Talk:Kent Hovind

recent vandalism

There's been a LOT of recent vandalism, almost entirely from anon and new accounts (which subsequently get deleted). Is it time for protection on this article? SeanBrockest (talk) 03:44, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Compared to other aticles that get protection, there hasn't been a lot of vandalism. Only 3 or 4 instances in the last week or so. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 03:49, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

If nothing else I do have to admit though, the recent vandalism (more since my first post) is rather interesting. Some people do it to bash him (with rather odd profanity), others do it to either promote his theories or cover over the fact that he's also a conspiracy theorist. SeanBrockest (talk) 01:09, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Profanity and whitewashing? Pretty standard fare, actually. --King Öomie 16:51, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Kent Hovind was a science teacher in a public school for 14 years which no teacher could not be hired for such a position actually as any kind of public school teacher without a college education. He was a science teach prior to him becoming a christian and receiving a degree from any type of biblical teaching school. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.46.13.196 (talk) 09:04, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

It's true that no teacher could be hired in a public school without claiming a college education. The school district(s) might not check out the claim, or verify that the college was accredited. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:36, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Just because a school isn't accredited doesn't mean you can't legitimately have a degree from it. Some employers maybe don't care about the quality of one's education so much as the rubber-stamp of having one (if HR departments reliably checked up on credentials, diploma mills would go out of business!). Having worked in the educational field for years, I can tell you plainly that "has degree" does not equal "has education" regardless of the quality of the school (both idiots-from-Ivies and geniuses-with-GED). That's why HR departments do things like interviews rather than simply hiring based on a scantron form. DMacks (talk) 16:50, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

They care a bit more than you think. Every job application for a position that requires a degree that I've ever seen specifies a degree from an accredited institution. Laws even regulate this necessity for many positions, including teaching. As for Hovind's teaching experience, many question the truth of it, but we know in the least that where he taught was not at an accredited school, so despite whatever it is he may have taught his students, they went away from it without even a valid high school diploma and more importantly that it lacked the standards required of a normal school, which is why they hired Hovind without a valid degree.Farsight001 (talk) 23:02, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Hovind's views are contradicted by scientific evidence and research

From Michael Shermer's (a historian of science) "Why Darwin Matters" pages 87-88:

For example, my debate at the University of California, Irvine, the Young Earth creationist Kent Hovind announced as his opening statement ... Everything he said was irrelevant or wrong. Dogs come only from dogs. Variations do not lead to new species. The Bible is literally true in everything it says. Humans lived to nine hundred years. There is no right and wrong without God. Noah's flood explains geological formations and species distrbution. Dinosaurs and humans lived simultaneously, dinosaurs on the Ark were very young and small, and dinosars that were large ("behemoth" and leviathan in the Bible) drowned in the flood. Radiometric dating is unreliable. Jesus said the universe is young. The theory of evolution is a religion that leads to atheism, abortion and communism. Evolutionists are liars. Scientists are arrogant (they call themselves "Brights"!). Creationists are not allowed to publish in scientific journals. ...
This is what the evolution-creation debate is really about- religion, not science- and Intelligent Design theorists should rightly be called Intelligent Design creationists to drive the point home. Science is what scientists do, and Intelligent Design creationists are not doing science. They are doing religion.

On page 123:

Belief in God depends on religious faith. Acceptance of evolution depends on empirical evidence.

