Agghh! Shoot me now! Shoot me now!!
5 May 2006 by SeanUpdate #2: Hovind’s Dinosaur Adventure Land seems to be about to lose its location for not having a building permit. Oh, those persecuted Xians!
Favorite quote:
County commissioners showed no sympathy to members of the Creation Science Evangelism ministry who spoke out Thursday night at a commission meeting about the county’s actions.
“Scripture also says ‘Render unto Caesar what Caesar demands.’ And right now, Caesar demands a building permit,” County Commission Chairman Mike Whitehead said.
Update: Mike over at Skeptic Rant, who must be in a far healthier mental state than I right now, bravely watched an hour of this and duly took notes. He has an excellent post about it here.
Watching someone lie through their teeth to a gullible flock of people who are hanging on their every word is one of the most tragic things a rationalist can witness. It’s like watching a popular dictator rise to power. He’s destroying your hearts and minds, people, and you’re not just letting him do it — you’re begging him for it.
Mike, thank you for being brave enough to stare into the abyss and write about it. I just didn’t have the energy this week. But now that the abyss has also stared into you, please go for a nice hike in the woods and enjoy the beauty of nature — unfiltered by the ugliness of Kent Hovind’s mind.
I can’t take it anymore!
Creationist Kent Hovind Reveals The Truth About Dinosaurs And Evolution
No. Don’t watch it. Really.
Don’t do it!!
Your brain… it will BURN!!
—
And now that I have pulled myself up off the floor… Here is some refutation of this nonsense.
Lizard Lies - Creationists believe they are on a mission from God to convince us all that evolution is a completely inaccurate description of how life on Earth came to be as we see it today. Because they are on a divine mission their standards of evidence are not those that are espoused by scientists or practically anyone else. Lying and deliberate misrepresentation are perfectly permissible if used in the service of their cause - even, or especially, when aimed at children. A typical example is this page from Grohman, Meet Our Dinosaurs, which is at once ridiculous and perturbing. It shows items featured in a “Mobile Creation Science Museum” - the items being a collection of lizards used to explain away the uncomfortable fact that some creatures that once existed are no more. Thanks to Jurassic Park dinosaurs are very much part of an average kid’s world - the problem is how to explain them in the context of an Earth that is a mere 6,000 years old?
Show them a bunch of lizards and tell some lies seems to the cunning answer. It is stated here that reptiles never stop growing - in fact they do seem to grow most of their lives but the rate slows so as to be almost imperceptible. (American alligators can live to be 50 or more years old but their rate of growth is not constant and tails off…) Using biblical authority (what else) the line is that everything lived longer in the pre-Flood world. So imagine - what if ordinary lizards lived to Methusaleh-type ages and never stop growing? Yes, you guessed it - dinosaurs. This simplistic kindergarten reasoning is typical of the “science” in Creation Science - as is getting even the simplest information wrong.
One exhibit is an iguana called Owen. “We named him Owen because Richard Owen first coined the term “dinosaur” or terrible lizard back in 1841. The first dinosaur fossil ever assembled looked just like an iguana; therefore, they named it an Iguanadon. Owen is the modern day descendant to the dinosaur we commonly call the iguanadon.” Grohman is correct in that Richard Owen invented the word dinosaur (not one of his greatest achievements as most dinosaurs were not particularly terrible and were certainly not lizards.) But having gotten one thing right he goes and spoils it. The name iguanodon is actually formed from IGUANA - from the Spanish name for the lizard and DON from the Greek odon/odont meaning tooth. Far from deriving from the appearance of the “first dinosaur fossil ever assembled” it was first assigned to a single tooth, which superficially looked like that of an iguana. There is no connection between the dinosaur and the lizard - except in the minds of creationists struggling, and failing, to appear scientific. Saying ” Owen is the modern day descendant to the dinosaur we commonly call the iguanadon.” is an error and an error based on ignorance of, shall we say, biblical proportions.
