Kent Hovind
Basic Description
<infobox>
<title source="title1"> <default>Kent Hovind</default> </title> <image source="image1">
</image> <group> <header>Information</header> <label>Gender</label> <label>Scientific Name</label> <label>Positions</label> <label>Debating Against</label> <label>Skills</label> <label>Links</label> </group> </infobox> His name is "Dr." Kent Hovind. He [claims to have] taught high school science[1] for 15 years. He believes that "the Bible is literally true and scientifically accurate, the Earth is about 6,000 years old [and] God made it in 6 days, [and] that's the only way things work...". Ken somehow taught high school science for 15 years without knowing anything about science. It only took 15 years for the school headmaster to notice that Kent had no qualification besides a diploma-mill fake PhD and fired Kent who then thought he could teach others about Dinosaurs.
But that didn't work so well, so Kent decided to teach others about finance and taxation instead. This also didn't work and landed him a 10 years sentence in prison for tax evasion. In prison, Kent was a roommate with a 350-pound gorilla named Bubba who taught Kent how to grow rocks in water to disprove evilution.
Upon his release, Kent married an anti-vaxxer who also has no former education or diplomas of any kind, but lectures others on mercury in vaccines and how its all the corporations and pharmaceutical companies that are trying to make money.
Kent is a hair away from believing there are reptilian aliens in the government.
Family
Kent has a son named Eric Hovind who also inherited the "derp gene" from his father. Kent and Eric are now estranged and frequently send each other dried feces via the post office.
After coming out of prison, Kent divorced his wife and married well known anti-vaxxer: Mary Tocco. Mary also taught high school "science" for 15 years, teaching anti-vaxxing to gullible parents.
"The Hovind Theory"
potholer54 has a great video on the Hovind theory...with music and everything.
"Dr." Dino's "Debating"
Kent's debate style has been, along with that of other young Earth creationists, classified by C. A. Chinn and L. A. Buckland as "eristic": a form of argumentation which focusses to refute the opposition (no matter what it is about) often by rhetoric, rather than searching for the truth of it by careful examination of the evidence. Those who excel using this debating tactic as professionals are better known as lawyers. He often challenges to debate multiple opponents at once "with half his brain tied behind his back just to make it fair"; something no serious person would do. The reason he does this is to boost the appearance of his own confidence . When people don't take him seriously (like everyone should) and refuse to debate him, he calls them cowards, even though Kent has declined numerous offers for debates himself(see next paragraph). All of this shows that Kent sees debates more as a game, rather than a medium for having serious intellectual conversations.
Kent has somehow managed to get many people to debate him. He even managed to get attention after his release from prison. Currently however, most of his opponents are internet nobodies (not including KC) arguing with him on Skype or Google + while he sits in his basement, as the broken shell of the man he once was. Back during his glory days, he debated so much, it made him forget to pay his taxes. He sometimes debated with people who are well-known like Michael Shermer. He didn't debate scientists, however. At best, he got college professors to debate him. In 1993, Kent announced he would debate the renowned evolutionary biologist Stephen J. Gould. After S.J. Gould was contacted about this, he responded by saying that he had never heard about any man named "Kent Hovind" before, nor agreed to participate in any debate. However, don't think that Kent didn't got the chance to debate scientists. He did get offers from many scientists.... however.... those were offers for written debates, where his debating style would be less effective due to the presence of scientists, who can easily scrutinize his claims, and the absence of the ignorance of an audience for him to exploit. It is thus no surprise that Kent has declined these offers, including the one from Dave Thomas.
Recently (June 6th, 2017), he debated with the almighty King Crocoduck himself, for the second time on the 30th of June. During both debates, Kent demonstrated his utter lack of scientific understanding, despite his claims of having taught as a high school (science/physics/biology/math) teacher. The debates (however entertaining they may be) were frustrating to watch for several reasons: One of them is Kent Hovind's inability to stay on topic. Also when he has been shown to be wrong on a certain point or one of his questions are being answered, he responds with a red herring and or straw-man fallacy, as an attempt to throw his opponent off-course. Case in point: During the second debate (30th June) King Crocoduck and Kent both agreed that according to Einstein's famous (incomplete) equation E = MC2, mass can be converted into energy. Kent embarrassingly gave "burning up a woodpile" as an example of this, showing that he literally doesn't know what he was talking about. King Crocoduck quickly pointed out that his example is energy being released from chemical potential energy, not mass being converted into energy. Later, Kent disagreed that energy can be converted into mass, thereby showing he doesn't understand what the "=" part means in the equation. He asked King Crocoduck to show him an example of mass coming from energy, to which King Crocoduck responded by providing several examples. After a few excuses from Kent and a few corrections from King Crocoduck, Kent eventually saw no way out of this and just made up a straw-man, saying that none of these things proved everything came from nothing. Of course, the example wasn't meant to demonstrate "everything came from nothing". It was meant to show that energy can be converted into mass, the very thing Kent asked for just a few moments earlier. Even though King Crocoduck repeatedly said he never said nor implied that "everything came from nothing", Kent still kept using this straw-man. Dishonesty at its finest. What else can you expect from someone who is a professional conman, snake-oil salesman and convicted fraud.
References
- ↑ he may have just tutored a few students, citation needed
Super Powers
- Taught high school science for 15 years without knowing anything about science.
- Vulnerable to potholer54
- ...and AronRa, and Thunderf00t, and AndromedasWake, and cdk007, and King Crocoduck, and Bill Ludlow, and the Internal Revenue Service
- Mastered the American tax code
- Being so dense that light, evidence, and logic all literally bend around him
