TV personality Bill Nye "the Science Guy" is set to advocate for the science of evolution in a debate on how humans came to exist. While it will be live streamed on the web Tuesday night, he will not, however, enjoy home field advantage.
Nye's opponent, Ken Ham, invited the engineer and science popularizer to the Bible Belt for the highly publicized debate, which will take place at the Creation Museum in Petersburg, K.Y., Tuesday at 7 p.m. ET. (You can watch live in the YouTube video embedded below.)
Ham's Christian group, Answers in Genesis, owns and operates the museum, which aims to bring "the pages of the Bible to life," according to its website.
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While many (Mashable included) have characterized the debate as science versus religion, Ham's group has portrayed it differently. A post published Tuesday on the Answers in Genesis website called this a debate between "the two science guys."
"Even though the two of us are not Ph.D. scientists, Mr. Nye and I clearly love science," Ham wrote in a Monday guest post on CNN's Belief Blog. "As a former science instructor, I have appreciated the useful television programs that Mr. Nye hosted and produced, especially when he practiced operational science in front of his audience."
Nye studied mechanical engineering at Cornell University, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in 1977. Ham earned a bachelor’s degree in applied science with a focus on environmental biology from the Queensland Institute of Technology in Australia, and he formerly worked as a science teacher in Australia's public schools, according to his Answers in Genesis biography page.
At the crux of Tuesday's debate will likely be whether "creation [is] a viable model of origins in today's modern, scientific era," according to the live stream's YouTube description. In the CNN post, Ham says his organization does not favor a creationism mandate in schools, but that "instructors should have the academic freedom to bring up the problems with evolution." (A 1987 U.S. Supreme Court decision struck down a Louisiana law requiring that creation science be taught in its public schools alongside evolution.)
Nye lays out his perspective in this video titled "Creationism Is Not Appropriate for Children," which has accumulated more than six million views since posted to YouTube in August 2012.
Since news of the event became public in January, Ham has consistently billed the event as a "spirited yet cordial debate."
"Most students are presented only with the evolutionary belief system in their schools, and they are censored from hearing challenges to it," Ham wrote in the CNN blog post. "Let our young people understand science correctly and hear both sides of the origins issue and then evaluate them."
Ham previously said he looks forward to showing Nye around the Creation Museum and introducing him to "several full-time staff members who hold earned doctorates in science."
A 2012 Gallup poll found that 46% of Americans believe God created humans in their present form.
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