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.”
Ridiculous. Only a bigoted, anti-Catholic (for starters) extremist could say that. Oh, wait, never mind... Maybe this is reasonable appraisal for you.
You missed one. Check #820.
Baraonda: There you go! I knew I had read it someplace. I'm sure it has been asserted more than once. But because these threads are long ones, they (the evolutionists) hope that we won't be able to find their quotes.
Humans and old world monkeys do share a common ancestor - new world monkeys. Sequences of fossils lead us to believe this, and shared non-conserving sequences of DNA back this conclusion. Using those non-conserving sequences of DNA gives us approximate dates for the split, dates that roughly correspond to dates previously approximated through fossil evidence.
As you are doing here? Does this mean you have been beaten?
What about the scablands?
For the lurkers, the Channeled Scablands are primarily in central and eastern Washington State, and resulted when an ice dam back toward Montana broke (probably many times) at the end of the last Ice Age. This released huge amounts of water which created very distinctive soil formations on the way to the Columbia River and the ocean.
The Channeled Scablands are not proof of a global flood. The ages are pretty well understood (and way too old for the global flood), the limits pretty easy to track (and are not global), and the effects are quite interesting. But, compared to the global flood story, this would have been a leaky faucet.
I did a few field trips to the area in grad school (in paleoecology courses), so have a little experience with the area.
So, What about the scablands?
The phylogenic tree, which was originally based solely on morphology, is being shown to be highly accurate by corroborating evidence taken from genomics.
I noticed this, and have been posting accordingly. But the ignorance here is invincible.
Not everyone on these threads seems to know that chimpanzees are not monkeys. Not sure that's the problem here but it does seem to come up from time to time.
Beware of relying on 'common sense' too much, it is neither common nor reliably sensible. Different cultures, including sub cultures within a larger culture such as ours, have variations in commonality of what you consider common sense. Common sense has been shown to be unreliable by various disciplines of science, one example of that being quantum physics.
Relying on it as a 'proof' of anything is counterproductive and silly.
We have your word on that?
You know, you might find it more profitable, even enjoyable, if you would pull your own chain for a while.
Your intent here is far too obvious to work much longer.
Indeed.
Why are you still beating the light speed and decay rate dead horse? Did you not read my post to you regarding this issue? Did you not verify it for yourself by performing the calculations I suggested you do?
Why have you not tested the assumptions you have about the assumptions science uses? Are your assumptions not subject to test and verification?
Hovind has to warp, twist, and mangle the laws of physics (such as his favourite 2LoT) to make his points sound reasonable.
Without that mangling, his ideas are ridiculous.
With his mangling, the laws of physics are ridiculous.
If you agree with the latter point, then you must be open to the idea that the universe could self create and produce matter from non-matter (remember you agree that the laws are ridiculous by accepting the latter).
I'm sorry to hear about your nephew.
"The Dr. Dino crowd do the same exact thing the evolutionists do. They try to make things fit their theories, but really only succeed in misleading people."
I'm also sorry to hear you believe we intentionally mislead people. That isn't true, but I understand why you believe so. I suspect you have been exposed to a strawman version of the theory and the evidence for evolution. I suggest you visit Ichneumon's and PatrickHenry's home pages to get more accurate information. If you feel they may be too biased, I suggest you visit talkorigins.org which is a resource for information from biologists and other evolutionary scientists whose only concern is imparting accurate information. All of the articles at talk origins cite the primary or secondary (which cites the primary) documents their information comes from. (This is true of both Ichny's and PH's sites as well).
The thread psychology grows more entertaining.
Except that despite all the dinosaur fossils we have found and despite all the archaeological communities we've uncovered we have not found any human and dinosaur remains in the same stratum. In fact they are separated by many strata, strata that have been absolutely and relatively dated. Both the order of the strata and the radiometric dating show a relative difference in date. Even if you do not believe that radiometric dating is absolutely accurate, you will find it far more difficult to dismiss as a measure of relative dates. The geological evidence, the archaeological evidence, the paleontological evidence, astronomical evidence all show there was a well defined and substantial gap between the time dinosaur fossils stopped appearing and Homo fossils started appearing.
Hydrodynamic sorting, as proposed by creation 'scientists', does not answer the relative position problem because all dinosaur fossils, whether extremely small or extremely large, whether extremely agile or slow and lumbering, whether forest dwelling or tundra dwelling, are all found in lower strata (older) than any human remains.
We should not be so arrogant as to assume that archaic humans did not observe dinosaur fossils and incorporate them into their mythology.
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