An Encounter with Kent Hovind

As mentioned on my personal blog, http://gnosos.blogspot.com, I sent
out a request to both Brent Rassmussen at UTI and Dr. Myers at
Pharyngula for ideas about a question I could ask Kent Hovind during
his recent visit to my college campus, Virginia Tech. I detail my
encounter below:

-------------------------
Kent Hovind: The Complete Encounter

I intended to give this post more time and thought, but I owe it to
those posters on Pharyngula and UTI - who generously answered my
request for ideas - to convey a record of my encounter with the
consummate showman of the young-earth Creationsists, Kent Hovind. (My
boss reads my blog, so, for the record, this was written over a long
lunch, off the clock...)

First, a bit about my background. For those of you that don't believe
that an indoctrinated YEC mind can muster the intellectual velocity to
escape the orbit of a fundamentalist upbringing, I am the exception. I
was home schooled and home churched throughout my childhood and
adolescence in an isolated environment of fundamentalist doctrine and
Biblical literalism. My science education was learned physically at the
feet of Ken Ham, Henry Morris, John Morris, and Russell Humphreys.
Their word was my confidence; their books, an extension to my Bible.

Enlightenment began for me at 16, when I entered college early, as many
home schooled students do - academically ahead in all aspects except
turning a trained intellect on the Bible. A complete biography of my
de-conversion will wait for another post, but suffice it to say that
now I consider myself an honest agnostic religiously and a
methodological naturalist scientifically (Yes, that means I
"believe" in evolution).

With this background, I entered the Hovind talk with no small amount of
roiling emotion welling in my gut. I was five minutes late to the talk,
and the 450 seat auditorium in our student center was packed to the
aisles and walkways with at least 500 people - standing, sitting on
stairs, listening from outside the auditorium. The church busses and
vans outside betrayed that people had traveled from several surrounding
counties for their science lesson, many, I'm sure, receiving
"credit" in their home/church schools for attending. A vote
requested by Kent at the beginning revealed a 75% pro-Creationist
audience.

Kent did not stray from his usual talking points. These have been
well-described at http://www.kent-hovind.com and
http://www.talkorigins.org . He spoke only for 75 minutes before
stopping to use the rest of the session for Q&A - a straight 3 hours!

Ah, the stupidity of the students who came to the mic! They came
ill-prepared with their sophomore-level understanding of science and
evolution and played right into the hand of the master performer who
deftly redirected the audience with his 1000 PowerPoint slides - with
the same vapid, well-worn answers for every evidence for evolution -
ready with the click of a hyperlink to redefine any given question to
fit the answer for which he had colorfully, graphically prepared. These
kids did not realize they were dealing with a master manipulator and a
very intelligent man who knows how to anticipate questions, redefine
them into straw men, and burn them at the stake to the delighted cries
and laughter of his self assured, uneducated audience.

I thus decided to take a different tactic. Knowing the audience to be
predominantly YECs, I chose to draw upon my experience within that
mindset to drive a wedge between him and more respected YEC thinkers. I
thought this might get a few people to realize that hell does not await
all those who counter Kent; lots of well-respected Christians do,
without the expected lightening from heaven.

My conversation went thusly, as best I remember. He interrupted me
during each sentence, so it did not come off this cleanly. The only
actual quotes are in quotes. My comments in [].

ZE: Creation science, as you've described it, is largely an
observational science...

KH: Oh, no it's not. [Begins rapidly flipping around his
PowerPoint slides]

ZE: Observational sciences include the practice of creating
hypotheses that best fit observations and checking those hypotheses for
accuracy based on how well they fit existing and new evidence. It is on
that basis they are accepted or rejected.

KH: [Motioning to his slide showing the Wright Flyer] The Wright
brothers were Creationists and they were the first to fly. That's not
observational science.

ZE: That is completely off topic. The creation science you've
been discussing has to do with the age of the earth. That is
observational.

KH: OK.

ZE: Please give me three examples of creation science ideas or
hypotheses that you have rejected on the basis of a close examination
of observed evidence. [Intending to show that he does not apply any
critical thinking to the evidences he uses for a young earth -
anything works as long as it makes the earth look young.]

KH: There are many evidences for a young earth. [He then went,
slides and all, into a discussion of the Recession of the Moon
argument.]

ZE: That's based on a flawed model that assumes a constant rate
of the moon's orbit extending [a bit more back and forth]. But it's
off topic. Let me be more specific. In your talk you claimed that the
speed of light has changed throughout history to prove that distant
supernovas are less than 6000 years old. You also quoted Dr. Russell
Humphreys' Creationist work, Starlight and Time, to prove the same
point. Humphreys assumes that both general and special relativity are
accurate - a point you discount in your educational material - and
that the speed of time is constant and has been throughout history.
Which is right? Is it constant or not?

KH: Humphreys is wrong, the speed of light has changed.

ZE: On the basis of what evidence?

KH: [Flipping back through his presentation] All these physicists
who say the speed of light has changed.

ZE: Then why did you quote both to support your argument? Humphreys
is a member of a Creationist group, Answers in Genesis, that has
several web pages dedicated to debunking the science that you use.

KH: They shouldn't do that. I think they should take them down.
[And, upon further inspection, I think they have.] It comes down to
this: "I'm right and they are wrong." [A direct quote, emphasis
mine.]

ZE: On the basis of what? They have trained scientists such as Kurt
Wise from Harvard and Russell Humphreys - you have a degree from
Patriot University!

KH: OK, now you're doing an ad hominem attack. [Motions to cut
off my mic.]

ZE: It's not ad hominem since you just established yourself as
the only basis of authority for your claim! I'm attacking the authority
you established! [Realizing my mic is off, I get very angry and return
to my seat.]

Again, the exchange was not this clean, and, I must admit, I made the
mistake of getting angry in the face of his ever-smiling,
happily-defending-the-faith visage. I got stuck winning the logic, but
losing my composure. In all, I think most people got lost due to his
indirections. Note that by appealing to the authority of better
educated Creationists, I was not agreeing with them, just establishing
them as a more respected source for the audience to use as a basis for
critical thinking within their insulated minds.

And it worked. The end result was that I was treated afterwards by the
exiting audience as a source of counterpoint to what they had just
heard. I spoke to at least 10 people - both students of evolutionary
biology who were confused about what they had just experienced and YEC
kids who ranged from inquisitive to belligerent - about my
alternative point of view. I pointed lots of folks to good websites. It
may be a minor victory, but one that means a lot to me, since my mind
was similarly opened by taking the first baby steps towards
independent, critical thinking.

In closing, a few comments to those YECs that read my blog. When you
see a guy like Kent Hovind, meditate for a moment about where you are
putting your faith. Are you really putting your faith in the literal
truth of Genesis, or are you putting it in the perceived confidence of
an intelligent showman? As you leave the show, are you on an emotional
high or an intellectual high? Will you follow up? Please read the Index
to Creationist Claims on Talk Origins. Then answer me this one
question. If you claim to believe by faith the literal accounts of
Genesis that can be and have been demonstrated false by Christian and
Atheist scientists alike, why should rational thinkers listen when you
claim to put the same faith in Jesus for the sake of salvation? If your
faith is tested this one way and fails, why should any thinking person
believe you when you claim, by faith, anything else? Please consider
the damage you are doing to a faith that, in my opinion, has a lot more
to offer than rhetoric, illogic, and misdirection.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: An Encounter with Kent Hovind
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  • Re: POTM An Encounter with Kent Hovind
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  • Re: A Question of Faith: the Root of the Problem?
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  • Re: POTM An Encounter with Kent Hovind
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