As Shermer pointed out: Hovind's views are religious. Religion is faith. Science is based on evidence. His claims are wrong. There is are HUGE amoung evidence, contrary to Hovind's paranoia and tax cheating business, for evolution. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Deennis89 (talk • contribs) 19:56, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Putting aside that evolution itself requires a belief that a creator DOES NOT EXIST (as pointed out by some prominent evolutionists,) the statement, "Hovind's views are contradicted by scientific evidence and research" is a blatant POV violation. First, the footnotes to that sentence link to talkorigins.org, which is a pro-evolution site so it is clearly not even a POV source. Second, the footnotes in question from talkorigins misrepresent their sources. In reponse to Hovind's claim that the geological column does not exist anywhere except in textbooks, they state, "John Woodmorappe, a young-earth creationist, has admitted that representative strata from the Cambrian to the Tertiary have been discovered lying in their proper order in Iran, by the Caspian, the Himalayas, Indonesia, Australia, North Africa, Canada, South America, Japan, Mexico, and the Philippines!" However, that statement by talkorigins is contradicted by Mr. Morappe himself who had this to say in an article titled, "The Geologic Column: Does it Exist?" : "Sometimes the motives of creationist researchers are challenged in an attempt to defend the concept of the geologic column. Consider, for instance, Glenn Morton’s tale of how I ‘set out to prove that the geologic column did not exist’, and then was forced to admit that it did. This fantasy has been picked up and repeated by other anti-creationists on the Internet without first checking what I actually wrote. The fact of the matter is, I in no sense tried to prove that the geologic column did not exist. The truth is that I already knew it didn’t! Nor was I in any way surprised to find that there are some places where lithologies attributed to all ten geologic periods can be found. I had known that long before. So had other informed creationists,[9] as pointed out earlier. In fact, I said so plainly on the first page of my article."

Morappe also goes on to say towards the end of his article, "There are a number of locations on the earth where all ten periods of the Phanerozoic geologic column have been assigned. However, this does not mean that the geological column is real. Firstly, the presence or absence of all ten periods is not the issue, because the thickness of the sediment pile, even in those locations, is only a small fraction (8–16% or less) of the total thickness of the hypothetical geologic column. Without question, most of the column is missing in the field. " The Geologic Column: Does It Exist?

Talkorigins then goes on to cite as another peice of evidence a second-hand relay of a phonecall between Edward Babinski and Glenn Morton. the same Glenn Morton who Morappe disputed in the paragraph above. So to say that this is research and scientific evidence is TOTALLY not accurate and clearly point of view. The proper sentence in the first paragraph should read, "Hovind's views, not surprisingly, are challenged by evolutionists," which is a factual and objective sentence.

protection template

Look, I don't see how hard it is, this article is about a living person, so pp-semi-blp with an expiration date indicated should be here so that this article is placed under Category:Wikipedia temporarily semi-protected biographies of living people. And because the protecting admin cited "vandalism" as reason the pp-semi-vandalism should remain. Andrewlp1991 (talk) 07:06, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

It is ABOUT a living person, yes. The vandalism, however, has nothing to do with blp violations. The vandalism was of removing longstanding and accurate information. In short, some IP hopping fan of Hovind is, on fairly regular occasion, trying to remove important information from the article that happens to present Hovind in a negative light. There's no blp violating happening. When you put that tag in and mouseover the little lock in the upper right corner, it says that it has been locked DUE TO blp violations, which isn't true.Farsight001 (talk) 12:32, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

I haven't seen many people trying to add information about Hovind- a few, but most of the vandalism has just been people trying to change the part that says that evolution is established science- and that part isn't about Hovind at all. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 15:10, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

What happened to the picture of Patriot Bible University?

There used to be a picture of Patriot Bible University, Hovind's school, but it is not there. What happened to it? It needs to be re-added and made the page look better as having pictures on a long article is good (it currently has Hovind's Dinosaur Adventure Land). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Csevville (talk • contribs) 18:25, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

There are pictures of Patriot on the school's web site, but I'm not sure that they would be helpful here. Pictures of Hovind and Hovind's work are relevant, but a picture of a building which conducted distance learning classes doesn't seem to me to add much. Hovind didn't create the school, or teach there, or even, as far as I know, visit. The only reason I can think of to include the picture is because it would reflect badly on Hovind, but that would be a violation of the neutral point of view policy. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 21:56, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Hovind owes more than $2 million in unpaid taxes since November 2010

So I looked at the current state of Hovind's property cases at http://www.escambiaclerk.com/clerk/coc_online_public_records.aspx and it says there are three different liens, one for $2 million+, one for $1 million+ and another for $60,000+. How do you reference this in the article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by ColdbeeYeh (talk • contribs) 00:25, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia doesn't publish our original research, so we can only add it if it's been discussed in some independent source like newspaper or magazine articles. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 21:17, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Please explain how public records are original research and not a reliable source.04:25, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

WP:BLPPRIMARY describes the relevant policy. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 09:32, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Why is the support section missing?

Obviously this page is highly biased. