I am with Bill Nye on this one

Oh boy, this is happening...

More information can be found here.

Some headlines covering this event are pretty frustrating: Bible! Science! Who will win the great debate? (here). Umm... can't both win? I think this type of debate is unfortunate because it suggests that:

1. You cannot be a Christian and agree with evolution at the same time
2. Evolution somehow disproves the existence of God

The YOUCAT has a great discussion on this topic which I have included in full below.

In short, we can agree with evolution as long as we don't support evolutionism, "which views man as the random product of biological processes"(YOUCAT #42). Though we believe in a Creator we cannot go along with creationism, which "naively take biblical data literally (for example, to calculate the earth’s age, they cite the six days of work in Genesis 1)" (YOUCAT #42).

So, I am with Bill Nye on this one (as long as he isn't advocating evolutionism...). Plus his bow tie is awesome.

Here's what the YOUCAT has to say...

YOUCAT #42 Can someone accept the theory of evolution and still believe in the Creator?

Yes. Although it is a different kind of knowledge, faith is open to the findings and hypotheses of the sciences.

Theology has no scientific competence, and natural science has no theological competence. Natural science cannot dogmatically rule out the possibility that there are purposeful processes in creation; conversely, faith cannot define specifically how these processes take place in the course of nature’s development. A Christian can accept the theory of evolution as a helpful explanatory model, provided he does not fall into the heresy of evolutionism, which views man as the random product of biological processes. Evolution presupposes the existence of something that can develop. The theory says nothing about where this “something” came from. Furthermore, questions about the being, essence, dignity, mission, meaning, and wherefore of the world of man cannot be answered in biological terms. Just as “evolutionism” oversteps a boundary on the one side, so does Creationism on the other. Creationists naively take biblical data literally (for example, to calculate the earth’s age, they cite the six days of work in Genesis 1).

Creationism: (from Lation creatio = making, producing): the idea that God himself by his direct action created the world all at once, as if the book of Genesis were an eyewitness account.