It would have taken Grohman a few minutes to ascertain the truth - but then it is not the truth that he is after. Even this pales besides the proof offered that the Bearded Dragon (Pogona vitticeps) is the “modern day descendent to the anklyosaurus dinosaur.” In order to support this statement the only evidence offered is a picture of a bearded dragon next to a plastic toy ankylosaurus! Apart from the stunning stupidity of this concept of proof, in the picture the toy and the lizard have only a passing resemblance, to the extent that both are scaly, tailed quadrupeds. Now the invention of the new discipline of “toyshop palaeontology” can be added to the other infantile achievements of Creation Science.
No Laughing Matter - All the above would be funny if it were not so dangerous and sad. These clowns are trying, and not just in the US, to have their fantasies either replace proper science or be taught on an equal basis. In a world that is totally reliant on science and technology - how else does Grohman think his “6 billion souls” manage to survive? - large numbers of people are turning to make-believe and are refusing to learn how the real world works. For example, where do these people think the new antibiotic-resistant diseases come from? They have evolved in an arms race with nature that we must win. Scientific research is the way to wage this battle - an approach based on evidence not faith. Saying that harmful things such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus are made by Satan is not helpful. Learning biology is. This is not a matter of denying a person the right to worship and believe as they wish - it is a matter of stopping them telling YOU what to believe via their subversion of the education system. Fairy tales may be comforting and make you feel good - but they are no way to try and organize, care for, and live peaceably on a crowded planet in the 21st century.
5 May 2006, on 7:30 pm
Owwww! Good Lord, why oh why didn’t I believe you? I hereby challengeth all GifS readers to a watch-off! I made it all the way to 4:21 into that video before my brain melted. Can you stand it longer than that? I *dare* you.
5 May 2006, on 7:39 pm
I made it to 10 minutes in, but I was also busy posting about it at the same time. I got past the part about him refuting that we came from a rock… Oh, and the part where he argues that Noah could have put all the dinosaurs on the Ark if he had brought baby dinosaurs.
Oh, and that dinosaurs are just big lizards, and they were big because everything lived longer before the Flood (Noah was 600 years old), and so, since lizards “never stop growing”, dinosaurs were just really old lizards.
And… And… Agggghhhhh!! Shoot me now!! Shoot me now!!!!
5 May 2006, on 8:27 pm
These people are just criminal. Their bad cartoon “science” - that’s all I got. My brain - help - *curls into fetal ball, whimpering*
5 May 2006, on 8:30 pm
OK, I’m better now - really.
I guess these kids will grow up into the ones who do so dismally on the National Geographic story’s geography survey.
5 May 2006, on 8:37 pm
Well what about the water floating in the air, huh? I had a pain in my brain when he started talking about that. Sean and I have felt the crackling fires of our brains burning. The rest of you who haven’t seen this video are not True Atheists ™.
5 May 2006, on 8:41 pm
I’ll be glad to be branded Not-a-True-Atheist; just don’t make me go back there!
5 May 2006, on 8:45 pm
’ll be glad to be branded Not-a-True-Atheist; just don’t make me go back there!
Eve - LOL! Ramen!
5 May 2006, on 8:49 pm
I made it to the baby elephants. Just over 6 minutes.
5 May 2006, on 9:38 pm
What a dumb ass. Hovind can really do lots of harm with this drivel. I remember a few things I believed until I was about 30. Those beliefs were wrong. I have done an introspective look at my beliefs about every 5 yrs since. When we are children and disallowed to question any of the given beliefs then we suffer and it takes us time to eliminate them from our psyche. Most o those beliefs serve us well and are more or less benign. The problem I see with Hovinds nonsense is that another generation of students are being subjected to lies and ahhh? More lies. The real issue is that these same students could be out learning something good and valuable. Something that may prove useful to mankind.
I made it to the part about water in the atmosphere. I think that goes back to Velikovski’s “Worlds in Collision. What a fuckin retard.
5 May 2006, on 11:50 pm
“Oh, and the part where he argues that Noah could have put all the dinosaurs on the Ark if he had brought baby dinosaurs.”
I once heard an apologist try to refute the claim that Noah could not have brought every animal aboard by saying that he could have if all the cages were 2×2x2. I had a good laugh.
But baby dinosaurs… yeah. I’m 6′4 and even I’m short when compared to a baby T-Rex. Although I suppose if Noah had brought a T-Rex aboard it would’ve turned out like Jurassic Park 2.
6 May 2006, on 2:28 am
I was only able to stand about 2 minutes before my brain was running down my nose looking for a sane place to hide until the horror movie was over.Science I love science, though I am not particularly science minded I try to keep up with it.
“Saying that harmful things such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus are made by Satan is not helpful.”
This is very true a few years ago I was in the hospital with an MRSA infection. For about a month I thought it was a pulled muscle when a temperature of 104 changed my mind one night. The next day I went to a clinic they sent me straight to the hospital e.r., I didn’t even have to wait. The doctors and nurses, using evil satanic science diagnosed my infection. I was on the operating table about 6 hours later. Apparently my lifesigns were bad enough to land me in the i.c.u. for a couple of days and have the staff ask me if I wanted a priest or other clergymember to comfort and give last rites. I asked the staff why do I need one can they do something for me the doctors haven’t, I am still waiting for their answer. The doctors and medicine saved my life no one and nothing else. I got a pretty big scar from it too as the wound had to be left open.
These idiots and their god can fight against science and truth all they want it will never change my mind.
6 May 2006, on 2:47 am
“Saying that harmful things such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus are made by Satan is not helpful.” Sean by the way not Kent Hovind said this
You guys are a bunch of winnies if you cant watch the whole 2 and a half hours!
Come on….what happened to all your open mindedness?
6 May 2006, on 4:25 am
Great story, P.C. Thanks for telling it. Glad you’re still with the living.
6 May 2006, on 8:49 am
sable chicken — to quote Richard Dawkins “By all means let’s be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.”
6 May 2006, on 9:56 am
Cluckin’ Chicken,
What’s the matter? No one comments on your blog anymore so you decided to come make trouble for us?
I knew it all along- you’re an attention whore.
6 May 2006, on 11:33 am
Folks, I’m sad to say that on this sunny Saturday morning, I watched nearly 58 minutes of that schlock. I think he shows his true colors when he tells the “Why are so many Italians named ‘Tony’?” joke. Nothing like a non-sequitor slight to a nation of people, eh Kent?
Now I have to go post about this punk - that or throw out my computer for being evil enough to present it to me and then sit in my garage, with the engine running, for at least 58 minutes to undo the damage.
6 May 2006, on 12:56 pm
Attention Whore Who Shall Not Be Named:
There is nothing open-minded about ignoring the labor (and love) of millions of people who have sought to bring knowledge of the physical universe to humankind. Those very people are the ones that allow you to take the medications you need to keep from bringing chickens into school again — and every other creature comfort you enjoy in this modern world. If you don’t like them, feel free to move back to a cave in Western Europe somewhere.
We all, not just the scientists among us, stand on the shoulders of giants. Show some respect for the people whose provable science gave you the life you have now. You’d probably be dead already if you lived either a thousand years ago or, say, in Mozambique today, where life expectancy at birth is currently 40 years. Why? Because of poverty and therefore the lack of benefit from science.
What Kent Hovind is doing is not introducing new ideas to humanity, but sending it back into the anti-science superstitions of the Dark Ages. He is not standing on the shoulders of giants, but trying to hack the legs out from under them, and for that he should be ashamed.
6 May 2006, on 6:31 pm
“We all, not just the scientists among us, stand on the shoulders of giants. Show some respect for the people whose provable science gave you the life you have now. You’d probably be dead already if you lived either a thousand years ago or, say, in Mozambique today, where life expectancy at birth is currently 40 years. Why? Because of poverty and therefore the lack of benefit from science.”
