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.”
You are merely playing footsie at this point.
I'm not an "evo-cultist", and I don't know anyone who is, even among all the evolutionists I know. Perhaps you should go find an actual "evo-cultist" and direct your question at them.
Where will evolution lead us; that is, make a scientific prediction based on your supposed 'law' of evolution.
What "law of evolution" would that be? Are you sure you have any idea what in the hell you're talking about?
It actually looks like the skeleton of a typical infidel to me. Maybe ISLAM is older than we think.
Funny.
This is how you spend your time and what you decide to focus on.
Why do you think actual competent people don't take you seriously?
Not in the way *you* mean it, he didn't...
Here's a post I wrote in reply to someone else who was as confused as you are:
And dude, seriously, Einstein believed in God, too. That the universe was His creation. He saw God's hand in even the "slightest details" as he put it.Just not *your* God. Creationists like to selectively quote Einstein out of context to make it appear that he endorsed *their* notions of God, but as even your own next quote hints, he actually found that notion of a "personal God" to be childish:
"Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe-a spirit vastly superior to that of man.... In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort, which is indeed quite different from the religiosity of someone more naive. [Albert Einstein]"Let's have a look at some of the quotes that the creationists like to sweep under the rug, shall we?"In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God, that is, give up that source of fear and hope which in the past placed such vast power in the hands of priests. In their labors they will have to avail themselves of those forces which are capable of cultivating the Good, the True, and the Beautiful in humanity itself. This is, to be sure, a more difficult but an incomparably more worthy task..."And:
-- Albert Einstein, "Science, Philosophy, and Religion, A Symposium", published by the Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion in Their Relation to the Democratic Way of Life, Inc., New York, 1941."It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."And:
-- Albert Einstein, letter dated 24 March 1954, included in "Albert Einstein: The Human Side"."It is quite possible that we can do greater things than Jesus, for what is written in the Bible about him is poetically embellished."And:
-- Albert Einstein, quoted in W. I Hermanns "A Talk with Einstein," October 1943"My position concerning God is that of an agnostic. I am convinced that a vivid consciousness of the primary importance of moral principles for the betterment and ennoblement of life does not need the idea of a law-giver, especially a law-giver who works on the basis of reward and punishment."And:
-- Albert Einstein, letter to M. Berkowitz, October 25, 1950"To assume the existence of an unperceivable being ... does not facilitate understanding the orderliness we find in the perceivable world."And:
-- Albert Einstein, letter to an Iowa student who asked, What is God? July, 1953; Einstein Archive"I am a deeply religious nonbeliever.... This is a somewhat new kind of religion."And:
-- Albert Einstein, letter to Hans Muehsam March 30, 1954; Einstein Archive"I have never imputed to Nature a purpose or a goal, or anything that could be understood as anthropomorphic. What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism."And:
-- Albert Einstein, 1954 or 1955; quoted in Dukas and Hoffman, Albert Einstein the Human Side"I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the type of which we are conscious in ourselves. An individual who should survive his physical death is also beyond my comprehension, nor do I wish it otherwise; such notions are for the fears or absurd egoism of feeble souls."And:
-- Albert Einstein, The World as I See It, Secaucus, New Jersy: The Citadel Press"The idea of a personal God is quite alien to me and seems even naïve."And:
-- Albert Einstein in a letter to Beatrice Frohlich, December 17, 1952; Einstein Archive 59-797"It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I feel also not able to imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere. My views are near those of Spinoza: admiration for the beauty of and belief in the logical simplicity of the order which we can grasp humbly and only imperfectly. I believe that we have to content ourselves with our imperfect knowledge and understanding and treat values and moral obligations as a purely human problem—the most important of all human problems."And:
-- Albert Einstein, 1947; from Banesh Hoffmann, Albert Einstein Creator and Rebel, New York"I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it."And:
-- Albert Einstein, letter to a Baptist pastor in 1953; from Albert Einstein the Human Side, Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, eds., Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1981, p. 39."I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own — a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms."And:
-- Albert Einstein, quoted in The New York Times obituary, April 19, 1955; from George Seldes, ed., The Great Thoughts, New York: Ballantine Books, 1996, p. 134."Science has therefore been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hopes of reward after death. It is therefore easy to see why the churches have always fought science and persecuted its devotees."And:
-- Albert Einstein, "Religion and Science," in the New York Times Magazine, November 9, 1930, pp. 3-4; from Alice Calaprice, ed., The Expanded Quotable Einstein, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2000, pp. 205-206."I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one."And:
-- Albert Einstein, to Guy H. Raner Jr., September 28, 1949; from Michael R. Gilmore, "Einstein's God: Just What Did Einstein Believe About God?," Skeptic, 1997, 5(2):64."I received your letter of June 10th. I have never talked to a Jesuit priest in my life and I am astonished by the audacity to tell such lies about me. From the viewpoint of a Jesuit priest I am, of course, and have always been an atheist. Your counter-arguments seem to me very correct and could hardly be better formulated. It is always misleading to use anthropomorphical concepts in dealing with things outside the human sphere—childish analogies. We have to admire in humility the beautiful harmony of the structure of this world as far—as we can grasp it. And that is all."Einstein's "God", his "religion", was the deep spiritual awe he felt in contemplation of the majestic breadth and depth and orderliness of the Universe itself:
-- Albert Einstein, to Guy H. Raner Jr., July 2, 1945, responding to a rumor that a Jesuit priest had caused Einstein to convert from atheism; from Michael R. Gilmore, "Einstein's God: Just What Did Einstein Believe About God?," Skeptic, 1997, 5(2):62."The religious feeling engendered by experiencing the logical comprehensibility of profound interrelations is of a somewhat different sort from the feeling that one usually calls religious. It is more a feeling of awe at the scheme that is manifested in the material universe. It does not lead us to take the step of fashioning a god-like being in our own image-a personage who makes demands of us and who takes an interest in us as individuals. There is in this neither a will nor a goal, nor a must, but only sheer being. For this reason, people of our type see in morality a purely human matter, albeit the most important in the human sphere."
