@Bold, Bill Nye graduated from Cornell University as an engineer.
His main education is as a mechanical engineer - mainly aviation hydraulics.
His work as a consultant never really panned out and he began appearing on comedy segments, occasionally performing textbook science experiments like a sort of magician.
He's not a complete and total ditz - but his understanding of science can be described as textbook regurgitation more so than a philosophical grasp.
Which is why:
I don't understand the argument put forth by Ham either. His entire argument is based on the bible.
I stated it elsewhere:
What would a world created 6,000 years ago look like?
How old are fictional characters? If we're discussing anime characters - individuals like Conan Etogawa from Detective Conan (Case Closed in English adaptions) have been around for -years- (you want to talk about a manga that keeps on going... the dude has been a kid long enough to graduate from college twice).
How old is the fictional world of Narnia?
"Hundreds of years old" - you might say, but would people from hundreds of years ago know of what you were speaking when you told them of Narnia?
Yet how do you explain the mountains and ancient settings in Narnia, if we accept that Narnia is only as old as its author's portrayal of it?
We create things that look older than they actually are all the time. Why would a created Earth be any different?
Like I said - Ham also lacks articulation and both simply regurgitate their viewpoints without really engaging each other.
To engage Nye requires a more technical understanding of our limitations in accuracy. You must make an argument against the completeness of knowledge that Nye could appreciate.
To engage Ham requires a more intricate knowledge of scripture. Again, you must make an argument against the completeness of knowledge that he could appreciate.
Only then can you begin to discuss the philosophy of both ideologies.
The problem is that neither of them truthfully understand the nature of their own ideology. Nye does not understand that he inherently believes that the laws of nature must play out in reverse until a beginning can be inferred; while Ham does not understand that he believes in a universe where natural laws do not have to play out to a hypothetical beginning.
Ham should be asking Nye: "What evidence is there that the laws of nature must play out indefinitely in reverse until we reach a mathematical beginning? Just because video games have a set of physical laws does not mean playing them in reverse will yield information about their origin."
Likewise - Nye should be asking this:
"By what means are you arriving at the conclusion that the biblical account of a global flood is truly global? Is it not possible that the account was exacerbated?
In the book of Genesis, we find the statement that the blink of an eye to God can be a thousand years to Man. Further, the original Hebrew text within Genesis reads more properly: "On the day of" or "In the time of" - which suggests a marking of phases of creation rather than literal days as we recognize on Earth. Would it not be possible that the Earth were -developed- as a part of a created process in a way more similar to how current scientific models suggest?"
The problem is that before you can truthfully debate for position, you have to stand on the same ground. The two are speaking from such different ground that they aren't even able to speak the same language and they don't understand that they aren't speaking in comprehensible terms to each other because they fail to realize how fundamentally distinct their ideologies are from each other.
