As always, I’ll let you know when The New Republic re-published a piece that’s appeared here first. My post this morning on the Ham/Nye debate, and how Ken Ham is crowing that it revitalized the fund-raising for his Ark Park, has appeared without alteration in The New Republic as “Thanks to Bill Nye, creationists raised enough money to build an anti-science theme park. The science guy won a debate—and subsidized the enemy.”
You might have already read this, but do go over to the site if you can just to give them some traffic, for I’d like to be able to keep purveying a secularist/evolutionist message to a new audience.
“You have read:
1 / 8
free articles in the past 30 days.”
Interesting.
If you hit the limit you can probably get another eight simply by using a different browser for a while. I suppose clearing your cookies might work, too. (NY Times does this sort of thing and I’m seeing it more and more at newspaper sites online.)
The free emailed version of TNR Daily doesn’t appear to have that limit — yet. Checked with others that have sub for longer and they’ve not seem limits either. I now get NYT limits however (might be coincidental), only after unsubbing from daily emails and accessing articles that way which also allowed me to browse. Will try what gbjames suggests for NYT — good tip.
Duly clicked through and done commented upon.
I encourage all to do likewise. TNR clearly sees value in Jerry’s writings, but we need to emphatically demonstrate just how much he has to offer them.
Cheers,
b&
Oh, I clicked. But I’m textless this time.
What can I really write to The Science Guy? “Your experiment failed big time, nye eh, nye eh“!?
Oh, I don’t know that I’d wish that upon Nye, even though I may well be tempted….
b&
Clicked.
“ In other words, Nye scuppered himself. “ = entirely true. And angering.
Blue
Ham wold have declared victory and put a positive spin on it no matter what.
While I agree that this ark is a terrible waste of money – and maybe I’m being unduly optimistic – but I fail to see how anyone could walk through this ark after it’s built and not be made aware of just how unlikely such a vessel was ever to have existed in ancient Mesopotamia. This thing is costing tens of millions of dollars and will inevitable house only a very small proportion of the world’s animals, whether “kinds” or not.
It is going to be nightmarish inside it and I predict they will be forced to use models of most of the animals rather than the real thing due to the simple logistics of keeping so many eating, drinking, and excreting animals in such a space. How are they going to comply with animal welfare regulations which even Kentucky must have some of?
This ridiculous ark is an exercise in hubris and delusion. It will fail, taking a lot of investors’ money with it. In the end it will not be a victory for the Abrahamic religions, it will be a case study in the impossibility of actually building and using the vessel described in the bible as specified. To say nothing of the fact that after all this it still won’t be afloat!
Well, the Dutch Ark replica houses a few rabbits and goats and sheep!
Take that, atheists!
(Too bad it’s a wooden superstructure on a steel barge, though. Are you sure Noah did not know how to forge steel?)
The movie is coming out soon, so we’ll be able to find that out.
Well, that will be a big, bloated work of fantasy fiction. It would be more interesting to have big budget movies based on Hindu mythology.
I am with you on that. I certainly don’t know all the different mythologies out there, but I haven’t come across one yet that wasn’t more interesting in pretty much every way than the desert dogma mythologies.
Also, as I have said before it would be good to have a big ‘ol movie about Moses, only to show him as historians see him: as a genocidal despot.
Good points, Marella. In fact this could backfire badly on Ham. It, hopefully, will be obvious to every visitor that the replica will show the impossible logistics required by the Noah myth. He will constantly have to defend why species x or y is missing and will have to invent new “kinds” as he tries to accommodate the impossible.
As sickening as it is, I don’t think any of your objections apply to the “target audience.”
Indeed, quite the contrary; I expect there’ll be lots of variations on the theme of, “See how hard it was for the nice Mr. Ham, and how he still didn’t manage to get it perfect? That just goes to show you how much of a miracle it really was for Noah to do it, and he had so much less than Mr. Ham. Isn’t YHWH so amazing that he’d help Noah like that so he could save all the animals? Our gods really are awesome, and the proof is right here!”
Never misunderestimate the power of cognitive dissonance.
Cheers,
b&
Yep, like the pastor who said that if the Bible said that 2+2=5, he’d believe the Bible and not his own logic on the matter.
Dissonate those cognitives!
b&
Seriously, you believe Ken Ham when he makes claims like this? Really?
Ken Ham’s ability to manipulate the public is truly extraordinary.
Practise makes perfect. 😉
By my last visit to the Ark donation pages, they had collected just about half of the budget allegedly needed this Spring. I really don’t see how this debate could have given them so many millions. It might be enough to make their Park a fraction of the intended size. But so many lacking attractions would have to impact the predicted visitor numbers. And that would cleanly punch a hole in the deal made for State subsidies and infrastructure construction. For the State to follow through without massive cuts would amount to waste and corruption.
That is interesting. I see they are only about 1/2 way there according to the web site. See Help Build the Ark if anyone is interested in seeing this.
Done.
Reading through the aftermath of the Nye/Ham debate the general consensus seems to be that you won the debate but lost the battle. Ham now has his money to fund the Ark as a direct result of this.
Fame is fleeting, what Ham would perceive as a win for him is only in the present context. The Young earth creationists gleefully pull out their wallets in victorious triumph under the guise of “A nation founded under God” and receive no repercussions in doing so. They are a religion, their organized, and grouped together by a common bond.
Atheists/Agnostics on the other hand are not. We have a few organizations desperately trying to champion the truth but as a collective it’s sorely lacking. To be an atheist/agnostic is to be one of the most hated groups in the Americas.
Millions of people have or will see this debate; it is a permanent digital record of February 2014. That’s a lot of people: but what about the people that were not Nye or Ham supporters? How many religious moderates (fence sitters) will see this? They will not openly come out in your defense for fear of retribution from friends and family.
It’s not about winning or losing, the message out got out, you cannot convert a person that was indoctrinated into a faith in one night, instead you can sew the seeds of reason, slowly chip away at the God armor one plate at a time.
Cheers
“out got out” Dam…I suck. Please revise!