-- Albert Einstein, letter to a Rabbi in Chicago; from Albert Einstein the Human Side, Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, eds., Princeton University Press, 1981, pp. 69-70.Ya see, pal? He believes in a God-created universe? INTELLIGENTLY DESIGNED BY GOD! What part of that ain't ya gettin'?!
The part where you grossly misrepresent the nature of Einstein's "God" -- the part where *you* "ain't gettin'" the first thing about what Einstein actually believed. Einstein believed in "God" as the humbling scope of the Universe *itself*, absent any anthropomorphized "intelligence", absent any conscious "designer". In short, Einstein's God was Nature, in all its awe-inspiring glory.
I'm not sure -- if any "actual competent people" come along, could you ask them for us?
An overabundance of evidence indicating that you're dead wrong in your presumptions have already been posted on this thread. Try learning about the subject before you make any more transparently false and silly pronouncements out of ignorance.
Our God is powerful enough to create evolution. Your God is so puny he mixed radioactive isotopes in exactly the right quantities to make it look like a 6000 year old earth was really 4.5 billion years old. Whose faith is stronger?
Last time I posted that response, I never heard back from you. Instead, someone else jumped in by calling me gay. Maybe you'll care to answer this time? Also, while I have your attention, could you tell me which you believe: were plants created before man, or was man created first? I never got an answer about that from the guy who was obsessed with homosexuality.
Wow. Sir Arthur Keith, British anthropologist and evolutionist didn't think so.
‘To see evolutionary measures and tribal morality being applied rigorously to the affairs of a great modern nation, we must turn again to Germany of 1942. We see Hitler devoutly convinced that evolution produces the only real basis for a national policy … . The German Führer, as I have consistently maintained, is an evolutionist; he has consciously sought to make the practice of Germany conform to the theory of evolution.’ (Keith, A., Evolution and Ethics, Putnam, NY, USA, p. 230, 1947.)
Besides, people who think a given race is the "special creation of God" are usually known as racists, not creationists. It also might surprise you to find out that people have used evolution to justify their race as a "special creation" (such as the communist government of China).
I am sure there are many things you didn't know.
True, but I know recycled spin when I see it. I've read all the BS from websites over.
Stalin had Darwinists killed.
Which is like saying that Stalin ate raisins.
"I'd rather be a pig than a Creationist"
Oooh, I'm jealous!
I've read comments from some of the banned on other forums and they paint a very differenct picture of how events leading up to the banning took place. The vitriol directed that those classified as "creationists" on these threads makes it hard to doubt their stories. As with any large forum, I'm sure you would have some nutcases in the bunch.
Not true! Years ago I got into a long debate with a girl I thought was perfect except she believed in creationism. Telling her about the evidence was useless because that's "not what it says in the Bible." Pointing out the many inconsistencies already in the Bible changed that to "that's not what I was taught." She also said that she was impressed I told her what I believed instead of "hiding it until [I] got what [I] wanted" but that she couldn't date someone who was going to hell.
Anyway, a couple years later I met someone else who was just as perfect and didn't believe in creationism. Now all is good.
I also doubt you would call me a coward to my face, but hey, like you say, it's easy to say whatever you want online.
OTOH you can tell her that evolutionists have longer phylogeny's.
A while back there was a discussion on Talk.Origins pondering if there might be a better short phrase summing up the mechanisms of evolution than, "survival of the fittest" (since many people tend to misunderstand that phrase).
One of the more popular suggestions was: "Every single one of your ancestors scored!"
Support it? I don't even know how anyone could have thought it! Even as a creationist it bothers me that this guy apparently has this much support. Not impressed with him.
Yeah, yeah, yeah... We've been hearing about the "imminent demise of evolution" continuously for over 150 years now.
You just keep on holding out hope, if that gives you the warm fuzzies.
Are you actually claiming that the elderly Jack Chick fought with you on an internet forum????????????????
Poor pumpkin, nothing left to say except that? Too funny.
Ah, the old creationist bigotry -- educated people are "the enemy".
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