So the laptop fund was successful, I've purchased a new laptop and I can begin updating again. So here we have another debate with the creationist felon Kent Hovind verses Dr. Matthew Rainbow. Rainbow has a lot of technical hiccups which takes away from the strength of his presentation, but shows a prodigious amount of patience for the creationist standpoint. He often takes the stance that God could be inserted into the process and denialism of an Old Earth simply doesn't match up with the evidence, but the two ideas are not mutually exclusive.
Rallying against dogmatism, rather than simply just religion, is an important distinction that I believe more atheists should be clear about. As atheists, we post our anti-religious memes, make anti-religious jokes, and generally poke fun of religion. All well and good, I say. Lets just keep in mind the larger war while we do so, and perhaps use some of our energies to include anti-dogmatism in our argumentation. Whether its political dogmatism, religious dogmatism, or any fanatic dogmatism, it all deserves our derision.
In light of the recent hiring of creationist promoter Guillermo Gonzalez by Ball State University, creationists have been saying lots of stupid things in defense of the move. This is not Ball State's only questionable move when it comes to science. Another one of their assistant professors is being investigated for promoting intelligent design in a class entitled "The Boundaries of Science". The idea of equal time for teaching both ideas is ludicrous, as well as the idea that somehow Gonzalez is not going to let his beliefs influence his scientific ideas and teachings. We don't teach divine intervention combined with the germ theory of disease in medical schools for a reason. It isn't science and it isn't reconcilable with scientific instruction.
"Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate." - 2002 Memo for GOP Canidates
The contention is that since the science isn't settled there's no need to take action. Much as the tobacco companies argued that we don't need warning labels on cigarettes because our scientists say that smoking is harmless. Now the idea of questioning the science is often done through presenting a slate of scientists that support your point of view and certainly the creationists have done this for decades... At any event, even 30,000 scientists is a small fraction of the total number of people receiving degrees in science since approximately the 1970s which would be the cohort that would be being sampled, shall we say. One calculation had it as 3/10ths of 1 percent so the idea that there is this huge ground swell of scientists opposing global warming is, to say the least, overstated.
This classic debate between Kent Hovind and Michael Shermer pits creationism against evolution as if they were two equally scientific ideas. Creationism, as Shermer repeatedly says in his rebuttals, is not science and not even close to being on equal footing. Just slapping the word science before or after a term does not make it so. We all know and love Shermer (he has some of his hair left in this debate!), founder of Skeptic magazine and author of Why People Believe Weird Things. I decided to look into Kent Hovind and his credentials to which I was immediately ROTFL (excuse my internet vernacular). From his Wikipedia article:
In 1988 and 1991 respectively, Hovind was awarded a master's degree and doctorate in Christian Education through correspondence from the non-accredited Patriot University in Colorado Springs, Colorado (now Patriot Bible University in Del Norte, Colorado, which no longer offers this program).[9]
Having a website called "Dr. Dino" has provoked some academics to look
closely at how Hovind presents his education and credentials. Chemistry professor Karen Bartelt has said that it is "very unusual for a person with a Ph.D., even a real one, to list oneself in the phonebook as "Dr Hovind", as Hovind has done."[10] [emphasis in original]. Barbara Forrest, a professor of philosophy, expert on the history of creationism and activist in the creation-evolution controversy, wrote that Hovind's lack of academic training makes it impossible to engage him on a professional level.
Other critics of Hovind have pointed out that Patriot Bible University is a diploma mill,
as it has unreasonably low graduation requirements, lack of sufficient
faculty or educational standards, and a suspicious tuition scheme.[12][13]
The school's current policies allow students to attain bachelor's
degrees, master's degrees, and even "Doctor of Ministry" degrees in
months, rather than years, for as little as $25 per month. Currently
Patriot offers a monthly fee, unlike most universities, which only
charge per-credit fees.[14]
Bartelt has stated that Hovind's doctoral dissertation is evidence of the poor requirements at Patriot and that Hovind lacks knowledge of basic science.
Also, most hilarious, since January 2007 "Dr." Hovind has been serving out part of a 10 year prison sentence for a litany of charges.
...after being convicted of 58 federal counts, including 12 tax offenses,
one count of obstructing federal agents, and 45 counts of structuring cash transactions. He is incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution at Berlin, New Hampshire.
This level of hypocrisy is astounding. It's somewhat reminiscent of the recent wire fraud charges brought against skeptical podcaster Brian Dunning. However Dunning doesn't espouse a hardline stance on biblical morality so I would say his case doesn't display nearly as much duplicity of character.
