Eric Hovind Debate (Part 1)

Tuesday December 8, 2009 Eric Hovind, that's the son of Creation Science Evangelism Ministry founder Kent Hovind, came to my college to participate in an "Evolution vs Creation" debate. He has apparently been touring the country and doing debates like these at other schools including American River College (another college in my district.) For the most part, he is doing exactly what his father used to do prior to his 2005 incarceration.

He did not debate a Biology instructor, nor a Physics, Astronomy, or Geology instructor, but a graphical design instructor as well as a student who is a member of the Sacramento Freethinkers Club (of which I also am a member.) I have spoken to Physics/Astronomy and Geology instructors at my college about Creationism in the past and the most likely reason that none of them took part in the debate is because to them this is a dead issue. They have heard the same arguments again and again and participating in such a debate is neither worth their time nor is it constructive in any way. At worse, doing so may lead fence sitters to believe that there really is an argument to be made for the Creation side.

The debate was reasonably entertaining. It was mostly what you would expect. Mostly Hovind's arguments involved rhetoric regarding human abilities to reason as well as trying to equate evolution to a religion. He did stay away from many of the stale pseudo science claims such as the lack of transitional forms, etc.

I tried to pan around to catch the hands going up at the beginning of the debate, but the audience was about 3/5 Creationist. Eric Hovind himself gave me permission to both record this debate and post it here on this channel. He is aware of Thunderf00t and of the Golden Crocoduck, although he does not follow either.

After the debate, Hovind stayed around and talked to a group of lingering spectators while a group of Creationists gathered around me and we both talked with our respective groups for over an hour before Hovind left and I went to my next class. I may host a BlogTV show to talk about it in the near future.

I apologies for the poor quality in filming. I did not have as good a setup as I did when I filmed the Darwin Day video. I was trying to balance this crappy mini tripod (meant for an old still shot camera) on the desk I was sitting at. I had a terrible vantage point (made worse by the debaters constantly sitting down) and someone unplugged my camcorder twice!

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• Eric
• Hovind
• Debate
• Sacramento
• City
• College
• California
• Creationism
• Morality
• Evolution
• JRChadwick
• Thunderf00t
• Crocoduck
• Creation
• Science
• Evangelism
• CSE

[CombatAthletix1]

Why is it that every time they start a debate, the opposition always starts off apologizing saying that they aren't qualified to debate him. If you're not qualified, why not find somebody that is instead of wasting everyone's time? I'm looking for some good evidence against the Hovind presentations and I cant seem to find any.

[JRChadwick]

@CombatAthletix1 "I'm looking for some good evidence against the Hovind presentations and I cant seem to find any."

I don't believe for a second that you are actually looking.

[nrubashka]

who ever was video taping this needs to learn how to first... (no offense)

[JRChadwick]

@nrubashka Who ever keeps posting these comments needs to learn how to read descriptions firs... (no offense)

[JohnnyHands]

@CombatAthletix1 Are you looking for evidence against Hovind's presentation specifically, or against the arguments themselves, from any creationist? If it's the latter, go to talkorigins site and search for "Index to Creationist Claims" and dig in. (I'd post the link here but YouTube won't let me - you'll have to google it.)

[Casshyr]

@RJL738 hmm..sorry but i have no idea what you are talking about lol. I'm looking for actual scientific examples. If you do have any, i like to see it. Don't just be general and throw out terms. If you can give like an actual news article or better yet, a peer-reviewed article, showing a contribution from a young earth creationist model, that would be great.

[pezzamange]

Sorry, I would love to watch the whole video, but I can't. As a science student I just can't bear to watch somebody so ill-informed massacre science so badly, he knows nothing!

[RJL738]

@Casshyr Yes wether something is true or not is by far the most important but as far as usefulness. This is an off branch but it is useful in gauging just how many systems make an object, what it is, not irreducable complexity but what systems classify an object. How would you trace a ssytem back to a scource. How to merge a system or cybernetics. Reverse engineering to replace bodyparts. How do you gauge universal scale, from Yoctometers to Yattometers. There are some examples.

[fjoo]

following in his fathers footsteps.. ;]

[Casshyr]

@RJL738 it is not just about the different bodies of belief, it is also about application. When talking about the ssue of how we got here, what matters more than the truth is also whether the prediction based on each belief is USEFUL or not. Evolution has been applied successfully in fields such as ecology, genetics and bioinformatics.

U represent YEC, so I like to hear how does a creationist model ever helped science? Can u give an example?

Note: motivation is not same as application.

[RJL738]

Evolution is not in it's self a religion. Really Christianity is not a religion it's a relationship but for the lamen we will call it a religion. So ironically both are not a religion instead of being religions. Obviously Evolution and The Big Bang are not the same thing and I think the Big Bang is far less likely than even Evolution. Saying something is a fairy tell does not directly mean it is not true but anyway.

[RJL738]

It's true there is a minimally recursive blurry starting point we all ahve when trying to get evidence but it is not like enough evidence will not eventually sway someone. Eric Hovind is a presupositionalist, as a Young Earth Creationsit myself I am completly against anything like that method of thought. To be fair there is not just Young Earth Creationism and Atheistic Evolution, There is Old Earth Creationism, Theistic Evolution and many more, it is dishonest to say otherwise.

[RJL738]

Science is the process of adding 9s at an astonishing rate, the goal in gaining knowledge is to mitigate probibilities, you can be 100% sure of almost nothing but being 90%, 99.9% or 99.9999999999% of something is more than enough, it is the mounting decible places that are how we make sense of the world. The scientfic threshhold is roughly 10^50 9s, the lamen threshhold is 99.99% or so. It's not about preconceived notions but reducing the margin of error or something.

[tnafguy1]

@disquisition73 AMEN to that, tell this loser simpleton evotard