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.”
Brontosaurus: One of the best known dinosaurs in books and museums for the past hundred years, brontosaurus never really existed. The dinosaur’s skeleton was found with the head missing. To complete it, a skull found three or four miles away was added. No one knew this for years. ... the head was from an Apatosaurus.
That was a lucky break, wasn't it? Finding the right skull anyway
What that Cretan Paul S. Taylor dosen't realize (or is more likely lying about) it that "brontosaurus" = Apatosaurus. They are one and the same. It's like "buffalo"/bison
Bla bla bla...can't make us all bow down to the god of e EVOS can ya?
So the alternative is to copy paste the well known and ubiquitous verbiage of defense: bogus, "FR scientists "lame excuses"---laughable you are...really.
You keep crawling back...you can't get enough put down. Weirdo.
That would make him Philt Down man, wouldn't it?
Atilla the Hun was known as "Mr. Concensus," I suppose.
I'm not one of the more knowledgeable evos, but I'm pretty high on the contempt for beligerent ignorance list.
You can believe that evidence exists for anything you choose, but that doesn't make it actually exist.
I'll admit, I look at the evidence and BELIVE it to be so.
Yes, this is obviously your method. Believing what you want to believe, instead of employing objective methods to determine which conclusions actually match the totality of the evidence and which don't. Try this method on the evidence and your beliefs and see how they hold up. Actually, no need, thousands of people before you have done so, and the conclusion is overwhelming: There was no global flood. Or if there was, someone has done an *awful* lot of "cleanup" to hide all evidence of its occurrence, and I don't know why any such someone would want to deceive people like that.
The Salt Lake, Grand Canyon, Niagra Falls, all the oceans, almost every culture speaks of a flood...
...none of which indicates that there was a global flood. Yes, there are lakes and rivers and canyons. These exist just fine without a global flood. And "almost every culture speaks of a flood" because almost every culture has *had* floods. Floods occur almost everywhere at one time or another, especially since people tend to choose sites for settlements/villages/cities which are near rivers/lakes/oceans. None of this provides evidenciary support for a global flood, especially since there are countless bodies of evidence, along multiple lines, which *rule out* the occurrence of a global flood of Biblical proportions.
Plus the eye witness accounts in the bible. (There I admitted it!)
There are no "eyewitness accounts" of the Flood in the Bible. There is a third-person account, which was committed to paper who-knows-how-long after whatever original event(s) might have inspired the original tale. Tales tend to grow in the telling, as they pass orally from person to person, over large periods of time.
And on that criteria, Jack Chick certainly does rate way up there...
Even the creationist website AnswersInGenesis.Com says that "...Hovind's document repeatedly misrepresents or misunderstands not only our article, but the issues themselves."
Hovind's spew has so many errors, misrepresentations, and outright falsehoods, that multiple webpages are dedicated to pointing out his screwups:
- How Good Are Those Young-Earth Arguments?
- Dave E. Matson's classic and detailed refutation of the arguments used by Kent Hovind and many other creationists to "prove" that the Earth is young.
- Kent Hovind's $250,000 Offer
- Shows why no one has collected is not evidence against evolution since the offer is a sham, worded so as to be impossible to meet.
- The Hovind Bankruptcy Decision
- An appendix to the previous article that gives the judge's finding that Hovind filed false tax schedules, made a bad faith court filing, and lied about his income in order to evade paying income tax he lawfully owed.
- Some Questionable Creationist Credentials
- Kent Hovind's claimed doctorate is from a diploma mill. This page documents false degrees held by Hovind and several other well-known creationists.
- Kent Hovind's "Creation Seminar"
- An online version of Mr. Hovind's seminar on creationism and his "evidence" against evolution.
- Analysis of Kent Hovind
- A look into almost every claim that Hovind makes.
- Creationism Gets a Dash of Anti-Semitism
- A civil rights organization rants on Hovind for selling The Fourth Reich of the Rich, recommending The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and for promoting extremist views.
- Dr. Dino's "Fractured Fairy Tales of Science"
- A Response to Kent Hovind's Coast-to-Coast AM interview: August 2-3, 2000
- ANALYSIS OF KENT HOVIND: QUACKY QUOTES
- Kent Hovind's Cytochrome Lie
- Stupid Dino Tricks
- A Visit to Kent Hovind’s Dinosaur Adventure Land
- Buddika's 300 Creationist Lies Index
- All just from Kent Hovind!
I was told not to tell anyone this, but my fear of reprisal diminishes with my own age. Also I think Jack Chick probably has a tract revealing what I am about to reveal anyway...
A while back I heard from a reliable source that Darwin never actually sailed to the Galapagos at all. No that was just an alibi. He in fact sailed to a secret meeting at R'lyeh where he met with hitler and marx. There Cthulhu gave them their orders. The origin of species is loosely based on texts from the necronomicon. The rest is history.
What makes you think Piltown was a hoax?
Wrong agin...but the whole field of EVO is replete with lies and coverups. Amazing.
Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus / A. ajax and B. excelsus / are not different enough to warrant two different genera (but different enough to warrant two different species), and so B. excelsus was lumped into Apatosaurus.
Different as human - me - and ape - you. Don't take it as an insult ;>)
Apparently it was a fabricated hoax on several levels and lasted 40 years from what I read today.
This fraud and others is a blight on science.
Wolf
You don't like evolution and evolutionists either way, so I doubt the Piltdown hoax had much influence on you. And the 40 year figure you cite is bogus; see my previous post, a ways upthread. (I actually have some old evolution books, so I don't need to search the web for quotes.)
A couple of good paleontologists blew Piltdown out of the water by about 1932 (Friedrichs and Weidenreich both published research suggesting the lower jaws and molars were that of an orang). Even more, Piltdown was pretty much ignored after Dart's South African finds a few years earlier.
Piltdown was included in the texts but serious researchers paid it no attention--and certainly didn't write 500 dissertations on it. There probably haven't been that many on paleontology in the last century and a half.
The coup de grass (that's French, you know) for Piltdown came in 1954 when technology finally allowed paleontologists to falsify the claims, but Piltdown was discredited and ignored well before that date.
The only scientists who promote Piltdown now are "Creation scientists" (talk about oxymorons).
Coyote
Evolution loses every honest, open debate. They have to re-define the world in order to have a chance at a win.
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