You might win. I think Bill Nye thoroughly trounced Ken Ham in their notorious debate over creationism, but how do you think the fervent supporters of a kooky belief might react to seeing their leader crushed by the forces of secularism? By digging a little deeper into their pockets to help the cause. Ken Ham is claiming that the debate brought in enough attention and extra donations to permit groundbreaking of his Ark Park project.

Take that with a grain of salt, though. Creationists aren’t very good with quantitative reasoning — he could have found a nickel on the sidewalk and claimed it was close enough to tens of millions — and also, suspiciously, none of the news reports I’m seeing are citing any specific numbers. They are saying how much he needs (roughly $70 million for the first phase), but they’re not saying how much he has, which would seem to me to be the more important number. All Ham has said is it’s “enough”.

He was raising money with junk bonds. I wouldn’t past him to be trying to raise confidence with unfounded claims of fund-raising success. Show me the numbers.