Jared v. Hovind

You're right, he might not be intentionally telling untruths, he could just be deluded or forgetful with regards to the fact that he does not correct the errors that are pointed out to him. I've watched enough of his debates and seminars to come to the conclusion that there is some element of the propaganda about the way he presents his information (Gish Gallop, quote mining etc), which I'm happy to call deceptive.I don't know the exact nature of the 'Ornithiscia and Saurischia' scenario or whether or not deceit was employed, but we need to face facts here, either Hovind has a short memory or he lies about something somewhere. I think one of Hovind's tax evasion trials starts next week, so I guess we get to see a measure of how honest the man is there. My intuition tells me he is in trouble but will slide his way out of it, but what can you do when your lawyer gets sued for some kind of tax fraud affair?

Ironically, I became an 'evolutionist' because of Hovind. I've always accepted evolution, and never thought anyone seriously questioned it. Then I heard that some people actively fight the idea, so I watched some of Hovind's debates and thought I'd come to forums to see if anyone puts Hovind's work forward as an argument.Fortunately, it's rare, I think Hovind has lost a lot of credibility with creationists after their respectable champions, AiG proverbially turned their backs on him.

A solid answer doesn't seem to be forthcoming, however Hovind gives us some clues: (Source)
Yep, it looks like he taught science at an independent school he started. I might start a university and become the head of the Biology department - that should trump Hovind right?

If I was going to trust either Einstein or Hovind, I'm going with Einstein. Especially since Hovind's big bang is a spinning dot that explodes from nothing, and the fact that galaxies spin in different directions is proof that it didn't happen (apparantly its a violation of the conservation of angular momentum).Given that he mostly debates biologists and he says things like 'bees eat honey'^*, I gotta wonder about how you are judging this more actual scientific truth. At the very worst the scientists he debates assume that the universe is very old, and back that up with a mass of evidence. Its a pretty fair assumption. Now, bees eat honey? The big bang is falsified by conservation of angular momentum?I hope that Hovind is teaching more scientific truths than his opponents, because that would mean I'm delusional.Let's say he teaches more scientific truths and I am not delusional. That still leaves the prolific amount of scientific falsehoods he teaches - which still makes him intellectually dangerous.^*[i]Creation Seminar
Part 4b More lies in the textbooks, Hovind.This message has been edited by Modulous, Sat, 22-April-2006 11:41 PM

I know, and if I had to choose between Einstein or Hovind, I'd go with Einstein. I'm not debating who is right here. I was simply saying that at worst scientists 'make the mistake' of making one assumtion, which is reasonable and backed up with with a load of evidence. On the other hand, Hovind makes a heck of a lot more demonstratable mistakes. Obviously, but that wasn't my point. My point was that even if Hovind is on the right track, he's still intellectually dangerous. He could even be spiritually dangerous if you consider telling half-truths, preaching known falsehoods, engaging in quotemining and rhetoric to get someone to heaven/paradise a spiritual paradox. Can you manipulate someone to heaven? Regardless, whether Hovind is right or not, he's intellectually dangerous.On the other hand, if his debate opponents are right, they aren't intellectually dangerous.abe: One thing of note: you've seen Hovind talk so you'll probably know this. When he debates he generally doesn't put his position forward often and when he does he stresses that its faith not science. Most of the debates and seminars I've seen focus on attacking evolution. The attacks on evolution are filled with falsehoods, and that's kind of the point - he doesn't speak more scientific truth, when he discusses science he tends to get it wrong. He talks of Creation as his Faith, his religion and doesn't subject God to science.This message has been edited by Modulous, Sun, 23-April-2006 08:16 AM

I think Buzz basically covered this one. I was simplifying down since I didn't think it necessary to take it into detail (perhaps I should have known EvCs pedants would make that difficult). To expand slightly, Hovind was talking about the primary energy source for worker bees; which is not honey, but nectar. I put the source on there, and you can find a transcript of it online.The quote goes like this: His general point is valid, bees can fly a long way on a gallon of nectar. Now some bees do eat honey, even worker bees. They use it to try and survive the winter (or help regulate temperature of the hive), but they don't waste their energy flying on it (there's no food to fly to).Just to carry on Hovind's craziness, a bit further down that page he says an absolute classic: I have difficulty accepting this is a sincere error, I believe that the seminar is dated about 1990, so the 'net wasn't so useful back then. Here are the sequences: SourceSourceSouceSo either Hovind is lying, or he simply doesn't put one iota of effort into his research and just believes what some people tell him. Hearkening back to what I was saying to Buzz (and I'm guessing you'd agree anyway), it doesn't matter if he's right about Creation, he's still wrong about basic science (and sometimes massively so!). And it's still intellectually dangerous to lie/teach falsehoods (ironically in a seminar criticizing teaching falsehoods). Oh bugger it, I'll let Hovind express my opinion on the matter: (original quote was crticizing a book author for saying whales have vestigial pelvises and can be found in context at the source used above)So there you go - Hovind thinks that those who lie or are ignorant of a given subject shouldn't be teaching it. We have shown that he is either of the above and the same applies to him as it does to others.I don't know if Hovind has changed his tune on the cytochrome front yet, I certainly hope he has since it has been pointed out a number of times - and I hope he wouldn't deliberately let falsehoods be taught to kids. He discussed it with Jared Hoag (yay, back on topic) last year, check out the discussions around June 8th, 2005 on the link provided in the OP. I'll listen to them as soon as I am able to see if Hovind is still using this old chestnut. For some reason I can't get to his website at the moment to see if its on there.This message has been edited by Modulous, Sun, 23-April-2006 09:20 AM

Some of the things we have learned about the universe seem illogical because they don't make 'sense'. As far as I am aware, high level physics is rigidly logical since it is based on maths, it just produces results that are so alien to our experience that they feel 'wrong' in some way.Hence, when dealing with such concepts as cosmology, it pays to go with the actual logic and ignore our logic-sense. Unfortunately the actual logic (maths) can be difficult to follow without a lot of training.