WHAT!? What does that have to do with this topic?
Sean, I watched the whole thing, Kent Hovind is not saying any of that. He is a man that has been in science all of his life. I found that it was very interesting that people have seen the animals that he is talking about. He makes alot of sence.
Anyway I didn’t know who Kent was until now…Thanks. And because I was raised on public school science, I really learned so much from the information that this man has gathered in his life. It is possible to appreciate the benefits of science and still believe in God. There is know way that the understanding that Kent is revealing about science or the Bible is going to bring anyone back into the dark ages. It’s knowledge just the same. Try and get past your hatered for God and just hear what he has to say about the possibility that dinosaurs have lived on the earth WITH man. If you can get past the first hour of the video, he has some great photos of some animals that should have died out millions of years ago, but were found on the beach in our parents life time.
OK I will admit that I also found his Tony joke a bit off, but come on you guys poke fun at so much…don’t get all sensitive about that.
6 May 2006, on 9:53 pm
Cluckin’,
I’m actually surprised you’re back. After being gone for so long I figured either your husband finally mercy killed you or you put yourself out of misery since you drove away your only regular commentor. Did Vile ever get you into bed, by the way? He emailed us all and let us know that was his intention.
6 May 2006, on 9:57 pm
“Try and get past your hatered for God…”
WOW!!! Never heard that one before! After all the times you’ve been on here, you’d actually pull that one out?!?
6 May 2006, on 10:47 pm
Sable chicken
If you want to know more about Kent Hovind and what a truly despicable liar he is go to;
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/hovind/
And if you want to learn the real science that is practiced today. You know. The kind that gives results. Take a University class and or subscribe to a national periodical like Nature. But you won’t get it from Kent Hovind. That is what makes his teaching so corrupt. He mixes some half thought out scientific reasoning with creationism. Science attempts to be exact and precise. The only way for creationism to have anything at all to say about science is when they lose the exactitude that comes with science. That way thay can manipulate the findings to their liking. If you associate with such people you too are as guilty of sloppy science as are they. What is worse is that if you really have the curiosity to understand then you will find yourself 5-10 years from now thinking how you have been lied to. Ask us, we know. Most of us here have already lived through it and to tell you the truth. The whole scenario wrapped around that phony science really pisses me off.
Also we are unable to hate that which we do not believe in.
6 May 2006, on 10:50 pm
Is it not interesting that 1922 a dead Plesiosaurs was found and 1977 there was another one? Those two photos alone are worth watching the video…..hour and 27 minutes into it and the other is an hour and 35 minutes into it.
6 May 2006, on 11:46 pm
I cannot believe this. How could so many people be stupid enough to attend his lecture? And they seemed to believe him.
There are about 5 000 000 species in the world and he wants us to believe they all ascended from a few selected species around some six thousand years ago? This is evolution on VIAGRA. Lol
I only watched 18 minutes of it, but to me it was a comic show rather then a horror movie.
6 May 2006, on 11:55 pm
My comment didn’t come up for some reason.
I’ll try again.
There are about 5 000 000 species in the world and he wants us to believe they all ascended from a few selected species around some six thousand years ago? This is evolution on VIAGRA. Lol
I only watched 18 minutes of it, but to me it was a comic show rather then a horror movie.
7 May 2006, on 1:13 am
Sable. You’re a fucking idiot if you have spent more than 30 seconds contemplating this tripe. Read a fucking book on paleontology, visit a world-class museum like the Museum of Natural History in New York, or the Smithsonian in D.C., where you can actually see physical evidence of evolution and the fact that the earth — and life on it — is ancient in the extreme…
And then shut the fuck up.
7 May 2006, on 1:34 pm
Sable Chicken,
you are forgetting one very important part of science, the part about “peer-review”. As soon as one “scientist” comes along with conclusions that support your viewpoint, you feel it is okay to ignore all the others. What do other scientists think about this Hovind guy? If the vast majority think he is a moron, then maybe he is.
