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Ricky
SFN Die Hard

USA
4907 Posts

Posted - 01/28/2006 :  19:14:48  Show Profile  Send Ricky an AOL message Send Ricky a Private Message
This email was sent to me by Josh Goodhart, the guy who did the Creationist presentation at my college (Virginia Tech):

quote:
Dr. Kent Hovind will be giving a PowerPoint presentation on Creation and Evolution

When: Feb. 28 at 7:00p.m.
Where: Virginia Tech's Colonial Hall in Squires.

Even though the creation/evolution debate has frequented the news, few have ever been given the opportunity to hear solid challenges to the “theory” of evolution. In over 90 debates and thousands of lectures Dr. Kent Hovind has repeatedly shown that evolution crumbles and utterly fails under the weight of the evidence.

In Christ our LORD
Joshua Goodhart
mccormij@vt.edu


This should certainly be interesting...

Why continue? Because we must. Because we have the call. Because it is nobler to fight for rationality without winning than to give up in the face of continued defeats. Because whatever true progress humanity makes is through the rationality of the occasional individual and because any one individual we may win for the cause may do more for humanity than a hundred thousand who hug their superstitions to their breast.
- Isaac Asimov

filthy
SFN Die Hard

USA
14408 Posts

Posted - 01/28/2006 :  19:40:24   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send filthy a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by Ricky

This email was sent to me by Josh Goodhart, the guy who did the Creationist presentation at my college (Virginia Tech):

quote:
Dr. Kent Hovind will be giving a PowerPoint presentation on Creation and Evolution

When: Feb. 28 at 7:00p.m.
Where: Virginia Tech's Colonial Hall in Squires.

Even though the creation/evolution debate has frequented the news, few have ever been given the opportunity to hear solid challenges to the “theory” of evolution. In over 90 debates and thousands of lectures Dr. Kent Hovind has repeatedly shown that evolution crumbles and utterly fails under the weight of the evidence.

In Christ our LORD
Joshua Goodhart
mccormij@vt.edu


This should certainly be interesting...

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Write him back, Ricky, and tell him I want to know what he's smoking and will he share it with me.

Also tell him that we would love to get the good doctor(?) in here to clean his mendatious plow, and if the Rev. Goodheart would like to join him.....




"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)

"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres


"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude

Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,

and Crypto-Communist!

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Siberia
SFN Addict

Brazil
2322 Posts

Posted - 01/29/2006 :  05:51:25   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Siberia's Homepage  Send Siberia an AOL message  Send Siberia a Yahoo! Message Send Siberia a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by Ricky

This email was sent to me by Josh Goodhart, the guy who did the Creationist presentation at my college (Virginia Tech):

quote:
Dr. Kent Hovind will be giving a PowerPoint presentation on Creation and Evolution

When: Feb. 28 at 7:00p.m.
Where: Virginia Tech's Colonial Hall in Squires.

Even though the creation/evolution debate has frequented the news, few have ever been given the opportunity to hear solid challenges to the “theory” of evolution. In over 90 debates and thousands of lectures Dr. Kent Hovind has repeatedly shown that evolution crumbles and utterly fails under the weight of the evidence.

In Christ our LORD
Joshua Goodhart
mccormij@vt.edu


This should certainly be interesting...


Don't forget to wear your SFN shirt when you go! That is, if you go

"Why are you afraid of something you're not even sure exists?"
- The Kovenant, Via Negativa

"People who don't like their beliefs being laughed at shouldn't have such funny beliefs."
-- unknown
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pleco
SFN Addict

USA
2998 Posts

Posted - 01/29/2006 :  06:17:54   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit pleco's Homepage Send pleco a Private Message
At least tell them to quit breaking commandments by calling him a "doctor".

by Filthy
The neo-con methane machine will soon be running at full fart.
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard

USA
4907 Posts

Posted - 01/29/2006 :  08:16:30   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Send Ricky an AOL message Send Ricky a Private Message
quote:
HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!


