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Author Topic:   Hovind Returns
ooh-child
Member (Idle past 343 days)
Posts: 242
Joined: 04-10-2009


Message 1 of 14 (839934)
09-19-2018 12:09 PM


Alabama’s Dinosaur Adventure Land teaches that evolution is ‘dumbest religion in the history of the world’ - al.com
"He opened Dinosaur Adventure Land a few months ago in Lenox, Ala., population 37. It's located on a red dirt road deep in Conecuh County, less than two hours from the Florida state line.
It's part science center, part campground, part four-wheeler park, part evangelical church. You enter at your own risk because there's no liability insurance and little state oversight. Everyone is welcome, and admission is free. They do Baptisms in the pond."
Looks like he's creating a cult, based on this article. Good lord, Alabama, what are you thinking?

Replies to this message:
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Phat
Member
Posts: 18262
From: Denver,Colorado USA
Joined: 12-30-2003
Member Rating: 1.1


Message 2 of 14 (839935)
09-19-2018 12:40 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by ooh-child
09-19-2018 12:09 PM


Dinosaur Adventure Land Inc.
I don't know much about Hovind...I've heard his name here many times and read the article...looks like he is trying to earn a living and start all over again. What sorts of claims did he used to make? Is he another Ken Ham type of guy?

Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain "
~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith
You can "get answers" by watching the ducks. That doesn't mean the answers are coming from them.~Ringo

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ringo
Member (Idle past 411 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


Message 3 of 14 (839936)
09-19-2018 12:51 PM
Reply to: Message 2 by Phat
09-19-2018 12:40 PM


Re: Dinosaur Adventure Land Inc.
Phat writes:
What sorts of claims did he used to make?
He had a fake PhD with a "thesis" that resembles a child's scrapbook.

And our geese will blot out the sun.

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PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.3


Message 4 of 14 (839940)
09-19-2018 1:13 PM
Reply to: Message 2 by Phat
09-19-2018 12:40 PM


Re: Dinosaur Adventure Land Inc.
Hovind is a lot dumber than Ham (and at least as greedy and dishonest).

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ooh-child
Member (Idle past 343 days)
Posts: 242
Joined: 04-10-2009


Message 5 of 14 (839943)
09-19-2018 1:16 PM
Reply to: Message 2 by Phat
09-19-2018 12:40 PM


Re: Dinosaur Adventure Land Inc.
"Earn a living", from where I stand, is different than scamming people with false claims. It's right there in the headline, "evolution dumbest religion in the world".
"So the devil, I think, is using the dinosaurs to teach boys and girls the earth is millions of years old, and it's propaganda. It's not true at all."
Earning involves work, IMHO. Conning people isn't work, it's stealing.

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JonF
Member (Idle past 167 days)
Posts: 6174
Joined: 06-23-2003


Message 6 of 14 (839946)
09-19-2018 1:59 PM
Reply to: Message 2 by Phat
09-19-2018 12:40 PM


Re: Dinosaur Adventure Land Inc.
Hovind specialized in truly moronic claims. E.g. Calculations of erosion rates indicate Niagara Falls is less than 10,000 years old, therefore the Earth is young.
More at How Good are those Young-Earth Arguments: Hovind's 'Proofs' (continued)

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Diomedes
Member
Posts: 995
From: Central Florida, USA
Joined: 09-13-2013


Message 7 of 14 (839948)
09-19-2018 3:27 PM
Reply to: Message 4 by PaulK
09-19-2018 1:13 PM


Re: Dinosaur Adventure Land Inc.
Hovind is a lot dumber than Ham (and at least as greedy and dishonest).
That's an understatement. He was actually convicted of tax fraud among other offenses. He only recently got out of prison. You can read the details on his wikipedia page:
Kent Hovind - Wikipedia
Seems he is just back to his charlatan ways again. Ironically, his prison time just made him a martyr in the eyes of his batshit followers.

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PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.3


Message 8 of 14 (839950)
09-19-2018 3:56 PM
Reply to: Message 7 by Diomedes
09-19-2018 3:27 PM


Re: Dinosaur Adventure Land Inc.
I don’t think I am understating anything. Ham is pretty greedy and dishonest. He isn’t, however, dumb enough to break the law as flagrantly as Hovind or mount as ridiculous a defence if he were brought to trial. Whether he is also insufficiently dishonest is an open question to me.

