Today, instead of being particularly original, I responded to a couple of comments on my post about Kent Hovind from a while back. Well, I was bored. So, here are my responses in full, because I’m unlikely to come up with anything else of substance to post here today. (You might want to read this comment and this one for the context.)
Okay, I’m having a dull afternoon, so I’ll bite. Let’s do this thing.
Some dude:
1. Paragraph breaks and syntax are your friends. Run-on sentences obscure your point. If I can’t understand what you’re saying, I can’t even decide whether I disagree with you, let alone how to defend whatever you might be disagreeing about.
2. “…your evolution theory says that everything created itself…” – No it doesn’t. It says that the variety of living organisms we see in the world can best be explained as the result of compounded variations in replicating entities on which selective pressures have been acting over billions of years, and it says it with a great deal more detail and nuance. But I wouldn’t be surprised if you don’t understand the difference.
3. “I think before your claim is any good to me, you should be standing in front of one of those stalactites and stalagmites like he is so it sounds like you know what your talking about…” – I can put on an impressive white lab coat as well, if what will impress you is flashy gimmicks, and you’d prefer a meaningless sense of authority to actual data. What possible difference does it make to the truth or falsehood of what I’m saying, whether the ground next to me is pointy while I’m saying it? If my facts are right, they’re right; if they’re wrong, they’re wrong. I’m not a geologist who’s spent years studying stalactite formation. Neither is Hovind, and I’m guessing neither are you. If you want to make an actual coherent assertion regarding any kinds of rock formations, and the implications of your observations and conclusions on evolutionary theory, go ahead. So far you’re just calling people fools a lot.
4. “How long would it take for lightning to strike some amino acids and begin to form them into this complex shape we call a watch?” – Seriously? You’re still going with William Paley? How can you have no idea what a bad analogy that is to the incremental processes of natural selection?
5. “It should sound pretty stupid in your mind! If it doesn’t, there is nothing anyone can do for you because God intends to kill you.” – Wow, that came out of nowhere. Remind me where in the Bible it states specifically that God will kill anyone who fails to be impressed by the watchmaker analogy as an argument from design?
6. “…but you made the best argument that evolution is retarded when you said: “No one has ever claimed the money.”” – If you put stuff in quotes like that, the implication is that you’re repeating an exact phrase that was used. When that’s not the case, like here, you look like either a liar or an idiot. Given the point you’re trying to make, the idiot option is much more likely. No one has ever claimed the money (see, now you can quote me on that) because Hovind’s criteria are entirely unreasonable and show a complete lack of understanding of the scientific process. This, as you seem to have somehow missed, was the entire point of my article. Saying that this shows up a flaw in evolution would be like me claiming that all religion is obviously bullshit because I’ve been trying to get a personal interview with God for this site for weeks now and still nobody’s making it happen. It’s just not a realistic thing to demand as “proof”.
7. “…I already know God so your efforts to convert me will fail.” – I’m really not trying to convert you. You’re almost certainly right that there’s no hope for you. I’m just talking about some science.
Blah blah blah, bored of this guy now.
creationist_always:
1. “…people call this man a wack job, nut, crazy, Ect… And why is he all of these things? Just because he has a different view than some?” – Ugh. No, it’s not just because he has a “different view”, it’s because he appears to be profoundly detached from reality. Kent Hovind is not Galileo. Sometimes when people hold steadfastly to a position that differs from the mainstream, they’re groundbreaking geniuses whose insight will be lauded in years to come. Sometimes they’re just loons who get locked up because they think they’re Napoleon. I call Hovind a nut because he’s a nut. He’s deeply wrong about many things, and he’s had them explained to him often enough that simple ignorance no longer works as an excuse.
2. “…the people who are toughing the stones have a THEORY of what they think happened…” – You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. Also… “toughing” the stones? Whuh? Even as a misspelling of “throughing”, that’s comically bad.
3. “NEITHER CAN BE PROVED!!!” – You have no idea what “proved” means either. Prove to me right now that George Washington ever existed. Or that the country of Finland isn’t just a hoax. I’m guessing you’ve never seen either with your own eyes – by your reasoning, doesn’t that totally preclude any knowledge of it? If you’ve never been into space and watched the Earth orbiting the Sun, do you have any reason to believe that that’s what happens? Gould’s famous line is that a “fact” in science means anything “confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional consent”. Some things are supported by so much evidence that whining about how nobody saw it happen and you can’t really prove anything is meaningless.
4. “Now the first 4 may not have to do anything with evolution of “humans”, but don’t humans need…” – Yeah, this whole bit completely misses the point as well. The “Theory of Evolution” concerns the variations that emerge among replicating entities under selective pressures. It has nothing to do with the formation of stars and so forth. Now, it’s true that evolution couldn’t happen without the context in which these entities could replicate – in our case, a planet of a certain type orbiting around a star – but all that is an entirely different field of study. It’s like expecting a psychologist to be an expert on the chemical properties of water, on the grounds that you can’t very well analyse somebody’s mental state if they’ve died of thirst.
5. “And the first 4 are purely faith based. Not a single person was around to see any of that happen. So if you can’t prove it…” – Dude, what the hell do you think scientists do all day? Do you picture them sitting round, kicking their heels, making up random elaborate stories about whatever takes their fancy, and concluding “Well, we’ll never really know anything, it’s as good as any guess we’re ever likely to make, might as well stick it in the textbooks”? You’re really saying that because nobody was watching the formation of our galaxy, nobody can ever say anything more meaningful than a random guess about what was going on? Here’s an experiment you can try at home. Next time you have a meal, see if you can guess what went into it when it was being made. Maybe there’ll be some cream-coloured, fluffy, potato-tasting stuff, and you’ll conclude that, sometime in the past, a starchy tuberous crop was harvested, transported, cleaned, cooked, mashed, and prepared for consumption. You didn’t see any of that going on, but you may be quite happy to assume that it happened. Are you taking it all entirely on faith? Or, shockingly, might you have stumbled upon a process by which we can actually find out things about the past by looking at stuff in the present?
Also, if both sides are faith-based, how come your faith is right and the scientists’ faith is wrong? On what grounds do you decide that? Remember, you’re not allowed to use any evidence or empirical data, otherwise it’s not faith any more.
6. “Kent Hovind is a good man and was wrongfully put in prison.” – AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Hahahahaha. Hahaha. Oh, I needed that. He lied about his income and cheated on his taxes, you deluded chump. Thank you, creationist_always: I was getting all uptight and frustrated there, but then you gave me a genuinely good laugh, and a great opportunity to use the word ‘chump’, which is something I don’t get to do often enough. Much appreciated.
