Prove Evolution: Win $250,000!

Creation Science Evangelism ^ | N/A | Dr. Ken Hovind

[handk]

Dr. Hovind's $250,000 Offer
formerly $10,000, offered since 1990

I have a standing offer of $250,000 to anyone who can give any empirical evidence (scientific proof) for evolution.*  My $250,000 offer demonstrates that the hypothesis of evolution is nothing more than a religious belief.

 

Observed phenomena:

Most thinking people will agree that--
1. A highly ordered universe exists.
2. At least one planet in this complex universe contains an amazing variety of life forms.
3. Man appears to be the most advanced form of life on this planet.

Known options:

Choices of how the observed phenomena came into being--
1. The universe was created by God.
2. The universe always existed.
3. The universe came into being by itself by purely natural processes (known as evolution) so that no appeal to the supernatural is needed.

Evolution has been acclaimed as being the only process capable of causing the observed phenomena.

Evolution is presented in our public school textbooks as a process that:

1. Brought time, space, and matter into existence from nothing.
2. Organized that matter into the galaxies, stars, and at least nine planets around the sun. (This process is often referred to as cosmic evolution.)
3. Created the life that exists on at least one of those planets from nonliving matter (chemical evolution).
4. Caused the living creatures to be capable of and interested in reproducing themselves.
5. Caused that first life form to spontaneously diversify into different forms of living things, such as the plants and animals on the earth today (biological evolution).

People believe in evolution; they do not know that it is true. While beliefs are certainly fine to have, it is not fair to force on the students in our public school system the teaching of one belief, at taxpayers’ expense. It is my contention that evolutionism is a religious worldview that is not supported by science, Scripture, popular opinion, or common sense. The exclusive teaching of this dangerous, mind-altering philosophy in tax-supported schools, parks, museums, etc., is also a clear violation of the First Amendment.

 

How to collect the $250,000:

Prove beyond reasonable doubt that the process of evolution (option 3 above, under "known options") is the only possible way the observed phenomena could have come into existence. Only empirical evidence is acceptable. 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.

If you are convinced that evolution is an indisputable fact, may I suggest that you offer $250,000 for any empirical or historical evidence against the general theory of evolution. This might include the following:

1. The earth is not billions of years old (thus destroying the possibility of evolution having happened as it is being taught).
2. No animal has ever been observed changing into any fundamentally different kind of animal.
3. No one has ever observed life spontaneously arising from nonliving matter.
4. Matter cannot make itself out of nothing.

 

My suggestion:

Proponents of the theory of evolution would do well to admit that they believe in evolution, but they do not know that it happened the way they teach. They should call evolution their "faith" or "religion," and stop including it in books of science. Give up faith in the silly religion of evolutionism, and trust the God of the Bible (who is the Creator of this universe and will be your Judge, and mine, one day soon) to forgive you and to save you from the coming judgment on man’s sin.

* NOTE:
When I use the word evolution, I am not referring to the minor variations found in all of the various life forms (microevolution). I am referring to the general theory of evolution which believes these five major events took place without God:

1. Time, space, and matter came into existence by themselves.
2. Planets and stars formed from space dust.
3. Matter created life by itself.
4. Early life-forms learned to reproduce themselves.
5. Major changes occurred between these diverse life forms (i.e., fish changed to amphibians, amphibians changed to reptiles, and reptiles changed to birds or mammals).

[Iota]

I'm glad that you enjoyed the article. Though I'm not the biggest fan of Gould in the world, he does a pretty good job of making this stuff approachable. (When he wanders outside of the evolution area, I usually lose interest.)

And I agree that the attacks serve little purpose other than to provide momentary satisfaction for the attacker. Though the one you quote is pretty mild -- and understandable, to my mind. I mean, Gould gets told every day that his life work's a fraud, he's a phony -- and going to roast in hell besides. A bit of peevishness is understandable.

[foolish-one]

You got spunk. I HATE SPUNK!!!

Not really, just could not resist! (That's Lou Grant to Mary Richards, by the way.) Sorry.

Have fun!

[Jesse]

When I use the word evolution, I am not referring to the minor variations found in all of the various life forms (microevolution). I am referring to the general theory of evolution which believes these five major events took place without God: Time, space, and matter came into existence by themselves. Planets and stars formed from space dust. Matter created life by itself. Early life-forms learned to reproduce themselves. Major changes occurred between these diverse life forms (i.e., fish changed to amphibians, amphibians changed to reptiles, and reptiles changed to birds or mammals).

Who is this dolt? What this guy wants one to prove largely has nothing to do with the theory of evolution. But then he goes on to casually dismiss a central tenent of evolution, which is that minor variations in life forms are in fact the very cornerstone of evolutionary theory.

