Hi Bex

It’s true that the ideas should stand or fall on their own, forget the character of the person making the claims but when that person stoops to parading fraudulenty credentials to make himself sound like an authority I think that fact is worthy of attention.

The next question is how do you setup a fair debate with the likes of Hovind? I’ve actually listend to a couple of such debates and Hovind lost but that’s not the sort of debate he favours. Hovind wasn’t an open debate with equal time to each side but that’s not how science works and that’s not how best to convey it to an audience. It takes only a moment for Kent to throw out 10 or so unfounded claims about the falsity of this or that scientific theory but it will take a scientist many hours to explain enough of the background to a lay audience so that they can understand why he is wrong. In an equal time debate it is not possible to accurately convey what science undersands and why so Kent wins. But science is not decided in debates for exactly this reason. I listend to a Hovind debate that was run point for point. No one was allowed to raise more than one subject at a time until the other side had had time to answer. In this format Kent got to say very little as there’s little substance to his claims and the scientist, Dr. Massimo Pigliucci (yes a real scientist with real credentials) I think it was, easily dealt with his claims. Hovind was very humble and polite throughout this discussion which said a lot for his character but he clearly lost when the debate was arranged such that he could not throw out tones of one liners to the faithful and actually had to stand up in detail for what he was claiming.

As you said Hovind also explains things in lay language which appeals to a lay audience but it does not allow you to discuss many scientific concepts. There is no lay language to describe many deep and complex scientific concepts. The scientist may speak the perfect truth and cut Hovind’s arguments to pieces with a technical description of what is really going on and why he’s wrong but the lay audience can’t keep up so it goes over their heads. That’s another reason why Hovind win’s open, equal time public debates. To explain without the lingo takes longer than the debate allows and to do it with the lingo goes over people’s heads.

I suspect that because of his failure in this debate he will no longer get involved with point/counterpoint debates, I’ve never heard of him doing another one. The inherent fairness of this form of debating does not suit his style.

If you find any of Kent’s material compelling then please bring it to this forum so we can discuss it. Lets see the very best he has to offer here. Can you do that for me Bex? Russ?

In Reason

Russell