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.”
"No one but a creationist would claim that evolution tries to explain the origin of life."
Then don't!
There goes the theory up in smokes.
Lurkers tend to notice stuff like that, too.
"Thanks to RunningWolf who have been exposed to that which you accuse me."
Should have read: "Thanks to RunningWolf who has exposed you to that which you accuse me."
"It is not so important how a man dies, but how he lives."
So true. So true.
You and me both.
your great post deserves to be repeated. I too, mostly lurk. I'm far from a scientist and sort of a poor mans theologian. I throw my two cents in when I feel like it, but not as eloquently as you.
For anyone that has ever wondered...we lurkers do notice and appreciate the difference between the two "camps".
Those that believe in evolution and make an intelligent, reasoned case for it, often providing links and scientific data. They almost always stay calm but enjoy poking the other side in the ribs(and honestly how could one not, when a lot of the other side believe that man lived with dinos and the earth is only 6000 years old) Some believe in God,others don't.
I have seen creationists, some in scientific or mathematic fields, argue for their side the same way. But by far, the majority resort to all CAPS tirades about burning in hell, evolution is a religion, bizarre conspiracy theories about evo out to persecute and destroy christianity, no christian could believe yadda yadda yadda and still be a True Christian...and so it goes.
And I gotta say, a lot of times you can detect an obvious form of *higher education envy* on the part of some in the more hateful hysterical posts.
These debates are the most educational, interesting and entertaining threads on FR.
*higher education envy*
That may be your perception, but it is wrong.
Wolf
This is the logically fallacy of suppressed evidence.
No, that's you being coy and evasive again, dodging a plain and simple question so that instead of furthering the conversation, you have a cheap excuse to play more puerile games. The only one here withholding relevant evidence, is *you*, when you refuse to answer direct questions.
All the rest of your scattershot insults and blather are merely padding and distraction and gameplaying.
If you're not going to answer a plain question, then you have no right to be offended when I have no option but to continue to draw my own conclusions about the answer, and I have nothing to "apologize" for.
If you can't grasp even that, then you're way out of your league on these discussions, much less in your struggling attempts to outwit us "elitist egg-heads" (your words) by being so clever as to, well, act like a petulant child. It's not working, and you're not impressing anyone by it, except perhaps yourself.
From your various posts over the past months, you've made it quite clear that you have an enormous chip on your shoulder regarding those you see as "elitist egg-heads", and as a result you pick fights in order to try to "show them up" in some way.
All you show instead is your own emotional issues and your own inability to prevail in a direct test of wits or knowledge, so you substitute trying to "win" by scoring "points" in peurile rhetorical games only you care anything about. For example, if you can act pigheaded enough that someone says something derogatory about you, you score yourself a "point" by having "proven" that the egg-head isn't as completely objective as (you presume) he thinks he is, etc. You've played that particular game on a number of threads. If that's what it takes to stroke your own ego, and assuage your obvious animosity towards "egg-heads", then that's pretty pathetic.
Post #892.
At least 4 points of evidence are mentioned in post 1819. Still waiting for a creationist to post a lucid answer to my question. Here it is in reprint for the scrolling impaired:
If the common ancestry of apes and humans is nonexistent, how does one explain the presence of the twenty or so discovered intermediate steps in the fossil record connecting apes and humans to a common ancestor, the sequencing commonalities between ape and human DNA, the fact that junk DNA mutation accumulations in common genes show a divergence in mutation rates between chimps and humans consistent in time with that interpolated from the fossil record, and the fact that fossil hominids demonstrating this pattern have been traced to the region of the world (namely Africa) inherent from the biogeographical distribution of modern day ape species?
Ichneumon also referenced you to a post containing a vast amount of information describing simian common descent. Are you going to discuss any points of evidence, or are you just going to yell at Dimensio all night?
NOW.... pathetic LIAR!!
Blessed are the meek, Wolf. (Quoted from your homepage.)
This is the second or third time you have mocked/made fun of her screenname.
Are you proud of yourself? What do you think Jesus would think of that? Surely you are familiar with John 19:26-27....
26When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son! 27Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home.
It seems Jesus loved and respected His mother, and I dare say all other moms too. You have all the class of Michael Moore.
If there are descendents of people in, say, one million years from now, they will not have wisdom teeth.
Granted, it's a bit hard to test with present technology..
But, it's easily seen to be true: Once in a while, even with modern dentistry, someone of breeding age or less, dies from an infection that started with a bad widsom tooth. His or her genes do not get passed on. Since it is a fairly rare event, selective pressure is low, but it's still there.
IS there any ID or Creationist reason this prediction should not be true?
Copout? I thought it was a rather useful question.
Do a google search on Lysenko or Lysenkoism. IIRC, the ToE is "bourgeois idealism" in Marx-speak.
Short version, the quack Trofim Lysenko had a "theory" that allowed him to convert winter wheat to summer, or some such. Got Stalin's favor, put the real biologists and geneticists in the Gulag, starved a few million Soviet citizens, set Russian biology back by decades.
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