The debate that has raged for centuries, or at least since Darwin’s Theory of Evolution was formulated, and consequent book, “The Origin of the Species” has had religious nuts and science nerds at odds arguing from whence we came. The Bible says one thing science says another.

The controversy about Tuesday’s debate between “Science Guy” Bill Nye and creationist Ken Ham is no different. When evolutionists face off with creationists – it stirs up a lot of hostility. Even though science has the proof of human evolution, creationists still want to argue.

The event is being held at the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky and in an op-ed published on CNN.com Monday.

The event can be heard live on YouTube, the evening of Feb 4th.

Ham is participating in addition to arguing his beliefs, so that this debate might give creationism more of a public voice, he told TheBlaze.

Ham’s intentions of integrating creationism into the public schools system is also part of the reason he’s taking the theory of evolution on.

“While we are not in favor of mandating that creation be taught in public school science classes, we believe that, at the very least, instructors should have the academic freedom to bring up the problems with evolution,” he said.

Ham has stated, they both (he and Nye) have a love for “operational science,” but that there is a difference between what can be seen, and theories that are based on “beliefs about the past, which cannot be tested in the laboratory.”

Ham is also frustrated that public school children “are censored” from hearing challenges to evolution.

“Most students are presented only with the evolutionary belief system in their schools, and they are censored from hearing challenges to it,” he continued. “Let our young people understand science correctly and hear both sides of the origins issue and then evaluate them.

Nye, who hosted PBS’s “Bill Nye the Science Guy,” said that he isn’t going into the debate with Ham as a scientist, but that he plans to debate evolution and creationism as “a reasonable man.”

“Well I don’t think I’m going to win Mr. Ham over any more than Mr. Ham thinks he’s going to win me over, if I understand that expression ‘win over,’” he told HuffPost Live’s Josh Zepps in an interview this week. “Instead, I want to show people that this belief is still among us … it finds its way onto school boards in the United States.”

“I’m not going in really as a scientist as such. I want to remind everybody — I’m a mechanical engineer,” Nye said. “I’m going in as a reasonable man and I think that to just call attention to this belief system has value.”

Atheists such as Richard Dawkins advised Nye against such a debate, pointing out that scientists engaging with creationists is ideologically dangerous and gives undue publicity to those who oppose evolution.

“The guy challenged me to a duel. What am I gonna do?” Nye argued.

However, Nye said that he is “frightened” by the push for creationism in science textbooks and instruction.

“If the United States produces a generation of science students who don’t believe in science, that’s troublesome,” he said. “We want to raise the most scientifically literate students that we can.”

Image via Wikimedia Commons