1. pharyngula
  2. Confronting Hovind and Martin

Confronting Hovind and Martin

By pharyngula on March 1, 2006.

Here are a couple of accounts of encounters with creationists that are amusing to read.

  • Jobe Martin. Jobe Martin is, well, a radically insane classic young earth creationist, whose favorite arguments are all ancient chestnuts, like the receding moon and the woodpecker's tongue and other such tripe. And he was invited to speak by an IDEA club? That kills the notion that IDEA has anything to do with science, I think. I've got one of Martin's books (my son Alaric gave it to me: I think he was trying to kill me to get his inheritance early, but it didn't work), and it's positively ludicrous.
  • Kent Hovind. I put up that request for good questions, and gnosos carried through. Hovind cut the mic on him, so despite losing his cool a bit, he must have been effective to some degree—he also got lots of questions from other attendees afterwards.
Tags
creationism

More like this

An Account of the Lund University Creationism Debate
This past Sunday the Department of Archaeology at the University of Lund organised a public debate about creationism and archaeology. One of the invited speakers was Young Earth creationist Mats Molén, who should not in my opinion have been lent academic credibility in that manner. Universities…
Guest Post: I Remember Hovey
This is a guest post written by Skip Evans. Skip is a dear friend I have known for many years. He worked for some time for the National Center for Science Education and now owns a web development company called Big Sky Penguin. This is the sordid tale of his repeated dealings with the infamous…
Bob Enyart wants me to respect his intelligence
I was cured of any interest in debating creationists by Jerry Bergman, that astonishingly awful whiny young earth creationist I crushed last November. It was embarrassingly bad — Bergman wandered all over the place, made absurd claims (did you know the periodic table of the elements was irreducibly…
Creationist Challenges, take 1
The True.Origins website - a ripoff of the Talk.Origins Archive that I'm involved with - has posted an article about "debate dodgers". This is something that is quite common in creationist circles - make a ridiculous "challenge" to their opponents and then crow about how cowardly those heathen…

Cutting the mic: the last refuge of a scoundrel.

So bring "Mr. Microphone" to future Q and A sessions!

My thought exactly. Or is there a way to project text typed up on a keyboard onto the stage? (How about "LIAR!" smack on Hovind's face.)

Kudos to both for their research, observation and reporting. Per Gnosos' blog, he was brought up a YEC, so it must have been especially challenging, yet gratifying to stand up to an experienced, full-time charleton. I think Gnosos did great for a first-timer.

Oh I do hope that Alaric is a goth.

Well done Gnosos, for standing up to the bastard in public! You've got more gumption than I have ;-). Of course you can't get through to a charlatan, nor to the True Believers, and you're not likely to convert anyone to a whole new paradigm in 10 minutes. But there's always at least a few for whom you can drive the wedge of doubt between them and the charlatan -- and I call that a good day's work.

Props to you, Gnosos. That had to be gut-wrenching in a way. I also grew up as an immersed fundamentalist (Southern Baptist), although not nearly to the extent you were. I think that kind of background makes it hurt a lot more than for people who just can't understand it to begin with. If you've been raised in it, you see it, you know how extensive it is, you understand it, you appreciate the lure it has, how easy it is to be totally entrenched and blinded in it, you're mad as hell that you were deceived for so long, and you know full well all the traps that you can fall into that will just completely shut the door if you try to pull anyone out of it. I certainly don't think I'm even at the point yet that I could make a direct public confrontation the way you did. Congrats.

Jobe. Is that a misspelling of the name of the biblical long-sufferer, or does it rhyme with Kobe (beef/Bryant)?

Mad props, Gnosos, for laying it out there for the mad fundies. Wish I could've seen it.

Yeah, we all know it's spelled G.O.B.

"cut the mic"

this is not just surrender, this is abject cowardice!

p.s. what was the question that non-doctor Hominid cut off?

never mind... (blush)

Mr. Hovind is a coward and note how he quickly shifted discussion the moment credentials came up. He doesn't like being reminded he's nothing but an uneducated fraud who just happens to be able to talk quick. Anyone who has seen Hovind knows fully why he cowers behind stacked audiences in situations like this and shirks challenges to a written debate.

my son Alaric gave it to me: I think he was trying to kill me to get his inheritance early

Nah, just getting revenge for the name I reckon.