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.”
Ridicule was more fun when the objects of ridicule were still here, but the threads were constanly being pulled.
The mods started a thread to see who was causing the flame wars, and it turned out to be the creationists. About a dozen went down in flames after cursing Jim Robinson.
If you don't want to be ridiculed, the best policy is not to say stupid stuff in the first place, and if you do happen to say something that is incorrect, admit it.
How much intelligence does it take, for example, to notice that a suntan is not equivalent to evolution? How much pride do you have to swallow to admit it isn't a good line of argument?
Does it make you guys even more important in each other's eyes to constantly ridicule someone not here to defend themselves?
No, since that's not why we're doing it, but feel free to jump to *more* bizarre conclusions about our motivations any time you please. It only reinforces the ludicrousness and hypocrisy when you write snotty stuff like:
"Amazing how you can know the thought process of every written word by others. Even when a statement might be read more than one way, you always know the intent of the author."
Is that the scientific ethic at work?
No, it's guys talking about a post. Confused much?
As if your egos could tolerate any more masturbatory input.
We'll have to defer to you on that, you being the expert on such things.
It's no wonder you are held in such high esteem by your opponents.
Yeah, yeah, sure sure, it has *nothing* whatsoever to do with the fact that we constantly catch them posting falsehoods and misrepresentations and flubs, and provide documentation of their blunders, and how we defend a field (evolutionary biology) that they consider to be the Devil's work, drawing souls to damnation. It's actually about our *attitudes*. Yeah, that *must* be it...
Where ridicule is needed is cases where someone defends the indefensible, or continues asserting things that are beyond mere ignorance.
Not in front of the kids, now!
I always tank up on eggnog down at the local tavern. And I always drive home. Wouldn't want the kids see me staggering down the street.
Amazing that I've never claimed to be able to do that, and none of my refutation of your post relies on any such omniscience, and yet you make the accusation anyway.
Are you trying to distract attention from the fact that you're not going to specifically address any of my points? Is so, it's not working.
Even when a statement might be read more than one way, you always know the intent of the author.
You mean like *you* did when you made wild presumption about PatrickHenry's motives for deploying his ping list, despite having no grounds for your conclusion?
If you think I've leapt to any conclusion as egregious as that one of yours -- if you feel that I have made any conclusion that was not a reasonably supportable one -- feel free to make a case for it by quoting me and then arguing why you think so.
Until then, your unsubstantiated and rather bizarre broadside will be taken as the cheap evasion it appears to be -- an excuse to hand-wave away my entire point-by-point post, instead of dealing head-on with the points I've made.
Furthermore, if drawing a conclusion about an author's intent is some sort of arrogant presumption of being a mind-reader, what are we to make of *your* performance in presuming to know the various authors' intents when you chose their posts as "examples" of specific tactics for your list, most of which involved specific scenarios of motivation? Hm? You can't have it both ways. If it's out of line for *me* to draw a conclusion about someone's intent, then it's equally out of line for *you* to do so as you have done so frequently on this thread. You don't want to be a blatant *hypocrite*, do you?
And the way you change the meaning of words and terms on a dime is quite a talent as well.
If you think you can make a case for me having done so in any particular case, feel free to quote where you believe I have done that, and make your case.
Until then, you're just flinging poo like an ill-trained simian.
I guess you can't ever lose an argument when you can redefine the thoughts and words of others so that you make yourself believe they agree with you.
I guess you can't ever lose an argument when you resort to generalized unsubstantiated broadsides as a substitute for dealing on a point-by-point basis with what people have written to you.
The astute reader will note that darbymcgill's childish outburst of insults (the whole post) would serve as a generalized broadside against almost *any* post, by *anyone*, on *any* topic. None of its accusations are tied to anything I've actually written -- no examples are given, no case is made. It's so nonspecific and broadly ad hominem that it's a longwinded version of "you suck!"
This is wonderfully hypocritical coming from the same person who wrote on an earlier thread:
So, once again you screamed the loudest, called me the most names and never once addressed my arguments, i guess that makes you the WINNER.And yet that is a *wonderfully* apt description of darbymcgill's own outburst against me. What a blatant double-standard darbymcgill keeps...
Do you linger when you pass mirrors or do you have one of those little video windows in the corner of your monitor?
Now do you have anything to actually rebut what I've written and are you going to provide it, or are you going to continue to issue gradeschool-level taunts that fail to address any of my points?
See, this is the kind of bad behavior a belief in evolution encourages.
You still haven't provided anything specific.
That is because you are wrong.
The only time I've seen folks go after a typo is when the typo itself happened to be *funny*, or triggered a bunch of puns. Like earlier in this thread when someone typed "viscous" (a word meaning "thick and sticky") when they actually meant "vicious" (cruel). The mental image of a Freeper being called "thick and sticky" was too funny to let pass without some jokes.
Where ridicule is needed is cases where someone defends the indefensible, or continues asserting things that are beyond mere ignorance.
Right -- when someone actually *was* behaving in a ridiculous manner, and we were pointing it out.
I one typed viscous in a college paper that was read in class. The response was vicious.
Try the following sites. I know you won't believe scientists, so try some religious sites:
ReligiousTolerance.org Carbon-14 Dating (C-14): Beliefs of New-Earth Creationists
The American Scientific Affiliation: Science in Christian Perspective Radiometric Dating: A Christian Perspective by Dr. Roger C. Wiens.
This site, BiblicalChronologist.org has a series of good articles on radiocarbon dating.
How does the radiocarbon dating method work? (The Biblical Chronologist, Vol. 5, No. 1)
How precise is radiocarbon dating?
Is radiocarbon dating based on assumptions?
Has radiocarbon dating been invalidated by unreasonable results?
The criticism must've been quite thick.
Jorge's response was a blustering excuse about how he wasn't going to read a "huge reading assignments".
I responded by pointing out that if he was *really* the hotshot biology student and ex-evolutionist he claimed to be, he would *already* know such material (as well as fitting rebuttals suitable for ultimately rejecting that evidence), so that excuse was moot. I then invited him *again* to actually address the *very* small fraction of the full body of evidence which I had posted for his critique, and asked him to point out where, exactly, it was flawed in a way that would make the scientific conclusions cross-confirmed by it "transparently idiotic".
It has now been over 36 hours, and Jorge seems to have vanished.
Of course, this is in keeping with the way he vanished and failed to respond the last time I issued him the same challenge to deal with the evidence, on January 30, 2005...
(You'd think that more than ten months would be enough time for him to come up with *some* material, but he seemed woefully unprepared when I asked him again in this thread.)
For someone so arrogant about his alleged education, training in biology, and former evo-status, Jorge seems to be *awfully* shy about backing up his claims that evolutionary biology is "idiotic"...
Don't forget: Eugenics is an intelligently-designed attempt to point microevolution in a beneficial direction. Eugenics is perfectly compatible with creationism.
I stand by my point-by-point examination of your anal nitpicking and its followup.I'd missed that exchange. Excellent!
Is THAT where creationists get their argument that ERV insertions aren't really random? That is so lame!
Jorge has credentials?? All is clear now. He must be related to several of the other posters here. They've been referring to him quite a lot in their postings, as their "bigshot scientist relative who rejects evolution".
..... such as claiming that 1720 is a really big number for three days while everybody on the thread keeps pointing to it, and the person who posted it doesn't realize the OBVIOUS typographical error.
No, evolutionist constrew what they deem as evidence, to fit the their convoluted, illogical agenda...
You're definitely in a world of your own.
Good, because I don't want to be in a world where everything is meaningless, and circumstances come about by chance, I want to live in the reality of the intellegence of a creator who takes care of his own.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.