Kent Hovind, a former high school science teacher turned creation science evangelist, said that evolution is the "dumbest and most dangerous theory on planet Earth" at a program in the Union on Dec. 6.
Posted on 12/17/2005 3:58:48 AM PST by PatrickHenry
A former high school science teacher turned creation science evangelist told an audience at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee last Tuesday that evolution is the “dumbest and most dangerous theory on planet Earth.”
Kent Hovind, founder of Creation Science Evangelism, presented “Creation or Evolution … Which Has More Merit?” to a standing-room only audience in the Union Ballroom on Dec. 6. The event was sponsored by the Apologetics Association, the organization that brought Baptist minister Tim Wilkins to UWM to speak about homosexuality in October.
Members of the Apologetics Association (AA) contacted biology, chemistry and geology professors at UWM and throughout the UW System, inviting them to debate Hovind for an honorarium of $200 to be provided to the individual or group of individuals who agreed.
Before the event began, the “No-Debater List,” which was comprised of slides listing the names of UWM science professors who declined the invitation, was projected behind the stage.
Dustin Wales, AA president, said it was his “biggest disappointment” that no professor agreed to debate Hovind.
“No professor wanted to defend his side,” he said. “I mean, we had seats reserved for their people … ’cause I know one objection could have been ‘Oh, it’s just a bunch of Christians.’ So we had seats reserved for them to bring people to make sure that it’s somewhat more equal, not just all against one. And still nobody would do it.”
Biology professor Andrew Petto said: “It is a pernicious lie that the Apologetics (Association) is spreading that no one responded to the challenge. Many of us (professors) did respond to the challenge; what we responded was, ‘No, thank you.’ ”
Petto, who has attended three of Hovind’s “performances,” said that because Hovind presents “misinterpretations, half truths and outright lies,” professors at UWM decided not to accept his invitation to a debate.
“In a nutshell, debates like this do not settle issues of scientific understanding,” he said. “Hovind and his arguments are not even in the same galaxy as legitimate scientific discourse. This is why the faculty here has universally decided not to engage Hovind. The result would be to give the appearance of a controversy where none exists.”
He added, “The faculty on campus is under no obligation to waste its time supporting Hovind’s little charade.”
Hovind, however, is used to being turned down. Near the end of his speech, he said, “Over 3,000 professors have refused to debate me. Why? Because I’m not afraid of them.”
Hovind began his multimedia presentation by asserting that evolution is the “dumbest and most dangerous” theory used in the scientific community, but that he is not opposed to science.
“Our ministry is not against science, but against using lies to prove things,” he said. He followed this statement by citing biblical references to lies, which were projected onto screens behind him.
Hovind said: “I am not trying to get evolution out of schools or to get creation in. We are trying to get lies out of textbooks.” He added that if removing “lies” from textbooks leaves no evidence for evolutionists’ theory, then they should “get a new theory.”
He cited numerous state statutes that require that textbooks be accurate and up-to-date, but said these laws are clearly not enforced because the textbooks are filled with lies and are being taught to students.
Petto said it is inevitable that textbooks will contain some errors.
“Sometimes, this is an oversight. Sometimes it is the result of the editorial and revision process. Sometimes it is the result of trying to portray a rich and complex idea in a very few words,” he said.
The first “lie” Hovind presented concerned the formation of the Grand Canyon. He said that two people can look at the canyon. The person who believes in evolution would say, “Wow, look what the Colorado River did for millions and millions of years.” The “Bible-believing Christian” would say, “Wow, look what the flood did in about 30 minutes.”
To elaborate, Hovind discussed the geologic column — the chronologic arrangement of rock from oldest to youngest in which boundaries between different eras are marked by a change in the fossil record. He explained that it does not take millions of years to form layers of sedimentary rock.
“You can get a jar of mud out of your yard, put some water in it, shake it up, set it down, and it will settle out into layers for you,” he said. Hovind used this concept of hydrologic sorting to argue that the biblical flood is what was responsible for the formation of the Grand Canyon’s layers of sedimentary rock.
Hovind also criticized the concept of “micro-evolution,” or evolution on a small, species-level scale. He said that micro-evolution is, in fact, scientific, observable and testable. But, he said, it is also scriptural, as the Bible says, “They bring forth after his kind.”
Therefore, according to the Bible and micro-evolution, dogs produce a variety of dogs and they all have a common ancestor — a dog.
Hovind said, however, Charles Darwin made a “giant leap of faith and logic” from observing micro-evolution into believing in macro-evolution, or evolution above the species level. Hovind said that according to macro-evolution, birds and bananas are related if one goes back far enough in time, and “the ancestor ultimately was a rock.”
