The American culture war heated up last week when celebrity science educator, Bill Nye “the Science Guy,” agreed to a debate over the merits of creationism as a viable explanation of human origins. Now tensions have escalated again after Mr. Nye challenged his opponent to a steel cage rematch that will finally decide “once and for all” whether or not God the Almighty created humanity in its current form some 6,000 years ago.
The debate took place on February 4 at the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky. The museum is owned and operated by Answers in Genesis, a Christian apologetics ministry whose CEO, Ken Ham, was Mr. Nye’s opponent for the evening. For two and a half hours, the two men traded blows on stage, Mr. Ham propounding his theory of Young Earth creationism while Mr. Nye assumed the mantle of Darwin. Yet by the end of the event, Mr. Nye’s lackluster performance had clearly failed to live up to fan expectations. Whether due to home field advantage or not, Mr. Ham’s stage presence outclassed that of Mr. Nye, who peppered his presentation with bowtie digressions and Seattle Seahawks non sequiturs.
Peter Pfeiffer, 26, is a resident at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital who attributes his passion for medicine to growing up on Mr. Nye’s Bill Nye the Science Guy television show. He purchased a ticket to the debate and arrived at the Creation Museum sporting a bowtie—Mr. Nye’s trademark accoutrement—in support of his childhood hero. “He was terrible!” deplores Pfeiffer, “Bill Nye had the entirety of known science to throw at this Bible-thumping moron and all he could talk about was how topminnows can reproduce asexually! He kept rambling on and on about fish sex and meanwhile he gave the other guy complete run of the stage. I mean, this is a guy who literally believes Noah housed 14,000 animals in an ark. Don’t blather about your damn bowtie. Tell the idiot to go make like a topminnow and f*ck himself!”
In the face of this criticism from loyal fans, Mr. Nye held a press conference on February 6 during which he challenged Mr. Ham to a rematch in what he described as a “no-holds-barred, barbed wire steel cage match.”
“I’m getting real tired of this creationist bullsh*t!” the usually coolheaded Mr. Nye shouted into his microphone at conference time, “So you know what, Mr. Ham? Let’s go! You and me. Let’s settle this once and for all. No Creation Museum, no lecterns, no moderator, just a good, old-fashioned melee: winner take all. God created the Earth in seven days? I’ll kick your ass in seven minutes! I will knock your goddamn face in! I will bust you up so bad Jesus Christ himself won’t be able to raise you again!”
Much to the surprise of the public, Mr. Ham accepted Mr. Nye’s invitation to the cage match. “The Lord is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear? Not some has-been TV host who tore his quad on Dancing with the Stars!” Mr. Ham responded in an official statement, quoting a line from the Book of Psalms.
Neither Mr. Nye, 58, nor Mr. Ham, 62, has any history as a fighter, although Mr. Nye recounts an occasion in high school when he was suspended after smashing a beaker in the face of a fellow AP Biology student who “tried to f*ck with the substrate in [his] enzyme immunoassay.” The two antagonists have both registered with WWE, which will be promoting and staging the match at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. The fight will be a tag team chamber match held in a steel cage topped with barbed wire and ringed with fire (a feature added by WWE). Each team will consist of three fighters and the match will continue until one side achieves a KO.
For his team, Mr. Nye has recruited whom he calls “the most badass bare-knuckle brawlers in the world of science and PBS.” Anchoring his team will be world-renowned cosmologist, Neil deGrasse Tyson. “Supernova” Tyson, as colleagues call him, is coming off a win in CERN’s Atom Smashers XIV, the latest in an annual series of king-of-the-ring matches held by the physics community at the Hadron collider in Geneva, Switzerland. Mr. Tyson, 55, has been the defending champion for ten years, and it is also rumored that he used physical intimidation to influence the International Astronomical Union’s 2006 decision to reclassify Pluto as a dwarf planet.
Also fighting for the evolutionists is Sesame Street’s own Cookie Monster, an avowed atheist and close personal friend of Richard Dawkins.
“COOKIE MONSTER WANT BASH SOME HEADS!” the four-foot Muppet told The Heckler. “WHEN GOING GET ROUGH, PBS HOMEBOYS STICK TOGETHER! WE TAKE DOWN ROMNEY, NOW WE TAKE DOWN CREATIONIST DUM-DUMS! COOOO-KIEEES!!!”
For his part, Mr. Ham will be enlisting the help of Theophilus Bryan, great-great-grandson of populist William Jennings Bryan, former Secretary of State and prosecutor in the infamous Scopes Monkey Trial. The third slot in his team Mr. Ham has left empty, reserved, he says, for Jesus: “‘Though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil.’ The Lord lends strength to those who serve Him. Christ shall not abandon us, and through Him, we shall triumph!” Whether any divine intervention will occur remains to be seen, as Roman Catholic Pope Francis claims he already booked Jesus for an exorcism on fight night.
Each team will be allowed a limited number of weapons in the ring. Mr. Nye says that he is currently considering “a tire iron, a rumble chain, and a broken Petri dish [he] cultivated Ebola in.” Mr. Ham, on the other hand, asserts that he needs only the Word of God on his side—and as such will be bringing a pillow case filled with Gideon Bibles to use as a bludgeon.
The fight, scheduled for March 2, will be broadcast live on Showtime. Until then, Mr. Nye intends to pursue a solitary training regimen at a climate change research station in Antarctica. Before departure, he tweeted these words to concerned fans, “The bowtie’s coming off and the guns are coming out #ScienceRules”
