I do not care to get into Ken Hovind not YEC related issues as this debate is worth watching for various reasons: some good and bad on both sides.
Michael Shermer is an adherent of the Crick-Dawkins, et al School of Undesigned Design:
Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, p. 1,
“Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.”Francis Crick, What Mad Pursuit, p. 138,
“Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved.”
Michael Shermer believes in unintelligent design which he refers to as bottom up and not top down.
In other words; design is so very obvious that they cannot deny it but then they fill the gaps in our knowledge with Victorian Era tall tales, time, chance, matter, “faith,” evolutiondidit, etc.—see The Gap Filler
Two point as a personal note: Michael Shermer should simply stop attempting to be funny because he is not. It is not that he should not attempt to be funny during a debate but the issue is that his “jokes” are all based on attempting to demonstrate just how very clever his considers himself to be—this, by the way, is the same reason why there are so very many fallacious atheist bus ads and billboards.
Also, he seems to be bothered by being asked to evidence his assertions particularly during Q&A.
According to his theory; he can provide evidence (aka, arguments) and when his evidence/arguments are disproved he can simply state, well, that is how science works we theorize and sometimes the theory is changed or discarded. Therefore, any evidence for his view is tentative. Which, by the way, is whey personages such as he do not change their theory when contrary evidence is presented but rather, they manipulate the evidence in order to fit the theory.
He claims to know what an intelligent designer would have done—while dismissing the concepts of entropy, what engineers call parts that are “designed to wear out,” etc. In other words he claims that there is no intelligent designer because he can imagine mythical creatures that are better designed. Well, I think that my body would be better designed if it had wings, a prehensile tail and bionic legs while you’re at it. He simply does not know if the creature he imagines would really function better and here is the key—in real life, when it has to eat, survive, reproduce, etc.
At t=1:45:24 he demands evidence for unicorns—the one “referred to in the Bible.”
The Horn of a Dilemma? The Bible Mentions Unicorns
At t=50:33 Michael Shermer, “disobedient children are supposed to be stoned to death.”
Sam Harris, Bart Ehrman, Cliff Walker, Richard Dawkins, Michael Shermer, Beechbum on stoning your own little children to death