Friday, February 7, 2014

The Science Guy knows what good infographics are for—

—Which is, as Walter Lippman liked to say, telling the truth and shaming the devil.

Three days ago, Bill Nye, the Science Guy, thoroughly and elegantly thrashed Ken Ham, director of the Creation "Museum" (ahem) in a debate that you shouldn't miss. It's painful to watch. Well, no, it's a lot of fun, but also embarrassing because of Ham and his followers. I've embedded the video at the end of this post.

This may sound as a paradox, but Ham would have been considered a "devil" (he's a Christian) by Lippman, so profoundly wrong and dishonest most of he said was. This cartoon summarizes the conversation well. Nye presented overwhelming evidence. Ham just proved that he doesn't care how much data you bring to the table. He'll always find a way to twist it and distort it to make it fit into a patchy and self-contradictory Iron Age narrative that sane believers know being made of allegories and parables.

Nye even took the time to explain why Noah's ark is just a fable. Darren Aronofsky seems to have done it recently with a Lord of the Rings-like movie, too, but Nye believes in the power of reason and logic to change people's minds for the better, so he did it with an infographic. This one:



The part of the debate related to the graphic begins at 58:48 in the video, but you should watch it all. Enjoy: