Jared v. Hovind

Nope, no teethies. The hoatzin does have some unusual adaptations (like pre-gastric fermentation, it being the only obligate folivorous bird I know of), and odd bits of anatomy and ecology, however. And anyone seeing a live hoatzin can readily imagine (by squinting a bit) that they are looking at an archaeopteryx straight out of the Jurassic. Here is a nice website with some good skeletal and other information on this weird bird.edited for speelingThis message has been edited by Quetzal, 04-22-2006 12:34 AM

why does he use textbooks as an example of why evolution is wrong? he tells people that scientists think we are related to rocks!
the guy distorts science to make it look like a joke and get audances that have no clue about science at all and makes science look foolish he has a paper mill phd, he claims to know about science but has no understanding of how science works! he claims to have been a teacher but even teachers have to understand basic science

i'll elaborate. there are two kinds of dinosaurs, ornithischians ("bird-hipped") and saurischian, ("lizard-hipped").archaeopteryx is a "lizard-hipped" dinosaur. hovind claimed that this means he cannot be related to birds, because he has the wrong kind of hip.the problem is, of course, that birds are (surpise!) saurischian, and archaeopteryx shows (suprise again!) a hip that is strongly turned backwards, a good half-way point between standard forward-facing "lizard" hips and backwards-facing bird hips. ornithischians have have a section of their hip that projects forward that birds do not have. the name is not a name of relation, but because they look similar.but kent uses the lay-people names to make it sound like he has a really, really good point, when he in fact as no such thing. it's a trick of semantics -- we'd expect birds to have "bird hips" when they in fact do not.the question i want to know is -- what did kent say when our friend hoag explained this relatively simple fact to him? will he continue to use the point, even though it is so obviously wrong to anyone who's studied paleontology or biology?

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I would hazard that there is at least one lie in this quote:Kent: That is what all these evolutionists do. They think if you don't understand evolution - if you don't believe in evolution - it's because you're dumb. I think it's quite the opposite. My IQ is over 160. I've taught high school science fifteen years. Got a PhD in education. I may not be the smartest man in the world but I'm smart enough to figure out I didn't come from a rock 4.6 billion years ago. And I think most five year olds are smart enough to figure that one out. There is no way Kent has an IQ of "over 160" When he says that he "taught high school science" for fifteen years, does he actually mean he taught science in a high school because if he does I'd find that suspect as well.I don't know about the education system in America, but in Scotland you need a degree in the subject that you hope to teaching plus a teaching cert/diploma. I see that Hovind's 'phd' is in education, so this obviously isn't a science qualification. So, does anyone know if Kent taught IN a high school as opposed to teaching high school level science on a street corner?On the matter of his Ph.d how ludicrous is this claim of Hovind's?My dissertation was originally about 100 pages. I continued adding material and it grew to 250 pages. Over the last 10 years I have constantly been adding material. It is now many hundreds of pages and will be put into book form as time permits.This is just absurd, once you finish writing up your dissertation then that's it finished, you don't add to it!The comments about the quality of the presentation speaks volumes as well. No page numbers, no contents page, plethora of spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, the thesis has no title, no references or footnotes, an illustration cut out of a science book and stuck into the dissertation, the list goes on.What kind of university awards this quality of work? I had 5 formatting errors in my dissertation, and I had to correct these and present another two bound copies to the uni before I was allowed to graduate.If I was Kent, I'd keep quiet about the 'ph.d'Brian.

I had to smile at that one... Scotland must be a whole lot more strict than England then. 25% of English high-school maths teachers do not have A-level maths, never mind a degree in a maths-related subject! [TES - from a couple of years back] And I don't have a teaching cert...

To teach in Scotland requires you to be a member of the GTC, General Teaching Council, and to do this you need a degree plus an education qualification. You cannot enter a state educational establishment without being a member of the GTC.Most teachers gain their degree first and then complete a post grad teaching cert at teacher training college.I was quite lucky in that my first degree was at Stirling where students could study for their teaching qualification at the same time as their degree. It had the added bonus of being a Dip. ed, a slightly higher qualification than the Cert. ed.I see in the news this week that some English unis may offer honours degrees that only take 2 years instead of 3! Apparently it is an attempt to cut student debt. Incidently, honours degrees take 4 years in Scotland, maybe that's why our education system is the envy of the world? (I should probably change that to 'was' the envy as the arse is falling out of it now).Brian.

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?

My friend, haven't I told you thousands of times not to exaggerate? I don't have a passage perse in mind, but I have to agree with Kent that BB and evolution science assumes far too much pertaining to how things were in the universe scores of millions to billions of years ago, so very distant from physical observation. I agree also that ID is implicated in the degree of complexity that is observed on earth and in the universe; things like DNA, et al. I also agree that science should apply more logic to interpretations of what is observed than they do.(BTW autodidact is in neither my abridged or my unabridged dictionaries. I assume by the syllables of your term that you mean something like an omnivorous self taught teacher. Read my former post carefully, my friend. By this and other stuff I've posted on Hovind, there's some significant differences in my creationism and his. My point here is that I don't buy the degree of rejection that many of you are posting. Imo, in the end after all is said and done in the judgement, Hovind will have ascribed to and taught more actual scientific truth than most of his counterparts in debate.

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 Z Y BUZ SAW

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

What makes you think that's wrong?

I was wondering the same thing. I believe the queen and older adults eat honey that the younger workers bring in. He's likely referring to the workers which eat mostly nectar and maybe some polen.

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 Z Y BUZ SAW

My point was that in the end, in retrospect, Hovind will likely be closer than Einstein overal with ID and all. Imo, you and he both have a problem here. As per TDI and as per a proper Biblical understanding, every bit of energy that exists today has eternally existed in one form or another. Well, my friend, I and my Biblical cumbodies think secularist antID teaching is intellectually dangerous to the eternal welfare of everyone. So that leaves us both with concern about what's good and proper.

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 Z Y BUZ SAW

Concerning Hovind, I guess what is good and proper is to defy the laws. What happened to "render unto Caesar."Or are fundies against both God and country?

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

You are't Kent and he isn't playing to you or to the university or high tech crowd. He knows what his audience wants to hear and what they understand and he has no compunctions about lying and putting on a good show, and his audience eats it up. He is telling them what they want to hear and they shell out there hard earned money for this stuff and come back for more.At PT Barnum said about suckers, "There's one born every minute!". Sad but true.lfen