Incredible!
From Bill Sardi on the Hovind homepage:
quote:
Did This Fossil Warrant The Headlines?
There is so much uncertainty and speculation that surrounds this fossil that it is difficult to draw any conclusions, yet the news headlines herald this discovery as "one of the most sensational fossil finds in living memory," says Time Magazine. "This is one of the most important fossil discoveries in the past 100 years," according to Daniel Lieberman, biological anthropologist from Harvard University.
The opening demeanor and choice of words by Mr. Sardi is despicable. If the typical reader presumes Mr Sardi is expert enough to make a statement that way, then there is deliderate misinterpretation here. Why is it necessary to demean advances in science? It is noteworthy that opposite views equally stated are censored from the BB.
In my opinion, "Buddika" rebutted Hovind with unusual vitriol. What he wrote is downright hard to read because of that. Here is one of the less acerbic of Buddika's findings on the veracity of Hovind's statements:
quote:
Hovind: "That means that different types of animals have the same body pattern to perform different things. For instance, the human has two bones in their wrist, the radius and the ulna."
Lie #102. These two bones are in the forearm. The wrist actually has 8 bones, known as the carpals. Hovind is an idiot.
Not well said, but fair point. For the number of times I have stood in front of a crowd, you can bet I'm going in well rehearsed on each slide. I would have been skewered by any audience I can think of for a mistake like that. The presumption is that Hovind's audience is inured to this.
Hovind blindly speculates (blind here means he is a Ph.D but misuses terms, mis-represents numbers, selects among facts, ...) to support a preconceived notion (something from the Bible supporting the creationist point of view). Buddika responds with a multi-disciplinary barrage of corrections, invalidations, and unfortunately, personal attacks. Had Hovind done the same level of scientific research as Buddika, one of two things might have happened. 1). Hovind would be somewhat earier to debate, or 2). He would have converted from C to E.
A few years ago, I interviewed my daughter's high school science teacher to find out how she would handle the creation myth and evolution thing. We live in one of the top school districts in the USA. Yet, I was worried that children of ultra-religious parents would actually disrupt science class when their religious dogma seemed traversed by science. Or worse, that the teacher might be betraying principles by secretly waiting to undermine science. It turned out she had equal worries about me possibly being another dogmatic disruptive parent. We were both aware that religion has become subversive in order to protect its dogma from the legitimate expansion of technology. She was well read, and the matter ended. I am so sorry that people like teachers have to live in such fear and dread of what the religious might do.
I believe it has only been 310 years since innocent people here were accused of witchcraft, then summarily and horribly tortured and killed by religious people who controlled the system.
Salem Witch Trials TimelineAnd, all because religious dogma obstinately presumed a mystical origin to things, and refused even to consider the reality of scientific or medical fact-finding. These religious people knowingly murdered their friends who unknowingly ingested a hallucinogenic fungus in their wheat, and they did it with malice.
There must be some way to reach out to people who would take what is written in the Bible literally.