Debate?

I'll admit up front, I didn't watch one second of the debate between Bill Nye, the Science Person, and Ken Ham, the guy who owns the Creation Museum and believes every word of the Bible is true, even the words that directly contradict other words. But that doesn't mean I'm not going to talk about it.

I saw a headline as soon as the debate was over, proclaiming "Bill Nye Embarrasses Ken Ham." No he didn't. The word embarrass means "to cause to feel self-conscious or ill at ease." Ken Ham believes the Earth was created a year after World War II ended; he wasn't self-conscious or ill at ease up there. I doubt the guy who charges money so yokels can look at a plastic statue of Jesus riding a T-Rex is going to be embarrassed because a former Dancing With the Stars contestant disagrees with him. 

In my humble opinion, the entire thing was a colossal waste of time that achieved two ends: It gave Bill Nye the Science Individual the attention he apparently craves, and it gave free publicity and (in some circles) legitimacy to a museum owned by a guy who thinks our planet is younger than Helen Mirren. I'm sure the pleas for money have already been sent out to every senile aunt in North America.

Hard to believe, but most of my friends fall on the liberal side of the political spectrum, so I saw a lot of "Bill Nye won the debate" posts last night. Never mind that it was the intellectual equivalent of pushing a guy in a wheelchair down a flight of steps; Bill Nye succeeded in convincing a lot of people of something they were 100 percent sure of in the first place. To most of you, Ken Ham had the same chance of winning the debate as I have of scoring a date to the Academy Awards with Jennifer Lawrence.

But did Bill Nye change one mind last night? People who thought of him as a hell-bound heretic 24 hours ago feel the same way now. And now they're more likely to financially support a museum that does nothing but make Kentucky look bad and lump all Christians in with people who think the entire universe was created in less time than it takes to get your taxes back.

They should have just ro sham bo'd for it.