Dangerous Debates?

Some predicted that the overall harmful effects of debates such as Bill Nye’s with Ken Ham would outweigh the benefits. What do you think? Hemant Mehta shared a talk Nye gave recently in which he talked about the debate (among other things):

IO9 shared a famous example of the danger of engaging a fanatic in debate. The article’s conclusion? “While, much of the time, a person who jumps into the fray and debates a subject honestly is a hero — there is plenty of history to show us that steering clear can be the wiser course. “

But when reporters get details about science wrong, it may seem as though there is no choice but to enter the fray.

Recently Ted Herrlick applied a list of features of pseudo-scholarship which appeared on my blog to the subject of Intelligent Design. Allan Bevere shared a link to a post about how to spread misinformation. And Ted Davis blogged at BioLogos about why the evolution debates don’t matter.

Of related interest, see the recent New York Times article about how we tend to surround ourselves online with like-minded people, and avoid substantive debate with those who disagree with us. I also learned that Friedrich Schiller said “The gods themselves contend in vain against stupidity.”