I managed to make it through 25 minutes of Hovind’s comic book style lecture. Talk about easy targets. That audience, most of whom probably haven’t read a book since high school, actually believe they now know more than all those throughout history who made real scientific investigation their life’s work.
7 May 2006, on 1:49 pm
Sean, I watched the whole thing, Kent Hovind is not saying any of that. He is a man that has been in science all of his life. I found that it was very interesting that people have seen the animals that he is talking about. He makes alot of sence.
Anyway I didn’t know who Kent was until now…Thanks.
Fuck. He makes no sense at all. And now I have just given him another victim. Well, you deserve it if anyone does. I have never seen a more stubbornly ignorant person in my life than you, Clucker. Everything rational that is said to you passes right through that sieve of a brain and –
Wait a minute. This is what you LOVE. To be beaten up like the martyr you take yourself to be. You have a kind of twisted Stockholm Syndrome… No doubt a result of being in a string of abusive relationships, including the one you have with your religion.
I’m sorry, but I refuse to enable you.
7 May 2006, on 11:48 pm
We must remember that the past is not open to the normal processes of experimental science, that is, repeatable experiments in the present. A scientist cannot do experiments on events that happened in the past. Scientists do not measure the age of rocks, they measure isotope concentrations, and these can be measured extremely accurately. However, the “age” is calculated using assumptions about the past that cannot be proven.[Ed.: Too stupid to let through with out red pencil.]hzzp://christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-c007.html
I was thinking about copying more for you all, but I don’t want to push it. You have been unusually nice this time around, and I appreciate that.
Anyway if so many different cultures have a flood story, shouldn’t it be at least considered as a possibility of the earths past?
As far as my own past goes….it is interesting, but not in the way you guys tell it. Really now I’m not looking for all this attention that you guys (suffering from fits of Tourett’s Syndrome that I will not mention the name of)
think that I am. And believe me I ask my self all the time, “Why the hell do I read this Gifs crap? What’s wrong with me?” Than out of the blue there is a treasure to be found hear and it is really inspiring.
8 May 2006, on 7:29 am
“I knew it all along- you’re an attention whore. ”
*LOL* Marcus rules.
Why even bother responding to a well known troll? It’s completely pointless trying to reason with someone who enjoys having her head stuffed up her own ass.
8 May 2006, on 11:28 am
Cancel those Florida vacation plans!
Weep for poor persecuted Kent Hovind. They’ve shut down Dinosaur Adventure Land. County commissioners showed no sympathy to members of the Creation Science Evangelism ministry who spoke out Thursday night at a commission meeting about the county’s ac…
8 May 2006, on 12:35 pm
Ha! Myers strikes again.
8 May 2006, on 1:46 pm
Why even bother responding to a well known troll? It’s completely pointless trying to reason with someone who enjoys having her head stuffed up her own ass.
Ha!
8 May 2006, on 2:27 pm
Kent Hovind is an anti-goverment, racist, conspiracy-loving, anti-environment, rapture-waitin’ True Christian. This guy sat through the whole twelve part series of Kent’s work and wrote how big a crackpot he is.
http://pooflingers.blogspot.com/2005/08/hovind-files-lying-for-jesus.html
8 May 2006, on 4:34 pm
Not trying to make trouble here, but I’ve read the info on comments, and you refuse to accept any comments related to the free will theodicy.
Help a guy out here. Why not?
15 July 2006, on 5:42 pm
[...] Our old friend, Creationist lunatic and young-earther Kent Hovind has been arrested on 58 federal charges, including failing to pay $473,818 in employee-related taxes and making threats against investigators. [...]
16 August 2006, on 9:01 pm
It is impossible to reason with someone who has no reason. It’s like trying to arm wrestle someone with no arms. One day Christianity will disappear, but it will be replaced with some other cult.