what you think of Kent Hovind?

[djcollin]

@El Regarding WLC, his arguments do include the Kalam argument. His general arguments are that God makes since of... the origins of the universe, the fine-tuning of the universe, objective morals and moral duties, the historical facts of Jesus, and God can be immediately known and experienced.


@sanabas - The lies he shows in textbooks that are used to support evolution for one. Vestigal structures have indeed shown to be not-vestigial after all, much like how so-called 'junk DNA' is now showing that some of it may have function after all. Hovind mentions dating methods. This got me interested in the subject, and I learned there are many controversies about the dating methods and their reliability. I saw someone mentioned C14 is used to date fossils, but c14 has a halflife of less than 6000 years so it isn't used to date millions of years (or can't reliably be).
He mentions fruit fly experiments, and I looked into those and sure enough the scientists who did the studies trying to observe evolution found that the only observed mutations were detrimental, and were corrected in a few generations if allowed to reproduce with the general population (points to a design in the organisms that keep them strong in my worldview).

I can list other points that I find convincing of 'young earth' and non-evolutionary origins. Bacteria studies are one. One such study was done over 20 years where they zapped the bacteria with all kinds of rays and poisons and such, trying to cause mutations, and what they found was that no matter what they tried to do the bacteria wouldn't evolve and the mutations that did occur were detrimental.
Another evidence is C14. Most folks think C14 is used to prove the old earth, but on the conrare, c14 has a halflife of less that 6000 years. So why is it found in almost every thing? It's found in diamonds (which some are claimed to be over a billion years old). Now that is very contradictory! All C14 should be well and long gone after a million years!
There have been studies with helium diffusion. And the rates at which helium diffuse from fossils, rocks, etc fit the young earth model!
Another thing I consider is that all of recorded human observation is well less than 10,000 years. This fits comfortably with the Biblical worldview, but needs some explanatory rescue devices in the evolutionary worldview if man has been in there current form for 3 or so million years as is claimed. Now science is supposed to be a conservative endeavor, yet most people currently accept the 13 or so billion year old universe claim and the 5 or so billion year old earth claim, on speculative science! :eyeroll
Another is the magnetic field decay of earth. It has measurably decayed and if we extrapolate back (historical science method... I recognize this) then the field would be so strong just 20,000 years ago as to not allow any life!

There are other evidences, but I'd rather not write a book, so if you won't more I can give more.

 

[sophie]

@sanabas - The lies he shows in textbooks that are used to support evolution for one. Vestigal structures have indeed shown to be not-vestigial after all, much like how so-called 'junk DNA' is now showing that some of it may have function after all. Hovind mentions dating methods. This got me interested in the subject, and I learned there are many controversies about the dating methods and their reliability. I saw someone mentioned C14 is used to date fossils, but c14 has a halflife of less than 6000 years so it isn't used to date millions of years (or can't reliably be).
He mentions fruit fly experiments, and I looked into those and sure enough the scientists who did the studies trying to observe evolution found that the only observed mutations were detrimental, and were corrected in a few generations if allowed to reproduce with the general population (points to a design in the organisms that keep them strong in my worldview).

I can list other points that I find convincing of 'young earth' and non-evolutionary origins. Bacteria studies are one. One such study was done over 20 years where they zapped the bacteria with all kinds of rays and poisons and such, trying to cause mutations, and what they found was that no matter what they tried to do the bacteria wouldn't evolve and the mutations that did occur were detrimental.
Another evidence is C14. Most folks think C14 is used to prove the old earth, but on the conrare, c14 has a halflife of less that 6000 years. So why is it found in almost every thing? It's found in diamonds (which some are claimed to be over a billion years old). Now that is very contradictory! All C14 should be well and long gone after a million years!

Scientists usually do not use c14 dating for fossils. Dating of our oldest sediment comes from zirconium dating. Also:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_experiment

This and the presence of staph infections pretty clearly show that bacteria and viri change all the damn time. No "rays and poisons" were shot into the E. coli bacteria. The scientists merely placed them in specific environments and let the evolutionary principles take their course. The reason this experiment is so interesting is that with bacteria you can see the course of tens of thousands of generations worth of change in just a couple decades. That is how long it takes for meaningful evolutionary change to occur. Thousands of generations. In 10000 years we've only had about 500.