He concluded his speech by encouraging students to personally remove the lies from their textbooks and parents to lobby their school board for accurate textbooks.
“Tear that page out of your book,” he said. “Would you leave that in there just to lie to the kids?”
Petto said Hovind believes the information in textbooks to be “lies” because his determination is grounded in faith, not science.
“Make no mistake, this is not a determination made on the scientific evidence, but one in which he has decided on the basis of faith alone that the Bible is correct, and if the Bible is correct, then science must be wrong,” he said.
Petto said Hovind misinterprets scientific information and then argues against his misinterpretation.
“That is, of course, known as the ‘straw man’ argument — great debating strategy, but nothing to do with what scientists actually say or do,” he said. “The bottom line here is that the science is irrelevant to his conclusions.”
Another criticism of Hovind’s presentation is his citation of pre-college textbooks. Following the event, an audience member said, “I don’t think using examples of grade school and high school biology can stand up to evolution.”
Petto called this an “interesting and effective rhetorical strategy” and explained that Hovind is not arguing against science, but the “textbook version” of science.
“The texts are not presenting the research results of the scientific community per se, but digesting and paraphrasing it in a way to make it more effective in learning science,” he said. “So, what (Hovind) is complaining about is not what science says, but what the textbooks say that science says.”
Petto said this abbreviated version of scientific research is due, in part, to the editorial and production processes, which impose specific limits on what is included.
He added that grade school and high school textbooks tend to contain very general information about evolution and pressure from anti-evolutionists has weakened evolutionary discussion in textbooks.
“Lower-level texts … tend to be more general in their discussions of evolution and speak more vaguely of ‘change over time’ and adaptation and so on,” he said. “Due to pressure by anti-evolutionists, textbook publishers tend to shy away from being ‘too evolutionary’ in their texts … The more pressure there is on schools and publishers, the weaker the evolution gets, and the weaker it gets, the more likely that it will not do a good job of representing the current consensus among biologists.”
Hovind has a “standing offer” of $250,000 for “anyone who can give any empirical evidence (scientific proof) for evolution.” According to Hovind’s Web site, the offer “demonstrates that the hypothesis of evolution is nothing more than a religious belief.”
The Web site, www.drdino.com, says, “Persons wishing to collect the $250,000 may submit their evidence in writing or schedule time for a public presentation. A committee of trained scientists will provide peer review of the evidence offered and, to the best of their ability, will be fair and honest in their evaluation and judgment as to the validity of the evidence presented.”
Wales said the AA’s goal in bringing Hovind to UWM was “to crack the issue on campus” and bring attention to the fallibility of evolution.
“The ultimate goal was to say that, ‘Gosh, evolution isn’t as concrete as you say it is, and why do you get to teach everyone this non-concrete thing and then not defend it when someone comes and says your wrong?’ ” he said. “It’s just absurd.”
It's now known as the "Piltdown men" fraudS
Oh No! Did you overhear? Could anyone else have been listening? Darwin Central will never give me my Black-Ops job now. :(
"No, that's mutation. You have an incomplete fossil record, just because there is "similarities" does not mean evolution has occured.
At one time, in the early days of the 20th century, there was some doubt about mutations and their contribution to the fact of evolution. However, after the understanding of genetics, mutations were recognized as a significant factor in the variation part of the Theory of Evolution and are now considered an important mechanism for evolution. In fact mutations, and I include replication errors during meiosis among those mutational events, are very much inseparable from the fact of evolution and the Theory of Evolution. Why you would consider it so is beyond me.
I find it hard to understand why the fossil record has to be complete before scince can consider it valid evidence for evolution. We have many fossils of the correct date and morphology to be considered transitional between a number of species.
For example we have a number of fossils that show a change from a land animal to an aquatic animal. The correlation of these fossils into a sequence between Arteriodactyls and Cetaceans in not simply based on our interpretation of a few features. Fossils are found in strata that include evidence of the type of ecology in which the species lived. The ecology includes the available food, available water, ground cover, temperature and seasonal variance that existed at the time the fossil was originally buried. In the case of the Arteriodactyl to Cetacean sequence the ecology shows a stepwise change from a freshwater to seawater environment; chemical analysis of teeth shows a change from the ability to drink and use freshwater to the ability to drink seawater.
Morphologically, the fossils show a stepwise change in the use of the hind limbs and pelvis. Over the sequence of fossils, the rear limbs become shorter and become disengaged from the pelvis, something that shows an adaptation to spending the majority of time in the water rather than placing weight on the limbs as is necessary out of water. Eventually the limbs totally disappear (although vestigial limbs are found in extant Cetaceans on occasion) and the pelvis becomes just a remnant. Remember, these changes and the changes I mention later all match the measured time sequence.
