These 22 Messages From Creationists To Bill Nye Are Not Deal Breakers - And Here's Why

Buzzfeed today posted a list of 22 questions posed by creationists to Bill Nye the Science Guy.

I was appalled by the utter lack of general literacy and basic knowledge of the world, as well as basic understanding of evolution itself that these people lack before even criticizing it. Before Bill answers them, here's my take:

1.Yes. Depends on how you define positive, but teaching scientific literacy and the capacity for critical thought is always a positive influence, especially in my mind. I don't know of the guy in the picture agrees though

2.Well, to be scared of it he'd probably have to believe in a Divine Creator. Refusing religious doctrine is not something he does out of fear of a creator. This is a fallacy called "begging the question": it implies Bill Nye believes in a creator to be able to fear it. Since he does not, it is a moot question.

3. It's not illogical. We as humans create things that are "mature", in that sense. However, it is extremely unlikely and all the physical evidence contradicts it. Also another instance of begging the question, implying that these things were indeed created.

4. The second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy of an isolated system never decreases, because isolated systems spontaneously evolve toward thermodynamic equilibrium—the state of maximum entropy. I am inclined to believe that the guy refers to the Earth and its ecosystems, however Earth is not by definition an "isolated system". There's things such as heat and radiation from the Sun and outer space that constantly add energy to its system, therefore immediately rendering the question void.

5. I'll ignore the extremely poor grammar to get to the point: she implies that a sunset would not be possible without God. Does she know what a sunset is? It's not the Sun magically disappearing underneath the ground - it's the Earth's revolution around the Sun that causes it. Therefore what she implies is that the Sun and Earth exist only because they were created - again, begging the question.

6. See number four - it implies that the Earth or the Universe are isolated systems, which empirically they are not.

7. Okay - *what* about noetics?

8. Begging the question: implies life has a "meaning". That's up to each individual to decide, but let's assume for a second life did have a meaning: religion wouldn't be the sole way to discover it. More specifically, the lack of belief in a creator would not impede Nye from finding some purpose to his existence.

9. The short answer is "yes". The longer involves a very detailed account of the conditions of early earth, the make-up of early organisms, the mechanisms that were in place and that could statistically generate viable life etc.

10. Not exactly a question, but it's worthy of applaud either way for being diplomatic.

11. Begging the question - it implies that everyone who doesn't believe in God automatically believes in those, which is false. Scientifically minded people do not reject some myths in favor of others.

12. Uh, no. There have been hundreds of hominid specimens found, covering many species and millions of years of geological and biological history. Lucy isn't the only one, and these hominids can be traced along a lineage quite clearly.

13. Well, it's a bad question but I guess the best answer would be that it doesn't disprove it one bit.

14. This is one of the most common mistakes made by people who criticize evolution: the lack of understanding of what "theory" means in science. A theory in science isn't the same as the hypotheses we formulate as theories in day to day life. When you say "I don't know who stole the cookies, but I have a theory: I think it was Dingles the dog" it's not the same as in science. In science, a theory is considered a generally and widely accepted explanation of observable phenomena, as close to fact as scientists can be certain of. Gravity is a theory, for example. Should it also be discarded as "not a fact"?

15. That's not what science is. In fact, it's the complete opposite: to attest a phenomenon or provide an explanation, science RELIES on what is testable, observable and repeatable. Also see 14.

16. Off the top of my head, Down Syndrome or any mechanism or disease which causes a greater number of chromosomes in offspring, for example. These are all the result of mutations and mutations is what evolution relies on as a mechanism. However the lady assumes that increased genes mean increased evolutionary success.

17. That's philosophy, it's not debatable. See question 8.

18. We haven't found only one "Lucy", see question 12.

19. Scientists don't "believe" in the Big Bang - it's not an act of faith. Therefore faith is not required. It's called knowledge not faith and calling it belief is simply a tactic of distraction and skewing. Scientists believe what the evidence points at: the residual energy from the formation of the Universe is such a piece of evidence.

20. This reminds me of the Watchmaker Complex: seeing something harmonious and complex makes some believe it can only arise through creation. Witnessing something amazing or beautiful does not imply it can only exist by intent. There are also less glamorous or "amazing" things in the world, such as war, greed, famine.rime. If a creator created all, it created the bad with the good.

21. The Big Bang was not an exploding star - question is invalid.

22. This demonstrates poor understanding of evolution - common among its critics. They simply do not understand what evolution is stating. Let me put it simply: Evolution is the change in the inherited characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins. The short version is, monkeys don't *turn* into people. Species evolve extremely slowly from common ancestors. Monkeys today and humans share common ancestors, we do not "come" from them. To understand the fallacy of this question by reducing it to a palatable time scale, try this: If I came from my parents, why are parents still around?