Kent Hovind

Ow, my ears!Here are your two links, which were unaccompanied by any claims or discussion, just a suggestion that they were "good links to check out":

• Maintaining Creationist Integrity (response to Kent Hovind) - creation.com
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• Ross-Hovind Debate, John Ankerberg Show, October 2000: Analysis by Jonathan Sarfati - creation.com

And here is the relevant rule from the Forum Guidelines:

5. Bare links with no supporting discussion should be avoided. Make the argument in your own words and use links as supporting references.

So once you did make a claim about those links it would have been helpful to describe some of what was in them.I did take a quick look at your links and the they do appear to provide good illustrations of one creationist organization chiding other creationist organizations for dismissing and ignoring valid scientific evidence while themselves dismissing and ignoring other valid scientific evidence.Once one chooses to give greater credence to revelation than to real-world evidence then decisions about which real-word evidence to accept becomes based upon other factors like politics, personal preference, etc. One important factor is that people care what other people think and don't like to look ridiculous. The primary difference between Hovind and CMI is their tolerance for looking foolish to the scientific world.--Percy

I believe the "case pending in the courts" is the motion Hovind filed last year alleging errors by both the prosecution and defense.I've read enough of Kent Hovind's prison correspondence to be amazed that there is never a break in the facade, and I've come to think that it is no facade. Hard to believe, but even inside he apparently believes everything he says ranging from Noah's flood to vaccinations to being a citizen of the world and not the US to income taxes.I don't think we'll ever see a contrite or remorseful Hovind, certainly we haven't as yet. This might be because, as I understand it, there is no parole system for federal prisons, the entire sentence must be served. Thus Hovind has no motivation to set the stage for going before a parole board to say things like that he understands his errors, he'll pay taxes, and if released will work to make restitution to the federal government.Hovind will be 62 when released and must then serve 3 years of parole. I'm sure he'll be spouting the same nonsense about evolution and vaccinations and all the rest, but I bet pays his federal income taxes.--Percy

This thread's opening post proposes working toward a debate with Hovind, but he's in jail, so the topic quickly morphed into debating creationists in general.Probably the best way for evolutionists to achieve victory in a debate would be to debate not one creationist but a panel of them. A panel of Kent Hovind, Ken Ham and Hugh Ross would be perfect. Not wanting to contradict each other in public, they would have to remain silent and cede all their time to the lone evolutionist. --Percy

That's the 1997 Firing Line debate. It's kind of long and in the first 15 minutes seems only to discuss evolution, not creation. Where in this debate do the positions of creation get discussed?Nice to see a young(er) Eugenie Scott, and I'd never seen Michael Ruse before. By the way, Berlinski, the first creationist to take the podium, is an agnostic and a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute.--Percy

Hi Chuck,You seem to be missing the point of my original comment, that a panel of creationists committed to no public disagreements must necessarily be silent on the topic of creationism. The primary area of agreement among creationists is that evolution is wrong. Beyond that their beliefs are all over the map.So when you said, "Here ya go Percy," what you really have is, "Here you ain't." What you need to find in order to counter my point is a place in the debate where the creationists talk about the positions of creationism.--Percy

Hi Dawn,This thread began with a proposal to set up a debate with Hovind, but as he is in jail it has morphed into a discussion of difficulties that lie outside the actual science when debating creationists . We're not actually debating creation/evolution in this thread. If we were then it wouldn't be in the Coffee House forum.--Percy

This quote appeared in your post: But if you said [qs=Dawn Bertot responding to Jar][/qs] then it would look like this: --Percy

No one claims there is evidence that non-natural causes do not exist.We provide explanations that include causes we have evidence for, and we only have evidence of natural causes.But you provide explanations that include causes you have no evidence for.When comparing explanations with evidence to explanations with no evidence, it's no contest.--Percy

You provided evidence of the creator and of how he influenced evolution? Really? Where? Oh, and did God turn out to be Christian, Islam, Hindu, Buddhist or other?I think you're providing wonderful examples of a couple of the creationist approaches to debate: making claims that you've proved things you've never proved, and misunderstanding how evidence works.--Percy

If you hover over the image in your message and click on it it becomes just as big. Click again and it shrinks to fit back in the message. Large images are automatically resized by the forum software.--Percy

That's an interesting and rather all-encompassing question to ask, but Jar never claimed to have evidence of natural causes from start to finish. In fact, no one here has claimed this or would claim this, and no one I know of in science has ever claimed this.What Jar did say and what we are all saying is that when we make a claim it is because we have evidence for that claim, and that to this point in time all evidence we have is due to natural causes. You name a claim that we have actually made, rather than one you have made up, and we will provide the evidence behind that claim.But you continue to make significant contributions to this thread by providing examples of creationist debate techniques, in this case of putting words in other people's mouths, and of asking unanswerable questions as if the inability to answer unanswerable questions proved anything.So, getting back to your unsupported claims, Jar asked this in Message 268: You said that you'd already answered this question in Message 273: Where did you provide what was requested? Unless you tell us where your "Yes I did" is just another example of the creationist tactic of claiming to have answered questions they never answered.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Grammar.

Yes, I guess you're right, he probably does believe what he said was providing evidence. I've identified four creationist debate techniques that Dawn has used so far in this thread, probably worth while collecting them into a single post:Creationist Debate Techniques:

1. Claiming they've already proved something they haven't proved.
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2. Misunderstanding how evidence works.
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3. Putting words in people's mouths.
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4. Asking unanswerable questions.
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5. Asserting that something is so is sufficient, no evidence required.

In this case Dawn is providing another example of misunderstanding how evidence works.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Added item 5.

Hovind's first need will be money, so there should soon be a new revitalized Hovind website (lots of lecture tapes and creationist paraphernalia for sale) and a Hovind lecture tour (coming soon to a church near you).--Percy