> How does one reconcile observing a galaxy more than 6,000 light years away?

Simple: it's only 6,000 miles away, if that.

> Would those gentlemen have got the same level of education at an institution that refused to recognize evolutionary biology as a science?

I don't know, I wasn't there, and it would be wrong to speculate. Anyway, Ham (at least for now) would be happy just to make schools teach creationism too.

>How can you teach kids the scientific method and refuse to let them apply it to biology, to Astronomy, to geology?

Ham makes the scientific method "work" for him by asserting that creation scientists are using it every day to show that an "old Earth" is a delusion.

But the point is that Ham and his associates are 100% committed to creationism. They'tr also "creative" enough to twist and warp any rational argument into seeming consistency with their beliefs.

It's what they do. They can't help it. Millions more or less accept their arguments because millions don't think critically: "Sounds possible, and it fits with the bible, so I guess it's true. Anyway, a lot of experts turn out to be wrong, and who knows?"

The core creationist argument is that the current inability of "mainstream science" to explain the appearance of consciousness or the appearance of life or the existence of the universe proves the initial account in Genesis is correct, or at least as likely as anything else. But they don't usually say that in so many words, because it's clearly nonsense.

Today astronomers announced the discovery of a star 13.6 billion light-years from Earth. Well, says the creationist, how do they know that? The astrophysicist talks about "red shifts" and spectrographic analysis, the bases of which the average person has never heard of nor can instantly understand. The creationist smiles pleasantly and says, yes, but those measurements assume the laws of physics have not changed in 6,000 years. It's very misleading to make such assumptions, and I think Mr. Nye would agree with me that the real scientific method, which we both respect, is based not on assumptions but on evidence. And the best evidence from observational science, some of which we've gathered here at the Museum, shows quite clearly that the stars are about 6,000 years old. Interestingly enough, that's completely in line with the evidence from Scripture.