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.”
Seriously now, the existence of Batboy is just the kind of evidence the creationists are looking for to suit their strawman version of evolution.
I like the way this Mr. snruB thinks!
How many times does one need wade through propaganda and nonsense. You lost the argument when you went after the man instead of what he says.
If the earth had a canopy at the time which filtered a lot of the higher spectrum, I don't think you can sustain that argument. Further, you'd have do know the output of the sun at that time. In short, you're assuming a lot of things, again, that you can't sustain. That's the problem with assumption. Once you start, that's about all you get done.. assumption.
But the Nazis didn't believe anything of the sort: that life can happened "by accident". They were creationists, albeit of a mystical variety. They believed that the races were created with particular "souls" which gave each race particular characteristics, and particular fates. (Most notably some races were fated to rule, and by nature were warriors and conquerors -- guess which -- and others were fated to slavery.)
This doctrine can be found both in Mein Kampf, and even more explicitly in The Myth of the Twentieth Century by Alfred Rosenberg, the Nazi's most important philosopher of race.
The Nazis believed in the very opposite of "accident," they believed in FATE. Blood, in which the primeval racial soul was carried, was destiny. Their goal was to recreate the racial/blood purity of the original creation.
Just how dense are you? Those pages documented hundreds of times that WHAT HOVIND SAYS have been bogus.
Didn't even *look*, did you?
LOL! Thats actually far more lucid than anything ol' f dot ever posted.
Let's recap, shall we? Hovind made a (very) questionable claim. Hovind listed a citation which he claimed he got the claim from. Checking the claim, we find that HOVIND GROSSLY MISREPRESENTED that source, twisting it to say something it did not say.
Hovind CONTINUES to make his bogus claim after he has been iformed it's bogus -- that his "source" does not say what he claim it does.
You likewise have made the same bogus claim, you have been informed of the same documentation of its falsehood, and YOU CONTINUE TO MAKE THE SAME DEBUNKED CLAIM.
Spin *that* if you think you can do it without looking you and Hovind look like the biggest pair of liars in the world.
If you only knew my dear... Stick around you'll find out.... If you can "endure" it...
ROFL!!! On several other posts, you have bizarrely taken "evos" to task for presuming anything about poster's mental state or intent or motivation at the time a post was written, snidely asking us if we're "clairvoyant".
Now here, you have no problem whatsoever with swallowing eleni121's presumption, reading into a post someone "getting their jollies", and you not only don't take eleni121 to task for it, you heartily concur (clairvoyant yourself, eh?)
Nice double standard you've got there -- creationists like eleni121 can presume a poster's mental state and that's fine by you (and *you* can do it frequently and proudly without shame), but when an "evo" does it you suddenly consider it to be the height of inexcusable presumption.
Do you not realize what a hypocritical buffoon this makes you?
Admit it, you're just trolling, right? No one could be this insanely hypocritical for real...
Sure they would love to surpress the message of a Torah observant Jew but the Jesus that was morphing into some sort of glorified mithraism was just dandy.
It looks like no one on the cre side is going to respond to this, and certainly not with any appreciation or indication of improved understanding, so let me say thank you for these links. Previously I didn't think I could satisfactorily defend rd myself. These links, however, cleared up all of my partial understandings and misconceptions.
There has never been a thread in which creationists responded to accumulated science.
The best they have done -- and this is limited to two or three individuals -- is list some interesting puzzles that remain unsolved.
I ran into one ID advocate who argued it is a waste of money to investigate questions that have not yet been answered.
It is difficult to draw any conclusion other than creationism considers the activities of science to be blasphemous.
Your proclamations simply do not make things true. You and your clan have presented nothing of substance.
Try learning about the subject before you make any more transparently false and silly pronouncements out of ignorance.
It is you who are ignorant, and you are who are silly.....let me add proud and vain to the list.
Evo-cultists, secular humanists, Libertarians; I know you by your fruits.
What have you ever done for anybody? What progress has ever been made by the application of your theories? Anyone?
Educated people...people like you, the finest Berkeley has to offer I'm sure.
From what I know of the esteemed Mr. Jack Chick, it seems very unlikely that he would be, at that advanced age, fighting with people on internet forums.
This is absolutely at odds with every known fact regarding the real Jack Chick. He is a true gentleman in every regard.
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