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Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 9 of 14 (839951)
09-19-2018 4:23 PM
Reply to: Message 2 by Phat
09-19-2018 12:40 PM


Re: Dinosaur Adventure Land Inc.
Phat writes:
I don't know much about Hovind...I've heard his name here many times and read the article...looks like he is trying to earn a living and start all over again. What sorts of claims did he used to make? Is he another Ken Ham type of guy?
Up until about 15 years ago when his legal problems began in earnest, Kent Hovind was the single most effective voice for creationism. Before evangelical audiences he could debate any scientist and win - his arguments invariably made far more sense to evangelicals than scientific ones.
Creationism suffered a perfect storm when Hovind entered prison, the Creation Research Society moved from California to Texas and lost accreditation, Duane Gish (now deceased) retired from active speaking and debating, and the Discovery Institute proved to be a flash in the pan while simultaneously damning creationism by making clear that intelligence design (Michael Behe, William Dembski) was just a creationist Trojan Horse. Ken Ham cannot fill the void by himself.
--Percy

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Taq
Member
Posts: 9970
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.6


Message 10 of 14 (839952)
09-19-2018 4:25 PM
Reply to: Message 8 by PaulK
09-19-2018 3:56 PM


Re: Dinosaur Adventure Land Inc.
PaulK writes:
I don’t think I am understating anything. Ham is pretty greedy and dishonest. He isn’t, however, dumb enough to break the law as flagrantly as Hovind or mount as ridiculous a defence if he were brought to trial. Whether he is also insufficiently dishonest is an open question to me.
I sometimes wonder if Kent Hovind has untreated psychological issues. I don't mean this as an insult, either. I sometimes worry about the man's mental health. Some of his behavior in his trial and in prison were really disturbing, such as the outright denial that he was even found guilty of tax evasion.

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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(1)
Message 11 of 14 (839955)
09-19-2018 5:34 PM
Reply to: Message 2 by Phat
09-19-2018 12:40 PM


Re: Dinosaur Adventure Land Inc.
Basically, Kent Hovind is about the lowest form of creationist that there is, though Ray Comfort is giving him a run for his money for that bottom slot. There is no false creationist claim too stupid for him to repeat.
Case in point: 01 April 1999, New Mexicans for Science and Reason published an April Fool's joke, Onyate Man -- http://www.nmsr.org/april_fool.html. Well, it was also a test to see how gullible creationists were. It was a report of scientists trying to suppress the discovery of a carniverous dinosaur skeleton with a human skeleton in its mouth, such that they were buried at the beginning of the dinosaur's lunch -- the human was missing one foot, which is why he was named after Juan de Oate (see first footnote). NMSR was pleasantly surprised at the great restraint displayed by creationists. Of course the creationists were excited by the "discovery", but they both advised and practiced caution wanting to verify the find before using it. Except for Kent Hovind who, within an hour of hearing the rumor about this find, used it in presentation; he stopped using it the next day when he learned that it was a hoax, but the damage had already been done.
In another case, in or around 2002 Answers in Genesis published an article listing false claims that AiG truly wished creationists would stop using; eg, men having one rib fewer than women because of how Eve was created, "Why are there still monkeys?", missing neutrinos from the sun, moon dust, Darwin's death-bed conversion (see second footnote). For their efforts, they got an angry feedback letter from Hovind since he routinely used a number of the false claims that AiG had listed. I picked up that story with Dr. Jonathan Sarfati's feedback column reply to Hovind on 02 Dec 2002 (no longer linked to, but I quote it at http://cre-ev.dwise1.net/quotes.html#AiG and have a longer version in my notes) -- my emphasis added to point out reference to Hovind:
quote:
"As said in the original Don’t Use page, the harm is in using something which is not true, because the cause of the one who is ‘the truth’ cannot be helped thereby. And your own recent experience reinforces something else we saidthat using discredited arguments can backfire on the user. So our aim was to help Christians to avoid arguments that are likely to backfire, and return their focus to the Word of God not ‘evidence’."
...
"But more and more over the last few years, we have noticed tens of thousands of Christians excitedly using arguments over the Web, for instance, that are a plain embarrassment to those with scientific training. It was like watching your brother enter the ring thinking he had a killer punch, and watching him get cut to ribbons. Further, and most importantly, it had escalated to the point where it was a hindrance to soul winning, since it gave the hearers a ‘legitimate’ excuse to reject Christ. And all we did at that point was to publish an ‘advice’ article. The only time it became relevant to a specific creationist was when Kent [Hovind] himself decided to align himself publicly with a justification of false arguments. If it had been one or two minor points of disagreement, OK, but when it reinforces some of the most blatant fallacies, and even defends fraud, at what point does one NOT face one's responsibilities to the innocents being ‘slaughtered’ in the belief that they are getting sound ammunition?"
...
" ... , we actually do know people who say they almost gave the faith away when they found out that a particular argument was fallacious, and who say that finding Christians with the integrity to avoid falsehood, no matter what the cost, helped restore it. Also, in the last day or so, a leading atheistic anti-creationist organization said that while they disagreed with almost everything we stand for, they said we were ‘admirable’ and ‘showed integrity’ in trying to persuade other creationists not to use bad arguments. Who knows what sort of witness this could be? We know of many people, outside and inside of the church, who will no longer even look at or consider the authority of the Bible in Genesis, in its history, cosmology, etc. because of bad experiences with blatant pseudo-arguments applied by enthusiasts who had been fed creationist non-arguments."
A third case was my own personal experience with him. Basically, I had basic questions about a claim of his (solar mass loss), ones which any honest researcher would have no problem answering (eg, did you develop this claim or base it on another's, if so then a reference to that other source so that I can research it, what were your calculations to support your claims). On his own then-site, drdino, he boasted of answering his critics since that improved his claims (a verse about iron sharpening iron), but he refused to answer a second question since that's just their trick to get him to waste his time. Well, I learned that the reality of that boast was that he would evade your question the first time so when you had to ask it again he'd refuse for the flimsy excuse given above. That's what he pulled on me, even trying twice to pick a fight with me over my email name, dwise1, which has very mundane origins that he refused to hear (but which you can read at http://cre-ev.dwise1.net/index.html#DWISE1). My page on his solar-mass-loss claim is at http://cre-ev.dwise1.net/solar_mass_loss.html. For that matter, I have recently come to realize that that tired old false "shrinking sun" claim from 1980 has shifted from the sun still collapsing and getting some of its energy from the Kelvin—Helmholtz mechanism to blaming the sun's loss of 4-5 million tons of mass per second for the sun's "shrinking", so this claim of Hovind's is much more pertinent than I had thought. In reality, the total mass lost at that rate (I took the worst case of 5 million tons per second) over five billion years (109 -- "billion" means something different in Europe, who actually have it right -- and yet again I took Hovind's own over-estimatation) amounts to only a few hundredths of one percent of the sun's total mass. IOW, very insignificant. For that matter, the effect that loss would have had on the sun's size, a very significant part of Hovind's claim, would have actually been virtually imperceptible.
 
 
Hovind's background appears to have been Baptist. After graduating high school, he apparently attended community college for about one year, which would have been all the opportunity he ever had to learn any science. He transferred to an unaccredited Baptist college where he earned a BA Religion. Later, he connected with Patriot University, an unaccredited diploma mill running out of a private residence (though more recently they seem to have acquired new digs), which only awards religious degrees. From them Hovind bought his MS Religious Education and PhD Religious Education. But his "PhD" has been challenged solely on the most basic academic standards implicit in a doctorate degree: https://www.noanswersingenesis.org.au/...n_hovind_thesis.htm -- basically, there are certain fundamental requirements of a dissertation that it be published as a final product, whereas Hovind's "dissertation" has never been published but rather is an on-going project wrapped up in a rubber band.
In the meantime, Mr. Hovind has used his fake "PhD" to the fullest extent for monetary gain -- just look at his old URL, drdino. He even insisted on being listed as "Dr Hovind" in the phone book. Many of his followers see that "Dr" and assume that he's a scientist, which I'm sure is his intent. He also boasts of having taught high school science and math classes for 15 years. Those were all in Christian private schools where the only qualification to teach was that your theology was right; he even founded and ran some of those private Christian high schools. For about 13 years by my reckoning, he taught math and science in his own high schools. Obviously, most of his exposure to science was through their textbooks (jr.high.school circa 1963: a teacher told us about an imposter (eg, Catch Me If You Can (2002))) who found that the easiest one was to pose as a college professor; all you ever had to do was to read the textbook a few chapters ahead of your students.

Footnotes:
1. Onyate Man
Juan de Oate, a Spanish conquistador in New Mexico, was infamous for his brutality. Besides massacring indigenous tribes in order to pacify them, in one case he had one foot amputated from each male member of the tribe. In 1998, a statue to Oate had been erected despite public protests and during the night somebody had cut off the statue's foot. From what I've heard that has happened more than once, kind of like the defacing of Trump's star in Hollywood.
--------------
2. Death bed conversion stories.
These are almost like opinions in that everybody has one (yes, that's a joke). The funniest one was about Bertrand Russell, a famous English philosopher, freethinker, and atheist. He was suffering from an infection and was in a delirium from the high infection (this was still before antibiotics where you just had to hope to survive an infection). In that delirium, he was cursing a blue streak. His nurse, a pious woman, mistook his cursing for pious utterances and reported that he had recanted his atheism, repented of it, and found Christ. Needless to say, he was extremely amused by the entire affair.