 

[Wrymouth3]

I can list other points that I find convincing of 'young earth' and non-evolutionary origins. Bacteria studies are one. One such study was done over 20 years where they zapped the bacteria with all kinds of rays and poisons and such, trying to cause mutations, and what they found was that no matter what they tried to do the bacteria wouldn't evolve and the mutations that did occur were detrimental.
Another evidence is C14. Most folks think C14 is used to prove the old earth, but on the conrare, c14 has a halflife of less that 6000 years. So why is it found in almost every thing? It's found in diamonds (which some are claimed to be over a billion years old). Now that is very contradictory! All C14 should be well and long gone after a million years!
There have been studies with helium diffusion. And the rates at which helium diffuse from fossils, rocks, etc fit the young earth model!
Another thing I consider is that all of recorded human observation is well less than 10,000 years. This fits comfortably with the Biblical worldview, but needs some explanatory rescue devices in the evolutionary worldview if man has been in there current form for 3 or so million years as is claimed. Now science is supposed to be a conservative endeavor, yet most people currently accept the 13 or so billion year old universe claim and the 5 or so billion year old earth claim, on speculative science! :eyeroll

So you're going to tell me that this notably exists:

However there is absolutely no positive way that this exists:

 

[Arakhor]

Another thing I consider is that all of recorded human observation is well less than 10,000 years.

Given that the concept of writing is, what, only 4000-5000 years old, that's hardly worth commenting on, is it?

 

[sanabas]

Is it stupid to accept something that cannot change? Is it smart to trust an idea that is constantly changing? If science proved the Bible was telling the truth, would you change your mind, or would you wait until the next time around and it was once more in your favor? If you think that science is not that fickle, then it would not need all the peer review it gets. Are you saying that people are smarter than facts and if enough people see things a certain way, it must be true? Even the way facts are presented is not a sure thing. If you can convince me that all doubt can be erased, and humans can only see what is true and unchanging, then I may accept that only non-brainwashed people are stupid. Obviously the brain has to be forced to think only one way, because humans are not capable of thinking correctly on their own.

I still can't parse your stuff when you start talking about 'facts'. You still seem to have a very strange idea of how evidence works, that science can't be trusted because it changes its mind, because it constantly double-checks its own work for errors. That you get to pick & choose which bits to believe, and if you don't like it, you just need to wait for it to change its collective mind again.

It would be ok with you if churches would be forced to be for profit and pay their fair share of taxes? That would put them on par with Hollywood and then the alleged "stupidity" would be ok with you?

No. I would dislike them less if they were treated the same way as any other community group.

If people want to be wilfully ignorant, that's their choice. There are lots of things I'm wilfully ignorant about, because it doesn't interest me, and I just don't care enough to reduce my ignorance. But, when people choose to be ignorant, and then proclaim their ignorance as a virtue, claim their ignorant view is correct, that being informed is a bad thing, then I have a problem with it. Especially when you have morons campaigning to teach kids to be ignorant. That particular type of stupidity I'm never going to be ok with.

@sanabas - The lies he shows in textbooks that are used to support evolution for one. Vestigal structures have indeed shown to be not-vestigial after all, much like how so-called 'junk DNA' is now showing that some of it may have function after all. Hovind mentions dating methods. This got me interested in the subject, and I learned there are many controversies about the dating methods and their reliability. I saw someone mentioned C14 is used to date fossils, but c14 has a halflife of less than 6000 years so it isn't used to date millions of years (or can't reliably be).
He mentions fruit fly experiments, and I looked into those and sure enough the scientists who did the studies trying to observe evolution found that the only observed mutations were detrimental, and were corrected in a few generations if allowed to reproduce with the general population (points to a design in the organisms that keep them strong in my worldview).

