Editor's Note: This post has been updated to reflect more recent data regarding scientists' opinions on creationism and evolution
Like the vast majority of scientists, Bill Nye 'the Science Guy' believes in evolution.
Last week, Nye posted this video on YouTube, entitled "Creationism Is Not Appropriate For Children."
According to CNN, creationists have now "hit back" at Nye after his video went viral.
In the video, Nye calls evolution a "fundamental idea in all of life science, in all of biology" and says that belief in creationism is impeding scientific progress in the U.S.
According to a 2009 survey, conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 97 percent of scientists believe that humans and other livings things have evolved over time.
Only 2 percent of the more than 2,500 scientists surveyed said they believe human beings have existed in their present form since the beginning of time, while 87 percent said they believe that evolution is due to natural processes, such as natural selection.
"I say to the grownups, 'If you want to deny evolution and live in your world that's completely inconsistent with everything we've observed in the universe that's fine," Nye says in the video. "But don't make your kids do it.'"
This week, the Christian ministry behind the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky., responded to Nye's video with one of their own, CNN reports.
"Time is Nye for a Rebuttal," Ken Ham, CEO of Answers in Genesis, wrote on his website. "At AiG and the Creation Museum, we teach children and adults the truth concerning who they are in the Creator’s eyes -- and where they came from."
Ham said the Creation Museum had produced a YouTube video to counter Nye's argument.
Georgia Purdom, who is identified by AiG as having a Ph.D. in molecular genetics from Ohio State University, argues in the video that evolution is a "historical science" that has not been observed directly, while creation can be verified by the Bible.
"Do we start with man's ideas about the past, who wasn't here during the supposed billions of years of Earth history, or do we start with the Bible -- the written revelation of the eyewitness account of the eternal God who created it all? Rather than being inconsistent as Bill Nye states, observational science confirms the literal history and genesis," she said.
Purdom did not comment on studies that have shown that evolution has been observed in a laboratory setting.
And neither Purdom nor David Menton, the other speaker in the video, mentioned that 97 percent of scientists believe in evolution.
The Creation Museum hasn't been the only vocal opponent of Nye's video.
Popular evangelist and author Ray Comfort told conservative news website WND that Nye's claims had been based on a "blind faith."
According to CNN, Ham, Purdom, Comfort and other Bibical Creationists like them believe in a "literal interpretation of the creation account in the book of Genesis found in the Bible."
In an interview with The Huffington Post this week, Nye argued that biblical arguments can often be problematic due to inadequacies in translation:
The bible that is often cited as a guide to natural law has been translated from other ancient languages. There must be countless subtleties and nuances that are literally lost in translation. I got into good bit of controversy, when I showed an audience in Waco, Texas, USA that the bible, as translated into English, claims that the Sun lights the day, and the Moon lights the night. I pointed out that this translation is unsettling. To my ear, it doesn't seem as though the author realized that the Moon's light is reflected sunlight. It seems to me that many ancient people may have realized that the Moon casts reflected light, but it's lost in translation. This being but one example.
According to a recent Gallup Poll, 46 percent of Americans believe in creationism, 32 percent believe in evolution guided by God, and 15 percent believe in atheistic evolution.
Note: This post had initially cited data from a 1991 Gallup Poll, which had shown that 5 percent of scientists believe in creationism. It has since been updated to reflect new data from a 2009 survey conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world’s largest scientific organization.