This past week, Bill Nye the Science Guy "traded barbs" with Creation Museum founder Ken Ham at the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky in a debate of science versus faith. For over two hours Nye and Ham discussed topics falling under the long-debated subject of "creation vs. evolution". The topics under discussion ranged from the age of the Earth and the formation of the Grand Canyon, to Noah's ark, the Bible, human consciousness, and fish sex. Nye, obviously arguing in favor of evolution, uses scientific evidence (like the fossil record and tree rings) to support his belief that the concept of creationism is simply "not viable", while Ham cited the Bible as evidence on a number of occasions.
The fact that this topic is so controversial brings to mind the concept of truth. Socrates' belief that truth is subjective ("truth with a lowercase 't'") is certainly the case here: Nye and Ham's beliefs are on polar opposites of the spectrum, and both of them are, for different reasons, absolutely steadfast in such beliefs. To Nye, the Big Bang is not just a theory, but the actual way that the universe came into being; to Ham, God created the universe and everything in it for a specific purpose. These men have, then, very different truths. The videos were edited quite a bit so I did not see whether there was any mudslinging or ill-will going on between the two of them, but the ways that their words were presented seemed to portray somewhat of a clean fight. This goes along with the feminists' style of Invitational rhetoric - each men expressed his beliefs, but neither tried to change the mind of his opponent (which would likely be impossible anyway).
Yes, I agree, especially with the invitational rhetoric idea. I'm not sure if you'd heard, but many scientists were criticizing these two for even having this debate. Those critics have no interest in invitational rhetoric.
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