The lower spine also changes in a stepwise manner over a number of fossils to enable the flexibility necessary to swim using just the tail. The skulls of the fossils show a stepwise movement of the nostrils from the front towards the top of the head.
There are many more little bits of evidence that taken individually do not lead to a conclusion of ancestry, but taken together give many more clues than any murder investigation leading to a conviction does.
The conclusion is that whale precursors at one time lived on land and evolved into organisms that can only survive in the oceans as whales. This is evidence for evolution.
Evolution is indeed a fact.
"You're making my point everso clear. When layman think of evolution they think species change. Fish to man stuff. And that is not fact and you know it, and to assert such, is nothing more than deception. The fossil record is not conclusive. Just because some branches of science WISHES it to be so doesn't mean it is.
The fossil record is indeed incomplete. It is not necessary for it to be complete to make evolution a fact, all that is necessary is that one lineage be shown to be the result of evolution. Just showing one sequence to be evolution proves that evolution is a fact.
Although, as I've shown above, fossil records do show evolution to be a fact, it is not necessary for us to use just fossils to show speciation.
Speciation is defined for these arguments to be a termination of gene flow between two related species. This termination may be due to an inability to produce viable offspring, to a lack of contact between the two groups or it may be that the two species do not interbreed because they do not recognize members of the other group as potential mates.
We observe species such as the Asian Greenish Warbler, that are on their way to speciating. These species are called 'ring species' where two of the subspecies occupy the same habitat and are well within the range to interbreed but do not for one reason or another. Some consider the two subspecies occupying the same area to be separate species, some, because there is still potential gene sharing between them through the other subspecies of the same species, do not. In either case, a simple extinction of one of the intermediate subspecies would terminate the potential gene flow and make the two subspecies true separate species.
We have also observed speciation in the wild and in the lab. Both PatrickHenry's and Ichneumon's home pages contain examples of this.
As far as a cat giving birth to a dog, it will simply not happen; everything in evolution happens at the species level and the changes are too small to be visible and nontrivial until they accumulate over a number of generations.
"When you show me a conclusive species change, ONE KIND to ANOTHER KIND, then you might have a point, until then all your doing is speculating...
The 'kind' division is an artificial creation that does not and cannot provide a limiting mechanism. Without that mechanism there is nothing to stop an evolving species from gradually (small steps in a stepwise manner) sneaking past that 'kind' definition.
I have yet to see any specific argument presented by you or any of your fellow believers that shows how the evidence runs counter to the ToE.
"The evidence is you can not show, recreate, or point to a valid species change...It's all conjecture.
Science can not point to a cat giving birth to a dog because that is a strawman. Science can point to observed speciation. Science can show that accumulated small changes result in larger more visible changes. Science can also show the mechanisms that create these small changes. What hasn't been shown is the creationist 'limit' that prevents these accumulated small changes from resulting in the higher taxonomic classifications.
"There's your argument.
If that is your argument it doesn't hold much water.
Being the critical skeptic I am, I doubt that much if anything will 'suck' me in.
Why indeed! You've all ready amply demonstrated on this thread that you simply make stuff up and then duck and hide when asked for an example to back your false statements.
I do not accept geology, or radiometric dating, or any part of modern science that might support an old Earth or evolution. Furthermore, I do not accept creation or evolution as proper objects of science in the strict sense.
Loosely translated, "I won't believe it no matter what so don't bother."
Heinlein was right when he said, "Belief gets in the way of learning."
Only if this global flood occurred at different times in different locations.
You might want to check to see if all these 'flood myths' included 40 days of rain.
"I do not accept geology, or radiometric dating, or any part of modern science that might support an old Earth or evolution. Furthermore, I do not accept creation or evolution as proper objects of science in the strict sense."
At least that creationist was honest. The ones that annoy me are the ones that pretend the evidence doesn't exist, and/or lie about the significance of the evidence. Not the honest ones who simply and openly declare that they aren't interested in the evidence, because their opinion has already been fixed by their religious beliefs.
Apparently you are as ignorant about Spirit lake as you are about Hovind.
Nope.
"gullies in ash.." You're either ignorant of your subject or a liar.
Look, son, even the creationist AnswersInGenesis clearly describes the composition of the material the gullies were carved into:
"For erosion, see the 100-foot-deep Engineer’s Canyon on the north fork of the Toutle River (diagram, left), like a model of Grand Canyon. It was carved very quickly by a catastrophic mud flow from a Mt St Helens eruption through earlier pyroclastic deposits."Pyroclastic deposits are primarily ash and pumice, son.