I had almost the said response, but the letters were reversed: AAAAAHHHHHH!!!!

quote:
Also tell him that we would love to get the good doctor(?) in here to clean his mendatious plow, and if the Rev. Goodheart would like to join him.....


Hovind will never go. Josh, on the other hand, just may. I'll send him an email.

quote:
Don't forget to wear your SFN shirt when you go! That is, if you go


I will certainly be going and wearing my SFN shirt. I'll also be bringing along a bio-chemistry major who's never heard of him.


Why continue? Because we must. Because we have the call. Because it is nobler to fight for rationality without winning than to give up in the face of continued defeats. Because whatever true progress humanity makes is through the rationality of the occasional individual and because any one individual we may win for the cause may do more for humanity than a hundred thousand who hug their superstitions to their breast.
- Isaac Asimov
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moakley
SFN Regular

USA
1888 Posts

Posted - 01/29/2006 :  09:12:24   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send moakley a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by Ricky

This email was sent to me by Josh Goodhart, the guy who did the Creationist presentation at my college (Virginia Tech):

quote:
Dr. Kent Hovind will be giving a PowerPoint presentation on Creation and Evolution

When: Feb. 28 at 7:00p.m.
Where: Virginia Tech?s Colonial Hall in Squires.

Even though the creation/evolution debate has frequented the news, few have ever been given the opportunity to hear solid challenges to the ?theory? of evolution. In over 90 debates and thousands of lectures Dr. Kent Hovind has repeatedly shown that evolution crumbles and utterly fails under the weight of the evidence.

In Christ our LORD
Joshua Goodhart
mccormij@vt.edu


This should certainly be interesting...

I am equally impressed by their debate performance in Federal courts.

Can anyone recall the words to the Patriot University fight song?

Life is good

Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned. -Anonymous
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pleco
SFN Addict

USA
2998 Posts

Posted - 01/29/2006 :  10:02:14   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit pleco's Homepage Send pleco a Private Message
Did Mr. Hovind participate as an "expert" witness in the trials. If not, why? I wonder if it is because he would be worried that his "credentials" would have been exposed for all the media to see....

Edit: Nevermind, I realized that it was an ID trial, not creationist trial, so he definitely would not have been called.

by Filthy
The neo-con methane machine will soon be running at full fart.
Edited by - pleco on 01/29/2006 10:03:05
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard

USA
3739 Posts

Posted - 01/29/2006 :  11:24:57   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit marfknox's Homepage  Send marfknox an AOL message Send marfknox a Private Message
The Secular Student Alliance organized a debate between Hovind and Massimo Pigliucci a few years ago for their annual conference. I think it was in Minneapolis that year. Anyway, Hovind is sort of like a circus act for anyone who knows about real hard science. But the problem is that he's such a wildly charismatic speaker and has so many slick-lookin' props and imagery that to anyone who doesn't know the real science, he comes off as the hands-down winner in a debate. Pigliucci held his own really well that day, but afterward my friends and I had to admit, if we didn't know better, Hovind still came off as knowing more.

As frustrating as it is watching Hovind beat someone in a debate using absolute bullshit, I think it would be entertaining to see him do a presentation all by himself. Not just to see him in all his ridiculous glory, but also, to see the nutjobs who buy his drivel. An example: one of the lovely young gentlemen in the crowd at the debate I went to donned a black T-shirt that said in gigantic, red lettering:
CHRISTIAN
AMERICAN
HETEROSEXUAL
CONSERVATIVE
REPUBLICAN
And thus the pride and prejudices of fundies in America are nicely summed up.

"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong

Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com

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Starman
SFN Regular

Sweden
1613 Posts

Posted - 01/30/2006 :  00:03:21   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Starman a Private Message
If you have not seen a Hovind "lecture" or "debate" go to

http://video.google.com/

and search for "Hovind", "Creation" or something like that.