I can list other points that I find convincing of 'young earth' and non-evolutionary origins. Bacteria studies are one. One such study was done over 20 years where they zapped the bacteria with all kinds of rays and poisons and such, trying to cause mutations, and what they found was that no matter what they tried to do the bacteria wouldn't evolve and the mutations that did occur were detrimental.
Another evidence is C14. Most folks think C14 is used to prove the old earth, but on the conrare, c14 has a halflife of less that 6000 years. So why is it found in almost every thing? It's found in diamonds (which some are claimed to be over a billion years old). Now that is very contradictory! All C14 should be well and long gone after a million years!
There have been studies with helium diffusion. And the rates at which helium diffuse from fossils, rocks, etc fit the young earth model!
Another thing I consider is that all of recorded human observation is well less than 10,000 years. This fits comfortably with the Biblical worldview, but needs some explanatory rescue devices in the evolutionary worldview if man has been in there current form for 3 or so million years as is claimed. Now science is supposed to be a conservative endeavor, yet most people currently accept the 13 or so billion year old universe claim and the 5 or so billion year old earth claim, on speculative science! :eyeroll
Another is the magnetic field decay of earth. It has measurably decayed and if we extrapolate back (historical science method... I recognize this) then the field would be so strong just 20,000 years ago as to not allow any life!

There are other evidences, but I'd rather not write a book, so if you won't more I can give more.

Certainly I want more. More to the point, I want a detailed explanation, not the usual one-liners about carbon dating, helium diffusion, or the earth's magnetic field. None of which meet the standard I asked for, that of an example that hasn't already been debunked in depth. Takes anybody with an ability to type a sentence into google less than a minute to find detailed explanations of why those particular bullet points are absolute crap.

Owen Glyndwr posted a link about Lenski's long term E-Coli experiment. Please explain the flaws in that experiment, please tell me how the original ancestral strains have not evolved. Because I assume it's not possible for them to have evolved, seeing as how evolution can't happen, due to all mutations being deleterious.

 

[timtofly]

We often agree with the Bible when the science supports it. I, for one, acknowledge the idea of (say) Solomon's kingdom existing. Why? Because there was clearly a reasonably powerful kingdom in that region at the time.

It's when people try to deny that the Israelites were former Canaanites that we run into trouble.

How would you classify by family group the actual people living at the time? There were groups of humans of known name even when Abraham settled in the area. Even during the some 400 year period the sons of Jacob (Israel) were becoming populous in Northern Egypt the sons of Lot and other groups who would be considered Canaanites were also populating to a large size. It was not like they were some lost half god half human people group. There are some extra Biblical accounts of some of those people groups in Assyrian and Egyptian records.

Even the Bible mentions the Phoenicians as the traders and settlers of many of the trading towns around the Mediterranean. While predating the Greeks, these people were not named in the Bible because it was the Greeks who seemingly named them after the fact. They also were considered Canaanites, and it would seem that the Bible does not contradict the historical facts. So I am not sure what you would consider as the Hebrews not being Canaanites. Normally when writing a historical account one does not signify their own group as just another Canaanite group, it would be understood since they did live there and had contact with such groups.

I still can't parse your stuff when you start talking about 'facts'. You still seem to have a very strange idea of how evidence works, that science can't be trusted because it changes its mind, because it constantly double-checks its own work for errors. That you get to pick & choose which bits to believe, and if you don't like it, you just need to wait for it to change its collective mind again.

Do you view facts as expendable? Do you view them as concrete until another fact replaces the first one? Or do you view a fact as can never be changed? As long as science views a fact as only expendable, then science is constantly changing and cannot be used to state what is correct and what is not. It can only be used as substantial in the present and useable only in the present. It is as relative as people need it to be for their current use. How can a fact be a fact if it's property can change? If a fact cannot change, then we move to the interpretations of the facts, or attempt to see if people were lying about the facts. You could probably throw motive in there somewhere.

No. I would dislike them less if they were treated the same way as any other community group.

That is fair.

If people want to be wilfully ignorant, that's their choice. There are lots of things I'm wilfully ignorant about, because it doesn't interest me, and I just don't care enough to reduce my ignorance. But, when people choose to be ignorant, and then proclaim their ignorance as a virtue, claim their ignorant view is correct, that being informed is a bad thing, then I have a problem with it. Especially when you have morons campaigning to teach kids to be ignorant. That particular type of stupidity I'm never going to be ok with.

I am still not sure how you teach someone to be ignorant. Are we not being just as fearful that people cannot reason things out on their own. As far as I know most people's pet theories are not life and death matters, and even you pass over learning things that you have no interest in.

 

[brennan]

the fine-tuning of the universe

Taking into account relativistic effects the radius of the observable universe is about 45.7 billion light years.

The volume of the observable universe then is about 3.38*10^80 cubic metres.

We live on the surface of a planet with a surface area of about 510*10^12 square metres.

Some fine tuning. 70 orders of magnitude more space than we use.

Likewise, claims that the fundamental constants cannot possibly be different tend to be mere arguments from ignorance. Or just wrong. There is no real reason to think that other universes are not possible with other sets of constants - which may actually exist parrallel to our own.

 

[Arakhor]

DJCollin, if you're really interested in looking into Kent Hovid's claims, here's what I found after just ten minutes with Bing. I'm sure you can turn up other data, if you care to try.

Magnetic field decay
Helium diffusion
The Moon's recession from Earth
Historical records only going back so far
Humans and population doubling
One YEC proof destroys the opposition

 

[djcollin]

@owen I agree C14 can't date fossils if they are indeed millions of years old, but people do try. Zirconium dating is also based on many unproven assumptions and requires a worldview presupposing billions year old earth to make its dates intelligible.

Regarding the bacteria study, that wasn't the one I was referencing. The scientists in that study did zap the bacteria with poisonous waves (radioactive perhaps) to induce mutations and did find the mutations were detrimental. And also wrote a quote about if evolution were true where is the evidence? I'll try to find it.

Regarding the study you posted, I've read many critical responses to the conclusions drawn from the study (one I specifically remember was that the data didn't show beneficial mutations and the proteins had loss function). But the obvious one is equating speciation with molecules-to-man evolution. I don't know who defines the new species but they've declared different wolves different species that vary much less than domestic dogs who are all labeled the same species (yet wolves and domestic dogs can have offspring... and Linneaus defined species similiarly in that if 2 organisms can have fertile offspring then they're the same species).
The Bible refers to kinds which in todays taxonomy would be closer to the family level (or order in some cases). If indeed the bacteria has 'speciated' that in no way shows that it could continue to do so until it became a human eventually in some far distant future. There are observed limits as Hovind rightly talks about. So even if it is speciating, it could be just as much evidence for design. A designer that created enough genetic information that would allow for variability in all types of environments.

@wry Not sure what your point it. No I don't think the first exists. Yes I think the second exists.

@arakhor Well you claim writing is only that old. I'd claim we were designed and capable of writing from the beginning about 6500 years ago. Only if you pre-supposed the earth was billions of years old and presupposed molecules-to-man evolution would you ask that.

@sanabas :eyeroll:

@brennan: are you taking the claim that there is no fine-tuning to the universe? I'd easily reject that claim on your ignorance and not mine.

@arakhor: I appreciate the links and will look at them. I really am interested in looking into Hovind's claims and have. And am interesting in looking into them more, but beware there are people out there who are intellectually dishonest and are out just to try to make ideas look silly when they do have merit.

 

[Arakhor]

@arakhor Well you claim writing is only that old. I'd claim we were designed and capable of writing from the beginning about 6500 years ago. Only if you pre-supposed the earth was billions of years old and presupposed molecules-to-man evolution would you ask that.

The age of the Earth has absolutely nothing to do with when we decided writing was a good idea. Yes, God could have created us whole-cloth, with the Hebrew alphabet fully formed in the minds of Adam and Eve (not that the Bible says anything of the sort), but the concept of writing in itself does not in any way prove or disprove the Genesis story.

 

[El_Machinae]

It's not so much that there's no fine-tuning, but that the Anthropic Principle prevents 'fine-tuning' from even being a point in the first place. Even IF the Universe was deliberately created (I'm agnostic on this), it's a second leap to declare that it was created with the intention of creating us. Evidence of the first doesn't necessarily lead to the second.