Early life forms "learned" to reproduce themselves? I guess if they hadn't "learned" to reproduce themselves, there would be no later life forms, would there?

He could offer a billion dollars to prove his "theory", wouldn't make any difference. His challenge is empty.

[Jesse]

When I use the word evolution, I am not referring to the minor variations found in all of the various life forms (microevolution). I am referring to the general theory of evolution which believes these five major events took place without God: Time, space, and matter came into existence by themselves. Planets and stars formed from space dust. Matter created life by itself. Early life-forms learned to reproduce themselves. Major changes occurred between these diverse life forms (i.e., fish changed to amphibians, amphibians changed to reptiles, and reptiles changed to birds or mammals).

Who is this dolt? What this guy wants one to prove largely has nothing to do with the theory of evolution. But then he goes on to casually dismiss a central tenent of evolution, which is that minor variations in life forms are in fact the very cornerstone of evolutionary theory.

Early life forms "learned" to reproduce themselves? I guess if they hadn't "learned" to reproduce themselves, there would be no later life forms, would there?

He could offer a billion dollars to prove his "theory", wouldn't make any difference. His challenge is empty.

[Sloth]

Evolution is presented in our public school textbooks as a process that:

1. Brought time, space, and matter into existence from nothing.

2. Organized that matter into the galaxies, stars, and at least nine planets around the sun. (This process is often referred to as cosmic evolution.)

3. Created the life that exists on at least one of those planets from nonliving matter (chemical evolution).

These statements are flatly untrue, at least for any fairly good textbook. Evolution does not purport to account for any of these events or processes.

[PatrickHenry]

Placemarker.

[Iota]

He could offer a billion dollars to prove his "theory", wouldn't make any difference. His challenge is empty.

Not only is it empty, but HE gets to do the judging (he gets to screen the evidence, to pick biased judges, etc. -- amounts to the same thing).

If it were my $25,000 on the line, I'm absolutely certain that you couldn't prove that, oh, the Union won the Civil War -- at least not to ME.

And not to my handpicked judges, who'd only get to see the evidence I let through.

[handk]

These statements are flatly untrue, at least for any fairly good textbook. Evolution does not purport to account for any of these events or processes.

Thanks for the admission.

[MEGoody]

MY book of Genesis? LOL Actually, the book of Genesis says it all came from God, not nothing. It is those who don't believe in God who believe it came from nothing.

[MEGoody]

I believe you were asked to show the numbers. We're waiting. :)

[MEGoody]

"You are aware that physical things are constantly popping in and out of existence in the world around us?"

Can you give me an example of what you are refering to?

[MEGoody]

Well, since the particles within an atom are moving constantly, a brick is in perpetual motion in a manner of speaking. LOL

[RedBloodedAmerican]

Good boy. You get an A+ for the day.

[handk]

What a pathetic personal attack.

Well, when someone chooses to be known as "Oztrich Boy", or perhaps "My Head Is Lodged Up My Ass", they're kind of asking for it.

[f.Christian]

Your remarks...

'Creation science'. That's pretty funny!

It's like saying 'perpetual motion brick'.

303 posted on 5/3/02 11:12 AM Hawaii-Aleutian by Tanngrisnir

Mine...

Evolution 'science'...'perpetual motion brick' morphs into a human family---liberal utopian society---space shuttle...

evolution is science FICTION---fantasy--delusians--madness!!

[foolish-one]

Well...

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

Sounds like God started with nothing to me. And I believe in God.

Actually, we have two choices: either you have to believe (and try to explain) that something came from nothing or you have to believe that God made everything from nothing. I fit into the second category and it makes my life easier. I don't have to explain where God came from - I can't. But I can explain where everything else came from!

[BMCDA]

I venture to say that the evidence is all around you. There is enough of it that any certain characterization of the world which asserts that there is not enough evidence to be certain is also unjustified. There is enough to hold us accountable. Assuming that you don't believe in God, I venture to say that the only reason that you do not find the evidence for Him compelling, when you get right down to it, is because of your prior commitment to yourself autonomously as the final arbiter of truth independently from anything the Creator might have to say about the matter. Isn't that true?

Sure, there is enough evidence, but evidence of what? Every existing thing can be evidence of something else but so far there is nothing that points to the existence of a god IMO (or even to a particular god). The existence of a god is a an extraordinary claim and so it needs extraordinary evidence to back it up. If such a god exists he has never revealed himself to more than one person in the same way, at the same time. For instance there could be some people who don't know of each other and are not in contact with each other when the divine revelation occurs, who have the same vision and could report the same story indepently of each other. Of course this doesn't automatically prove a god but it would be a stronger point than the experience of only one person because you cannot say if this vision was indeed of divine origin or mere wishful thinking, a halucination or deliberate fraud.