"Any religion that makes a form of torture into an icon that they worship seems to me a pretty sick sort of religion quite honestly"
-- Terry Jones
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filthy
SFN Die Hard

USA
14408 Posts

Posted - 01/30/2006 :  04:14:05   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send filthy a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by pleco

Did Mr. Hovind participate as an "expert" witness in the trials. If not, why? I wonder if it is because he would be worried that his "credentials" would have been exposed for all the media to see....

Edit: Nevermind, I realized that it was an ID trial, not creationist trial, so he definitely would not have been called.

Hovind would not have been called in any event. He is an embarrassment even to other YECs and has been admonished by AiG and ICR for his outlandish claims. Not to mention his ongoing tax problems (self inflicted) and the assault charges that were filed against him by a tenet on his property a few years ago.

Wish I could attend that sideshow. If I could, what might I ask him during the Q&A, I wonder? Something about stromatolites (3.5 BYO), maybe, and how does his "hydrological sorting during the Flood" silliness explain the fact that there are no other fossils associated with them in the strata. None. Of any species.

Get him off dinosaurs, and there's a chance, if you are fast thinking and well spoken, you could get him on the defensive, even though he can do verbal, broken-field running with any jackleg politition in the land. Might ask him how come some species of flatworm live in symbiosis with an algae and don't feed for their entire lives, yet still have mouth parts. The same might inquired of adult mayflies.

Why, one might query, do serpents have two lungs yet one of them is degenerate, tiny, and useless.

Ask him who's moonshine was God drinking when it came up with installing the remenents of a pelvic girdle in whales. A follow-up question might be as to why baleen whale calves have foetal teeth.

Ask him why the grasshopper mouse is on it's way to becoming a ravening wolf in rodent's clothing and howls at the moon.






"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)

"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres


"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude

Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,

and Crypto-Communist!

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Ricky
SFN Die Hard

USA
4907 Posts

Posted - 01/30/2006 :  14:49:34   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Send Ricky an AOL message Send Ricky a Private Message
quote:
Wish I could attend that sideshow.


I'm starting to wish that you could as well. I haven't heard of a single one of these examples for evidence of evolution, except for the pelvic girdle in whales.

Why continue? Because we must. Because we have the call. Because it is nobler to fight for rationality without winning than to give up in the face of continued defeats. Because whatever true progress humanity makes is through the rationality of the occasional individual and because any one individual we may win for the cause may do more for humanity than a hundred thousand who hug their superstitions to their breast.
- Isaac Asimov
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filthy
SFN Die Hard

USA
14408 Posts

Posted - 01/30/2006 :  16:34:21   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send filthy a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by Ricky

quote:
Wish I could attend that sideshow.


I'm starting to wish that you could as well. I haven't heard of a single one of these examples for evidence of evolution, except for the pelvic girdle in whales.

Unfortnatly, the key phrase here is: "if you are fast thinking and well spoken." I am neither. I will happily admit that no matter what I come up with; no matter how well documented and referenced it all might be, Hovind would murder me. I simply don't function well in verbal debate situations (or, I've been told, everyday conversation, comes to that). Never the less, I would so love to get Li'l Kenny in here, a'writin' and a'researchin', and show him where the dinosaur shat in the dairy barn.


Tyrannosaur turd, a coprolite from Glenn Morton's fossil collection.

And speaking of one-holer faeces & uriates, another interesting question might be: Why do both reptiles and birds have a cloaca? Could it be that one evolved from the other?




"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)

"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres


"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude

Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,

and Crypto-Communist!