 

[sanabas]

Do you view facts as expendable? Do you view them as concrete until another fact replaces the first one? Or do you view a fact as can never be changed? As long as science views a fact as only expendable, then science is constantly changing and cannot be used to state what is correct and what is not. It can only be used as substantial in the present and useable only in the present. It is as relative as people need it to be for their current use. How can a fact be a fact if it's property can change? If a fact cannot change, then we move to the interpretations of the facts, or attempt to see if people were lying about the facts. You could probably throw motive in there somewhere.

So we can't use science to tell us what's correct, BECAUSE science is open to the idea that it might have it wrong?

How does one gain a better understanding of something, without first being open to the idea that their current understanding isn't perfect?

 

[timtofly]

Science allows us to see what is. Calling it correct or not is interpretive. Science is open to correction, but correction is not being right or wrong. Most corrections are discarded, not viewed as damning. Right and wrong are terms that are used in debate over moral issues, or at the least a terrible way to get one to change their mind. They do not seem well suited for comparing what is right or wrong in past terms. The past may be open to speculation and opinion, but it is hard to get the reality of what was actually going on. Most humans view what was written as the whims of humans any way. Even a literalist who may have a correct mindset can still only be portrayed as a subjective view. Relying on science as objective can really only exist in the present. I do not envy any one who thinks they have the past all figured out, even if they can prove they have the science to back it up. I may be wrong, but to do so does not make sense to me, because there are still assumptions, and it would be lying to convince me to accept assumptions as proven facts.

Every one who seeks to learn new things should have the thought they do not know everything about it, for even thinking that one knows anything about it, may prejudice any new knowledge. I don't think I have ever made the claim that my knowledge is perfect on any subject. You get what it is, and I really have nothing to lie about or need to obfuscate on any topics I post on in all threads. I do have a sarcastic streak that may pop up in my shorter post here and there.

 

[brennan]

@brennan: are you taking the claim that there is no fine-tuning to the universe? I'd easily reject that claim on your ignorance and not mine.

As already stated, there is no evidence for 'fine tuning'. Please provide evidence to the contrary.

It is already known that the constants alleged to be 'fine tuned' could have alternative settings and that the universe itself is in fact almost entirely inimical to life, which makes a nonsense of the notion that the current settings are 'fine tuned' for life. A 6 year old could come up with a better design for a universe than this one, it's almost entirely empty.

You are free to 'reject' this. But it would be clear that you are totally ignoring the evidence if you do so.

 

[sanabas]

Regarding the study you posted, I've read many critical responses to the conclusions drawn from the study (one I specifically remember was that the data didn't show beneficial mutations and the proteins had loss function).

In a citrate-rich environment, how is evolving the ability to metabolise citrate not beneficial?

@arakhor: I appreciate the links and will look at them. I really am interested in looking into Hovind's claims and have. And am interesting in looking into them more, but beware there are people out there who are intellectually dishonest and are out just to try to make ideas look silly when they do have merit.

Yes, yes there are.

If you are actually interested in looking into this stuff, I'd suggest reading this pair of open letters written by the guy in charge of that long-term e-coli experiment, the one you've got problems with, the one that you say even if it is evolution, it doesn't really count bcause it hasn't evolved enough. It was written in response to a letter from one of those intellectually dishonest idiots.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/06/18/hubris-gall-arroganceinanity/
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/06/24/lenski-gives-conservapdia-a-le/

And just in case you view the website & the intros as biased, you can have the same letter on a site that seems more in line with your own anti-science viewpoint.

http://www.conservapedia.com/Conservapedia:Lenski_dialog

 

[warpus]

I am still not sure how you teach someone to be ignorant.

Easy, you tell them not to question anything they're being told and that it's right no matter what. Then you teach them things that aren't true.

 

[timtofly]

That would not be teaching them. That would be telling them how to believe. I never said it does not happen. I always thought that teaching meant providing information to those who do not have such information. One cannot be less ignorant than they already are. People can forget things. It is psychiatrist who dabble in that though. One could learn lies, but even that is not loosing knowledge. It is just gaining incorrect knowledge. There is a lot of useless knowledge and trivia abounding. That to me is not teaching either. That would be entertainment.