I recently read on twitter that Kent Hovind was released from jail!
The tweet came from Michael Shermer, however this fortunately proved to be false. Kent is still locked away and not scheduled for release until 2015

For those who don’t know, Dr. Kent Hovind (Not really a doctor, but he likes to think that piece of paper from a diploma mill makes him one) is a creationist who thinks that the world is 6000 years old.

• He thinks evolution (and even mathematics) is a religion.
• The grand canyon was formed in a couple of weeks.
• Thinks humans at dinosaurs lived at the same time (The Flintstones hypothesis).
• Sentenced for 10 years for tax fraud (Denying evolution just makes you an idiot, but denying taxation will kinda ruin your day).

If you’re interested in his fantastically erroneous claims filled with logical fallacies and outright lies, you could check out drdino.com

I personally avoid such sites, because no matter how many times you point out their errors, these fundamentalists will continue using the same old shot to pieces arguments like nothing happened.

For example the latest post on Dr Dino is an excellent display in being wrong:

“Nobody has ever seen ANY plant or animal (including apes and humans) produce ANYTHING other than their own kind”

This is a false continuum fallacy, which is like saying one brick is not a pyramid, and adding just one brick does not make it a pyramid.

Adding one brick millions of times will in fact make a pyramid, just as many very small genetic modifications over a huge amount of time will make a human.

This argument also has a straw man fallacy. No scientist says there is a sharp line between being a pre-human ape, and being a modern human. Just like there is no sharp line between being a pile of bricks and being a pyramid. Small progress over time is one of the cornerstones of evolution, and is almost always (deliberately) misunderstood by creationists. The notion that an animal will over ONE generation make something so different that it’s an entirely new species is just silly and has nothing to do with evolution (it does however happen in X-men).

“Every farmer on planet earth throughout all of recorded history has counted on evolution NOT happening! When the farmers plant corn, they expect (and get) CORN—EVERY TIME!”

This is the same argument as above just using plants instead of humans (very clever), containing the same logical fallacies. Instead of simply repeating my reply from above, I’ll reply with images:

Banana 7000 years ago:

Modern Banana:

Of course nobody in their right mind believes you can plant the first image (oldskool banana) and get a modern one. However evolving it over the course of thousands of year is no problem. In fact almost all plants, vegetables and fruits used in agriculture today has been specifically evolved over thousands of years (by artificial selection instead of natural) to make stuff we humans find appealing.

For more fantastic creationist banana based arguments, check out this awesome video

“There are billions of bones in the ground but no “record.” Some people put their interpretation on those bones but NONE have dates on them when they are found and none can talk”

Is “lying” a logical fallacy? guess not.. There have been discovered hundreds of millions of fossils all over the world, and they make up a record (small and simple life forms are the oldest, and diversity and complexity increase over time). Fossils can be dated with a very high accuracy (1% error on radiometric dating from 60 million years ago), Kent of course does not believe in this kind of dating since it conflicts with his religious views. The bones talk by showing how creatures have gradually changed over time.

“The idea is that evolution happened so fast that no evidence was preserved”

Punctuated equilibrium is not a required feature of evolution, it’s just an unproven hypothesis that states that evolution happens very quickly (quickly compared to geological timeframes, it’s still taking tens of thousands of years). Considering how few animals turn into fossils out of all animals that ever lived, rapid changes over a 50’000 year period of evolution could easily be lost

There is not a scientific consensus regarding the punctuated equilibrium hypothesis, like there is for the theory and scientific fact of evolution. Evolution as a whole does not in any way depend on this hypothesis (which just tries to explain minor details that can be explained by other mechanisms).

“If you have ever broken even ONE of God’s laws (….such as lying,….) I suggest you get a good lawyer”

“I know one who has NEVER lost a case. He is my advocate for judgment day”

It must be nice being able to lie your ass off, when you got Jesus as a lawyer..