Edited by - filthy on 01/30/2006 16:37:01
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tkster
Skeptic Friend

USA
193 Posts

Posted - 02/03/2006 :  21:55:38   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send tkster a Private Message
I wouldn't argue with Hovind about degrees or taxes, rather call him on his quoting. When Hovind came to Lubbock there were a few of Dr. Dini's students that showed how he blatantly misquoted Hovind. The same is true when River debated Hovind on his own radio program. When someone catches Hovind on misquoting someone, it's more effective to the audience.

tk
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Robb
SFN Regular

USA
1223 Posts

Posted - 02/14/2006 :  07:12:37   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Robb a Private Message
I was curious about Hovinds debates, so I listened to some on the internet. The one thing I observed is that he talks and presents meterial very well. Most of his opponents do not speak well and had little or no presentation materials. I think this goes a long way to Hovinds credibility. Most people do not know details of evolutionary theory and Hovind exploits this. He talks alot about Darwin that does not have any relavence to the theory today. I have been studying to try to understand the current theory and I have had a hard time understanding all the aspects of the theory. I think this is a problem for only a 1 hour debate for the evolutionists. They need to teach alot of material before they can defend it against Hovinds accusations and they run out of time. Also, Hovind does not get into details and does not do much science in his talks but it looks like he does.

I do not beleive that macroevolution occured but I am still up in the air about young vs. old earth. I am on his side with most of what he says but I do not agree with his methods. He is disresptful of his opponents at time as well. I think that Hovind is not up front with all the facts though. To say the there is no evidence for evolution I think is deceiptful. There is evidence that evolution could have occured, but this does not prove it happened. I think the best bet for the evolutionists is to get into a back and forth discussion with him if he would allow it.

By the way, does anybody know of a good book on evolution that discusses the current theories that a person without a biology and chemistry degree can understand?

Edited to say: I think Dr. William Moore did the best job.

Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. - George Washington
Edited by - Robb on 02/14/2006 07:27:27
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furshur
SFN Regular

USA
1536 Posts

Posted - 02/14/2006 :  07:39:58   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send furshur a Private Message
Robb one of the best sources of information on evolution is:
http://www.talkorigins.org/

If I knew then what I know now then I would know more now than I know.
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard

USA
4907 Posts

Posted - 03/05/2006 :  00:39:39   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Send Ricky an AOL message Send Ricky a Private Message
As I walked into the lecture room, wearing my SFN shirt of course, I was quite amazed at how many people there were. I was 15 minutes early after all, and all of the room was filled except for the back two corners.

The presentation started almost on time, about 5-10 minutes late. One of the first things Hovind did was that he asked all the literal, 6 day Creation, 6,000 year old earth people to stand up. To my surprise, 80-85% of the people stood up, although the majority of these were from churches around the area. He did the same for theistic evolutionists and naturalists, each with about 5% of the people standing.

And so the presentation started. For the first 5 minutes, all he did was restate things such as, "Do you believe there should believe lies in textbooks." The entire time, I was thinking, "Just get to the point, what do you think the lies are?" And when he finally got to the point, I thought, "When is he going to shut up?"

He went on and on with a vast majority of it being the standard Creationist Claims. I won't bore you all here, you already know them. One argument that I've never heard a Creationist use is that in moving water, multiple layers form simultaneously. Now if he was talking about a river, that is obviously false, although I don't know about the bottom of the ocean in an area with high current, such as the Gulf Stream. He wasn't clear on the context.

He also talked about the moths which changed color. He claimed these to be a complete myth, or rather hoax. He said that scientists took black moths and nailed them to trees to take their picture. Considering this is only a case of microevolution, I fail to see what point he wanted to make, since he accepts it. But I never heard this talked about as being a hoax.

I also wrote down the occasional Hovind quote. When talking about the Grand Caynon, he said it was "...a waste of real estate." To me, this quote emphasizes that Hovind thinks the world was created by God for man to use, and nothing more. After briefly going over, "kinds," he started talking about species and said, "You have to define exactly what you're talking about." which I found quite hypocritical. When talking about light, he said, "We don't know what light is." and, "We can't paint [light] red."

The entire presentation was fairly boring, but the Q/A section was well worth the wait. Had I known there would be a Q/A section, I would have prepared one using some of Hovind's own quotes. Sadly, I didn't. I needed a something that Hovind said that was quick, concise, and clearly wrong. I decided to go with Hovind's claim that Hitler was supported by evolutionary views, arguing that evolution actually supports diversity and not the killing off of one part of the species.

