I heard Ken Hovind (sp?) is offering cash for anyone who can prove evolution. Are biologists too busy doing actual helpful work to take him on? Does he have a phone number? I'm broke!
2007-06-01 04:40:39 · 13 answers · asked by Bebe 3 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Haha, you have to prove the Big Bang occurred without God??? What does that have to do with the development of life on Earth?
2007-06-01 04:46:55 · update #1
He's in Jail for accounting fraud and theft.
But google it, you'll see that he set the terms so impossible that no one could ever collect on the money.
2007-06-01 04:43:30 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 4⤊ 0⤋
1) Hovind doesn't have the money.
2) Here are the critera for his challenge according to his own footnote:
"* NOTE: When I use the word evolution, I am not referring to the minor variations found in all of the various life forms (microevolution). I am referring to the general theory of evolution which believes these five major events took place without God:
1. Time, space, and matter came into existence by themselves.
2. Planets and stars formed from space dust.
3. Matter created life by itself.
4. Early life-forms learned to reproduce themselves.
5. Major changes occurred between these diverse life forms (i.e., fish changed to amphibians, amphibians changed to reptiles, and reptiles changed to birds or mammals)."
This is not evolution in any sense of the word. He is demanding evidence ACCEPTABLE TO HIM for the reality of not only the ToE but Astronomy, Geology, Chemestry, and Quantum Physics.
That sound you hear is the scraping of goal posts being moved.
Hovind is not simply using the term "Evolution" loosely but, instead, is trying to fashion an entirely new and idiosyncratic definition that links vastly dissimilar processes under a single rubric. He then insists that unless all can be demonstrated equally and in the same way, then none of them can be. It is rather like demanding that a political scientist defend the values of the People's Democratic Republic of (North) Korea or admit that all "democratic republics" are unworkable tyrannies. Just because many things can go under the umbrella of one broad term does not make everything under the umbrella part and parcel of one unitary idea or process.
Kent's "challenge" is demanding proof of a negative. Not just one negative, but a whole field of science's worth of negatives!
2007-06-01 04:53:50 · answer #2 · answered by Scott M 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
This kind of crap is always carefully worded so as to exclude the possibility of anybody being able to "answer the challenge" legitimately.
Aside from this particular scumbag's various other legal problems, it's a small wonder that no responsible person would touch him with a ten foot pole.
It's interesting, though, that swindlers of this type must evidently have enough of a grasp of the nature of the case to know that they're asking a technical impossibility. In other words, they know better. They're to be distinguished from the ordinary type of "Creationist," the religious imbecile, who's the usual prey of the swindler.
2007-06-01 04:44:15 · answer #3 · answered by jonjon418 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
The problem is the fine print, it reads something like "prove evolution *Ken*", who is simply not prepared to accept it.
It's pretty darned easy to show organisms evolving due to environmental pressures in a lab. No doubt, he would claim that laboratory conditions are not proof of evolution because it happens under controlled conditions. Either that, or he would say, something like: So what, you now have a strain of yeast that has a talent that its predecessors didn't posses. How does this prove that man evolved from other species (sigh!).
2007-06-01 04:47:05 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 0⤋
well,when his challenge has a statement like "the big bang,otherwise known as evolution" It only shows his appeal to the ignorant. They have nothing at all to do with eachother. He appeals to the ones too lazy to look up what evolution means. Besides,he's in prison. The Christian hero,doesn't even know what evolution is,and a fraud. Great role model for them
2007-06-01 04:46:46 · answer #5 · answered by nobodinoze 5 · 3⤊ 0⤋
Because the way the challenge is set up, one could not prove to Hovind's satisfaction that anything is true. See link:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/hovind.html
Thanks for asking, I love to spread the truth.
PS: It's actually $250,000 that noone will ever collect.
2007-06-01 04:51:41 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Unfortunately little Kenny is a fraud. The proof is all around him, in every biology textbook, and in the fossil record etc, and he chooses to ignore it all. It's just publicity he likes. Every creature currently alive on the planet is proof of evolution. You can't prove something to someone who isn't really looking for it.
2007-06-01 04:45:48 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 0⤋
because he is a lying deceitful bastard who redefines evolution so it can't be proven and besides, he is in jail for massive fraud for the next ten years. I doubt he'll be accepting any challenges, unless it is somehow related to being a prison wife.
2007-06-01 04:52:28 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 0⤋
Well you see, he is in jail right now. Doesn't matter he didn't even get some of his things right concerning evolution. I am a Creationist and I think that he was a poor example to us all.
2007-06-01 04:44:05 · answer #9 · answered by Luke†Gospeltothepoor 2 · 2⤊ 2⤋
Because noone can prove evolution. Just like noone can prove creation. The debate is based on theory.
2007-06-01 04:44:01 · answer #10 · answered by Truth7 4 · 1⤊ 3⤋