy. Archeology. Geology." (These are big words denoting a sense of importance.) As the mostly white, very white, and ridiculously white audience filters into the auditorium, a Bill Nye video plays on two large monitors, explaining how giraffes developed long necks due to natural selection. (Is this to rile the hostile creationist crowd?)

"The Bible says God created man. It doesn't say evolved," a woman tells a reporter. "I really believe those who believe in evolution will have their eyes opened tonight!"

This is a cross-section of the 46 percent of Americans who believe in creationism—crossed arms, somber looks, parents who have brought children to pass the torch of ignorance. Some look Amish, but without the Amish gear, lifted into the 21st century with all its crazy gizmos and twerking. The occasional bow-tie-clad Bill Nye disciple is dotted within the crowd—rooting for the side of science over hocus-pocus. I want to hug the posse wearing T-shirts that say, "Bill Nye Is My Homeboy." Their leader tells me, "One thing I hope that doesn't happen is an event like this gives credibility to the creationists' line of argument, which shouldn't be taught in the classroom."

As astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson observed, the reason there's a separation between church and state is mainly to keep scientifically ignorant people from teaching our children. The creationism-in-the-classroom argument is plain arrogant: "Our religion is best!" (Do we allow Scientologists to teach our kids that we're all refugees of the the galactic overlord Xenu?)

The packed room becomes deathly silent. Start time approaches; the new age music intensifies. The two-and-a-half-hour debate is formatted by opening statements, 30-minute presentations, rebuttals, counter-rebuttals, and a pre-selected audience Q&A on whether the earth is 4.5 billion years as opposed to 6,000. (The discrepancy is off by a factor of a million, like stating the distance from San Francisco to New York is 27 feet.)

"We know there are people who disagree with each other in this room," advises a debate spokesman. "Please, no cheering or disruptive behavior." (Is this why all the sheriffs?)

"Fossils, not gospels!" I reframe from screaming.

CNN's Tom Foreman emerges from darkness—plucked out of Wolf Blitzer's Situation Room to act as the debate moderator. Enter Nye. Enter Ham. The two shake hands. Coin toss. Ham goes first. (Should I cheer? Should I not cheer!?) The games begin; strap in for a long, crazy ride and prepare to believe. Lets party like it's 1899!

"The world of science has been hijacked by secular scientists," Ham says, punching up various PowerPoint slides and graphs, and beginning most sentences with "Here's another important fact." Ham uses the world 'cience more times than a drunken sailor uses the word cocksucker. "I have evidence confirming God's word and that he is the true designer."

Ham lists obscure scientists who believe in creationism. Slides show they exist. These scientists wear sweater vests and share the same barking-at-the-moon philosophy. Ham points to one scientist and says; "He's a creationist JUST LIKE I AM!" These are Ham's Rosa Parks of creationism: "They're afraid to speak out in fear of being criticized by the media."

Nye stares on, composed like an emotionless wax dummy, digging deep into his personal cave as it's explained how the Grand Canyon was formed in a few thousand years.

In turn, Nye, the Gary Busey of science, opens with a joke about bowt ies and stupefies everything down to junior-high level—explaining why the world wasn't created by a handful of magic beans on the back of a giant tortoise while Apollo crossed the sky on a fiery chariot. Speaking to the masses on their own terms, he says that evolution is like something you'd see on one of those CSI TV shows. A slide shows various CSI actors. "Trust clues from the past to help solve the mysteries of creation," Nye states, working hard for his $75,000 speaking fee. Quicker than you can say "Scopes Monkey Trial," Nye adds: "We are standing on millions of layers of ancient life. How could those animals have lived their entire life, and formed these layers, in just 4,000 years?"

The audience, for the most part, looks glossy-eyed, arms tightly folded with expressions that read: Don't try and fool us with your trickery, TV science man! Although it's the dead of winter, people are overheated and fanning themselves.

For the next two hours, Nye and Ham argue over tree rings, ice-core samples, the distance of the stars, and vegetarian lions. At one point they actually dispute whether Noah's flood happened or not and the existence of the Ark (the 450-foot wooden boat built by Noah's sons with two of every creature on it), Why do I want to vomit (or cry) and vigorously wash my eyes out with logic? If 600 people got deathly ill from a week on a Carnival Cruise line, imagine the sanitation standards of a biblical boat filled with animals packed tighter than foie0gras geese. This would be funny if it were one man screaming at the midday sun, but these are the scientific beliefs of a large cross-section of Americans—who demand these ideas be taught in public schools.

"There's a book out there that explains that, " Ham says. "The first line is 'In the beginning.'" He gets a laugh and uses the same line two more times throughout the evening. (The third time fails to muster a smile.) "It's the only theory that makes logical sense."

Much like Super Bowl XLVIII, the familiar creationist patter just becomes boring after a while; Ham tries to poke holes in carbon dating techniques, saying it's not a provable method (though it's been developed through observation, validation, and repetition). He brings up Bible stories and expects them to be accepted carte-blanche just because they're in the Bible, with, of course, zero evidence. When all else fails, Ham simply throws out: "God did it!"

As in: "How was the Grand Canyon formed? God did it!"

'Nough said. End of argument. It's his get-out-of-jail-free card. See, it's easy to explain creation when you live in a world full of trolls, hobbits, and Spider-Men. I almost expect a banjo to start strumming at the conclusion of his arguments. Nye, you've been served!

"I take Genesis as literal history. We're teaching the kids the right way to think," Ham says near the end, his voice shaking, his body language denoting insecurity after Nye's onslaught.

"I'm completely unsatisfied!" retorts Nye. Grumbling erupts among Ham followers. "Mr. Ham, what can you prove?" he says. "Is Ken's creationist model viable? I say absolutely not."

Unimpressed, the "Bill Nye Is My Homeboy" crew stands up and abruptly leaves, missing the final retort: "There's a book out there called the Bible. It tells us all the origins. If the book is really true, it should explain the world."

In the end, Ken Ham invites everyone to exit through the gift shop and pre-order DVD copies of tonight's debate ($15.99).

As the audience spills out, the "Bill Nye Is My Homeboy" leadercontemplates what he just saw: "The facts of science are on the side of evolution—there's a lot missing in creationism delivered as literal truth," he says.

"You have one side that presents facts and the other side that presents a worldview based on personal beliefs," adds his posse member. "When it comes to science, and what we teach in our schools, clearly one side beats out the other."

Conversely: "Bill Nye couldn't explain everything," shares a mustached man. "However, a book is written that has all the answers to the mystery. So what do you believe? Do you believe man or do you believe God?" (Pause.) "The word of God is true!"

If Ham has his way, kids would no longer stare up at the stars, contemplating how to solve the mysteries of the universe; their science pondering would abruptly stop with "God did it!"

"There's a Level 2 weather emergency," interrupts a uniformed sheriff. "An ice storm." As observational science would say, the ice storm is God's retribution on man for Adam's sinning in the Garden of Eden. But that shouldn't worry Ken Ham; one day he'll have his very own Noah's Ark replica, at which time he might sail away from his unaccredited museum and leave behind the doubting Bill Nyes of the world, two by two.