Miracles are also often refered to as evidence of a god but most miracles (or even all of them) are the result of selective perception. Coincidences happen all the time but mostly we don't notice them if they are not in any way important to us. Now if a coincidence occurs that is very unlikely but also in some way beneficial to us or an other person many would consider that to be a miracle and that it couldn't have happend without the intervention of a benevolent deity.
An example would be a man who survives the fall from a high building. I'm pretty sure that a lot of people would consider this to be a divine miracle.
But now imagine the following thought experiment: you have many identical copies of the same person. Now you start from a certain altitude and throw a certain amount (let's say 1000) of them out of the window. Then you write down how many survived and proceed to the next story (you may increase the altitude also in smaller steps) and do the same thing again until no one survives.
Do you think it was a miracle that the guy who fell from the highest altitude survived? What is with those who fell from a lower altitude and survived? Are they lesser miracles?
Of course as one sees the number of the survivors decrease continually with increasing height it doesn't appear as a miracle any longer.
On the other hand, I'm convinced that if you only mention the person that fell from the highest altitude and survived it would be considered a miracle by many people.

You might say, "well I don't believe in your God or any god". I understand that, but that denial also evidences my assertion that when it comes to truth, your allegiance is totally and finally only to yourself apart from anything God might have to say about the subject.

Of course I can't let a being decide for me what is true if I'm not convinced of its existence ;-D

In other words, from my perspective, you exclude the possibility of God and anything God might have to say about what is true simply because of your apriori desire to remain independent from God.

In other words, from Ali's/Suresh's perspective, you exclude the possibility of Allah/Vishnu and anything Allah/Vishnu might have to say about what is true simply because of your apriori desire to remain independent from Allah/Vishnu.
You see, this also works with other gods. For you, your God is the one true god as is Allah for Ali and Vishnu for Suresh (in his case one of many gods). For me they're equally unconvincing. I haven't seen any compelling evidence for any god not only for your God.

That prior commitment to your independence from God is what causes you admit or reject whatever evidence comes before you. You epistemologically filter all evidence through your allegiance to yourself so that you will admit no fact that threatens your independence from God.

And I'd say the same also applies to you in some sense. You believe in your God and therefore everything you see is automatically evidence of his existence. But that is also the case for any other god (and other entities like gnomes, leprechauns, pixies, fairies...) people believed in (or still believe in). It's always a matter of definition: you say your god (or an other supernatural entity) created/caused this or that and since this or that obviously exists it also follows that your god (or...) exists. In this way you can "prove" everything.
I don't say that a particular thing could not have been created or caused by an omnipotent god under no circumstances. Au contraire. Such a being could have created everything, even the most trivial thing. It could have created our universe while I was typing this text. I hope you see that such an answer can be applied to everything and therefore it isn't a good explanation (actually it isn't an explanation at all).
I only say it may not have been a god and there could be a more parsimonious explanation. And as long as a natural explanation cannot be completely ruled out I don't see why we have to invoke a god or especially your God.

Regards

[tortoise]

Actually, we have two choices: either you have to believe (and try to explain) that something came from nothing or you have to believe that God made everything from nothing. I fit into the second category and it makes my life easier. I don't have to explain where God came from - I can't. But I can explain where everything else came from!

But isn't this essentially asking the same question? Imagine that you had a suitcase full of money in your possession, and the cops were questioning you about where the money came from.

COPS: Where did this money come from?
YOU: The suitcase.
COPS: Okay wiseguy, where did the suitcase full of money come from?

Adding an insignificant layer of indirection to the question doesn't change the fundamental question. By saying God created the universe you don't have a meaningful answer, you've merely thrown up some smoke in front of the real question. In essence, you aren't answering the question but ignoring it, redirecting responsibility for answering it from yourself to God. Doing so necessarily invokes the question of who created God from nothing.

To further complicate matters, any answer for how God came into existence is equally applicable to everything else. That which is possible is possible, and we can't selectively apply that reasoning to members of the same category. If God has always existed in one form or another, then the universe could have always existed in one form or another. Contrary to popular understanding, physics does not suggest that there was a "beginning" or "cause" to the universe in the sense that humans normally use it, so there is no contradiction in this understanding.

[tortoise]

Can you give me an example of what you are refering to?

A trivial case, easily demonstrated under normal conditions, would be the pervasive zero point field, where particles are constantly popping in and out of existence. The Casimir Effect is an example of the force generated by these transient particles as they spontaneously come into existence in a vacuum.