Nadir said: I am puzzled as to why some of you are rambling about protestants when the debate is between Catholics and atheists.
I think an additional reason why is in most of these public evolution/age of earth debates with atheists etc., the creationist/young earth advocate has been a Protestant, not a Catholic. Therefore, there are always going to be comparisons to these previous events.
Really, there is a ton of potential for qualified Catholics to get involved in these kinds of debates, and it would be interesting to see what kind of approach Kolbe Center or others would take. The Protestant creationists (Ken Ham, Kent Hovind, etc.) do have their points, but more and more that they allow their bone-headed Protestant theology to contaminate their arguments.
Ken Ham for example wastes immense energy, time, and space in his Creation Museum and his debates trying to "prove" that all predators ate plants before the Fall, while St. Thomas Aquinas soundly rejects that very notion in the
Summa. A truly traditional Catholic debater (and a solid formation in
true natural science as well as the higher sciences) could outperform many of these Protestants.
Not that the Protestant creationists don't have their points, and it can be helpful to listen to them; there is a lot more material out there by them. However, once the conversation switches from the very general topic of "creation" to "Catholics", watch out; even the "better" ones are pretty execrable, and this can definitely color their other opinions. A pretty nasty example of this from Kent Hovind:
https://youtu.be/NkVK9w91CTc?t=1926