The vast majority of the Q/A was people asking a simple question and Hovind talking about it and anything remotely related to it (and some things not even related at all). Most either weren't prepared for Hovind's responses or couldn't think on their toes the way Hovind could. Anytime someone decided to step down when they found they were going nowhere, the audience would laugh. One person actually went up to the mic and said something along the lines of, "I just want to first address the audience, by laughing at the people up here you are mocking them and that really isn't the Christian thing to do."

By far, the best was when the astrophysicist professor went up. During the presentation, Hovind had said that we can't accurately measure the distance to stars. The professor (I forget his name) actually made these measurements. He went over the methods actually used instead of what Hovind presented. All Hovind could do was go back to the method he presented and tell him, "I don't believe you." He tried to change the topic to red shift, but the professor wouldn't let him. Hovind covered it really well, but I could tell he knew he was getting destroyed. I was next in line on the other side of the room, and he looked over to me hoping he could go to the next question. After a while, and Hovind only saying "I don't believe you," there was nothing more to argue so he stepped down.

So it was my turn. I started out by asking, "You said in your presentation that Hitler used the logical conclusions of evolution, correct?" I still can't figure out how Hovind had a more than one word answer, but to sum up, it was, "Yes." I followed that up with, "And diversity is good in the eyes of evolution?" He answered, "Well, now, I don't know." I was dumbstruck. How does a guy who spent some where around two decades debating evolution not know whether or not diversity is good? But for whatever reason, that line of thinking didn't go through my mind at the time. Hovind also claimed that ever since Hitler, evolutionists have tried to move towards diversity as being positive. I said I didn't believe that was true, but I couldn't quote scientists before this speaking about diversity. Seeing this as his way to weasel out, I then asked the same thing with "the current view of evolution" added on the end. He started quoting Darwin, I think Haeckel, and said that Hitler thought it wasn't. I said, "I'm not talking about anyone of those people, and I can't seem to figure out why you are." which got some applause. As a last ditch attempt to make him answer the question, I asked again, "Is diversity benefical to evolution." which he simply put "I don't know." I decided to give up and said, "Thanks" while turning away and shaking my head. Looking back on it, I could have easily shown how diversity must be considered as positive. I could have also ranted on how, given Hovind's background, he must have known this.

The one thing I noticed through this is Hovind's limited use of tactics. As we all know, he changes the topic on the fly. But he uses other tactics to make this one work so well. I call the first one, "Argument from I-Like-To-Hear-My-Voice" He can talk for hours on the most simplest of things and when he runs out of things to say about it, he changes it a little and starts the process all over again. But by talking so long, the audience becomes easily distracted. I had a good 4-5 minutes to formulate my next question while I was talking to him. He also uses bad analogies to either change the topic or to tie up who ever he is talking to. It can be fairly hard to show why an analogy is bad and it normally ends up with a shift in the topic. Finally, whenever he gets stuck, he simply says, "I don't know." It almost entirely stops the line of questioning because Hovind can't just accept it on our say-so and there's really no way to show that he doesn't know. He uses this when pinned in a corner. The only two times he said this were when myself and the astrophysicist were asking him questions.

But it was nice to meet others who despise Hovind just as much as I do. I also got a few nice plugs in for the SFN. And an alumni of the Free Thinkers At VT sent me an email when he found my post on these forums. I was under the impression that the group was dead.

Why continue? Because we must. Because we have the call. Because it is nobler to fight for rationality without winning than to give up in the face of continued defeats. Because whatever true progress humanity makes is through the rationality of the occasional individual and because any one individual we may win for the cause may do more for humanity than a hundred thousand who hug their superstitions to their breast.
- Isaac Asimov
Edited by - Ricky on 03/05/2006 00:42:47
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