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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(2)
Message 12 of 14 (839956)
09-19-2018 6:16 PM
Reply to: Message 9 by Percy
09-19-2018 4:23 PM


Re: Dinosaur Adventure Land Inc.
Before evangelical audiences he could debate any scientist and win - his arguments invariably made far more sense to evangelicals than scientific ones.
Interestingly, I have this testimonial from a former YEC, "Ed":
quote:
I discovered, as life went on, my exhilaration would dwindle if creationist material was not fresh in my mind. Whenever I would "bath" myself in their details, I would be renewed and so excited, "God is real, heaven is real, the universe IS young!" There was one doubt however, that would pop into my mind frequently, "how can all those scientists be so wrong?" This single idea would gnaw at me like a toothache so it would be time for a fresh dose of YEC (Young-Earth Creationism), and life would be wonderful again!
One day, being psyched-up for a new fix, I popped in a video I had received from a young man at Church. The tape was a series of debates (about eight), between a famous "young earther" and various evolutionists. After viewing them, I found my jaw on the floor. I truly expected these evolutionists to roll over and die after being presented with this battering of "facts" - they didn't! I was truely numbed and frankly, pretty upset with the manners of this "young earther." I had to come to some serious conclusions that day.
- Scientists have answers for each point raised, e.g. shrinking sun, polystrate fossils etc., they were not surprised at all!
- Creation Science is not science. I watched as this creationist fellow was repeatedly being cornered, relying on miracle after miracle to answer their questions. Yes, God can and does perform miracles, but these were miracles that were not even in the Bible - that's not science!
- I have been a hypocrite! My favorite reasoning with skeptics is to challenge them to examine both sides of an issue before reaching their conclusions. "How can we dialogue fairly if we only have one point of view?" I would ask. But I have NEVER given an evolutionist nor an old earth creationist the opportunity to present their case!

Later Ed told me that that "famous 'young earther'" was Kent Hovind.
BTW, in 1995 I attended a debate between the ICR's master debators (do please play with that title to your heart's content) Dr. Duane Gish (PhD Biochemistry) and Dr. Henry Morris (PhD Hydraulic Engineering) against Roger Awbrey and Bill Thwaites (see their good-bye to the debates, "Our Last Debate, Our Very Last", https://ncse.com/files/pub/CEJ/pdfs/CEJ_33.pdf, in which they presented their hopes that creationists could present valid problems with evolution, the very grist for the scientific mill, but after 15 years ended up having absolutely nothing whatsoever). That debate was where I encountered the false creationist moon dust claim, which I chased down -- see my page, http://cre-ev.dwise1.net/moondust.html for that story.
At that debate, I met up with a co-worker, a fundamentalist and creationist named Charles. Gish especially but also Morris were his idols. He had also drunk their Kool-Aid about having "mountains of evidence" for a young earth. When we left that debate, Charles was visibly suffering from shock: "We have mountains of evidence. Why didn't they present any of it? We have mountains of evidence. ... ."
Bottom line? They have nothing!

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Diomedes
Member
Posts: 995
From: Central Florida, USA
Joined: 09-13-2013


(2)
Message 13 of 14 (839966)
09-20-2018 9:45 AM
Reply to: Message 12 by dwise1
09-19-2018 6:16 PM


Re: Dinosaur Adventure Land Inc.
Bottom line? They have nothing!
Not only do they have nothing, they still vainly attempt to refute scientific evidence that undermine their credibility and views.
My personal favorite example of that was the Lenski Affair, which is documented in detail on Rational Wiki:
Lenski affair - RationalWiki
This was in reference to the experiment that Dr. Lenski performed regarding evolution in bacteria. Naturally, this flew in the face of Creationism so another famous Creationist nimrod, Andrew Schlafly, the creator of 'Conservapedia', tried to counter his claims. The most laughable aspect was his insistence on getting the 'raw data' to try to confirm Lenski's findings. Lenski continued to indicate that all their data was in the research paper. But Schlafly continued to persist whereby it became apparent he was actually asking for the bacteria itself. Lenski finally replied that they are happy to share the actual 'raw data', i.e. the bacteria, but that this needs to be handled properly and in a lab environment. Which obviously Schlafly didn't have.
Definitely a humorous exchange and was even mentioned in Richard Dawkin's book 'The Greatest Show on Earth'. But ultimately, once again, Creationism failed miserably and made a mockery of itself.

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jar
Member (Idle past 393 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 14 of 14 (839972)
09-20-2018 1:39 PM
Reply to: Message 13 by Diomedes
09-20-2018 9:45 AM


Science intentionally withheld evidence.
Schlafly would have needed the full dataset which was quite frankly, denied him. He need the actual bacteria both before and after any changes. Kinda like the silver encrusted horse head I saw for sale once said to have been Pacho Villa's horse. When I pointed out the skull was from a colt and way too small to have supported Mr. Villa I was told it was Pancho's horse before it evolved into the bigger version.

My Sister's Website: Rose Hill Studios My Website: My Website

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