The vast mudflows in the aftermath of the eruption may have included ash; but, they were hardly 'ashflows' as you would profer in ignorance.
Are you twisting what I actually wrote on purpose through dishonesty, or just because you're a moron who can't read?
I didn't say that the "canyon" was formed by "ashflow" (I never even used that word), I said that they were gullies formed "IN ASH", which indeed they are. Even AnswersInGenesis agrees.
The "canyon" was formed by carving INTO ASH deposits *by* a large mudflow passing over the ash. Try to get it straight before you spout off more ignorant belligerence like:
Go learn something and come back when you know what you're talking about. Don't waste our time pontificating from ignorance.
That advice applies far better to yourself, son.
[Is being an obnoxious know-nothing a *requirement* for being an anti-evolution creationist? It sure seems like it.]
The key to understanding why there is no "limiting mechanism" that prevents cumulative incidents of micro-evolution from eventually -- after thousands of generations culled by natural selection -- resulting in a whole new species is in grasping that there is no cosmic clerk keeping track of the vast number of earlier mutations that resulted in -- and were inherited by -- any particular individual. Therefore, each generation is its own reproductive ground zero. Each individual can -- and frequently does -- produce trivially mutated offspring. And so can the next generation. Ad infinitum.
Yeah. C'mon, Ichneumon. You can't expect elenil21 to examine (let alone accept) critiques written by, er, critics, and posted on web sites where they're topical!? elenil21 is perfectly justified in clamping his/her hands over his/her ears and shouting, "LA,LA,LA,LA,LA, I CAN'T HERE YOU!"
No go and do the decent thing. Find us a disquisition on Piltdown written by a disinterested plumber and posted on a gardening website and then, just maybe, if he/she's recovered from the shock at your effrontery, elenil21 will read it and respond. Better (marginally so) you could visit every academic library on the globe and read cover to cover the dissertations of everyone graduating between 1912 and 1953 to ensure they don't mention Piltdown.
elenil21 only expects what is reasonable!
Havoc does this often. For example look at post 1012, and then Havoc's response in 1016, deliberately completely missing the point. I question whether "bleeding" could be described as a scientific theory, so he assures me (apparently with a straight face) that bleeding was a common practice. When I pointed out in 1018 that he was responding to his own misunderstanding of my post and not what I'd actually posted he dropped the issue without any further clarification on his part (despite still being around in the thread). Weird, or what?
Your link has only three items, one of which was a fraud perpetrated on scientists, not by scientists, one was an error and one had nothing to do with the science of evolution or scientists.
How does this show that evolutionary scientists are 'bad people'?
Piltdown Man is true! These claims of FRAUD and HOAX are made by evolutionist who are using evolutionary assumptions to claim that the parts of the Piltdown Man skull came from different animals.
The evolutionist are using their GODLESS, MATERIALIST UNIFORMATARIAN PRESUPPOSITIONS. Who says the florine absorbtion test tells us anything about how old a specimen is??? Only godless materialist think it disproves Piltdown Man. And what about the teeth! So what if all those scientist think the teeth were worn down all wrong. What did Piltdown Man care what these scientist think? So Pildtown Man had an unusual diet and an unusual way of chewing. So what? Evolutionist chew their food weird too!
Once more with feeling. The "bible theme park" is nothing but a creation museum (admission free to that part)) and a hands on play place for kiddies in Hovinds back yard. It has a tire swing among other things. All admission fees, and they are small are used to pay the staff that works there. The first time I went all you did was give a donation. The last time I went it was five dollars per family. Oh, they also have a climbing wall.
Hovind doesn't charge a speaking fee.
Try and get your lies straight next time Peyton.
And don't forget that all of his materials are not copyrighted so anyone can copy them and use them.
YES OF COURSE. You've got IT. Those evilutionists couldn't fit that BEAUTIFUL Piltdown specimen into their godless lie of common descent. So they had TO pretend that it was a hoax. As WELL as capitalising RANDOM words. If people KNEW that Piltdown was TRUE. They'd know THAT evolution is a SATANIC LIE! The CUNNING of the Darwinists knows no LIMITS.
Yah I know, but I was actually writing for the lurkers. I don't really respond to the creos unless I think the lurkers will benefit or the creo really annoys me.
Ye must be born again.
This post is brought to you by Friends of Piltdown Mantm, a non-profit think tank promoting Piltdown Science.
Though it is worth pointing out that there is a suggested donation of $5 for families that visit the Piltdown Theme Park in Rapid City. (Unlimited rides on tyre swing included)
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