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.”
Back up the wagon, Spanky. The poster didn't address the citation. The poster took a swing at Hovind in ignorance of the citation - presumably having foreknowledge of the citation and presuming to know of which he spoke. As the facts have it - Hovind reads much of his presentation on the big bang right out of photographed slides of the school textbooks and from statements made in science publications. Anyone having seen any of his seminars knows this. That's why it was apparent that he had not seen it and had no clue what he was talking about. So, NO, the original poster did not deal with the citation. Get your facts straight.
No. Sorry. That is not enough. The word Dinosaur is a relatively recent invention. Many creatures thusly classed have names in modern cultures.. rendering your ASSUMPTIONS about "dinosaurs" to be as useful as your ASSUMPTIONS about 14C, the speed of light, etc. We have differing views on science, apparently. I think you shut up and let the evidence speak for itself as you find it. You think you make up your mind and reject any evidence that doesn't fit the fiction you created. The latter seems to lead to long fostered ignorance in practice. So, I tend to favor my approach.
I've a middle aged nephew and his wife that accepts everything Dr. Dino says as fact. I've the sense they have been led to believe they must accept Dr. Dino's teachings to prove their faith in God and Jesus Christ or heaven will be lost to them. That's scary as heck.
I have severe reservations with both the evolutionary crowd and these folks like Dr. Dino. I'm satisfied believing God knows how all came into being. I think the truth is yet to be discovered.
Funny (or sad) as it may sound, I posed a couple simple questions to my nephew in regard to time. One of the questions was, "Is a day today equal in actual time to a day say a thousand or 5,000 years ago?" He told me the Jews had developed a clock at the dawn of time and it has remained constant ever since. How it was possible for the Jews to construct such a clock before they were created baffles me. How my nephew could believe this baffles me more.
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.
Yeah, it's sad.
That's the major reason I partake. The quality of the creo opposition has varied over the years; early on were the thoughtful ones (very few of whom show up in current threads), but beginning with the Crevo Wars of 2003 the quality of posters dropped considerably, even after all the bannings. Of the 80 or so names on the "Black Wall" a goodly portion were lost during this time.
Since God created man in His image, God has wisdom teeth. Now, why God would need more teeth than His jaw will hold (which is true of humanity) is beyond me. Indeed, why God needs a back not quite fit for upright stance but no longer useful for a quadruped, or why His knees are so poorly engineered so as to suffer from strain-related disorders baffles me considerably ...
Unless... it was man who created God in his image.
Can you speak - any of you without creating elaborate false constructs? Is it possible?
Evidence is evidence is evidence. Evidence for "what" is the point. You have bones in museums. Bully for you. You assume a lot based on what you find and based on other assumptions. Mostly you assume. That means all you've really done is construct a fiction you happen to like that may be true IF your assumptions are right. The if part is your problem. It isn't a matter of overturning evidence. It's a matter of rejecting the assumptions - the "spin" as it were that you've put on the reporting thereof. There is no evidence that is problematic to man and "dinosaurs" living on the planet at the same time. The only problem is your "spin".. and I don't see that as a problem.
It bothers me that you spend any time at all responding to the idiocies posted by people who are obviously trolling. But since you've done so about the ping list, and the insane claim that I use the list when I've failed ...
"... to convince the un-washed they are out of their league, ping 50 or so of your distinguished scientist buddies and have them join the thread. The shear number of insults should begin to discourage the provocateur and others."So, here's your response: You're correct and the mindless troll is wrong. Is anyone surprised? The ping list isn't a cry for help (but being a creationist troll certainly seems to be just that).
I prefer to use the list immediately, as soon as I've posted a thread I think will be of interest to the list members. If I haven't posted the thread myself, but learn about it early enough, then I sometimes agonize over whether it's "pingworthy" or should be ignored, and as most of the regulars are aware, I often seek other opinions about the quality of the thread before I deploy the list.
I try to ping very early in a thread, before it gets all wucked up by idiotic posters (who inevitably get their thrills by putting up star wars pics, claiming evolution is anti-Christian, and asking why there are still monkeys), because when a thread becomes loaded up with that troll trash too early, it's of no interest to rational freepers.
Contrary to the claim of the mindless troll, such garbage postings don't create intellectual problems that any one of us can't handle, or that require the summoning of help. Rather, they're like the presence of raw sewage at the early stage of the thread, which will discourage list members and rational newbies from participating. When many such remarks come in later, well after the ping (as in this thread) then I ignore them, but by then everyone's already in the thread, and some of us find the psychology of trolls to be entertaining.
Anyway, contrary to the deranged fantasy of the mindless troll, I don't use the ping list as a cry for help. I do it because I'm pretty sure after all this time what will interest the list and what won't.
Nice.
They're both on my VI list, anyway. Fanatics should at least be amusing, and neither of them is. But I couldn't resist eleni121's idiotic 'correction' of someone else's misspelling with her own.
Mou de lawn.
;^)
There ya go!
My wisdom teeth are over 50 years old and my jaw has no problems holding them.
Go figger.....
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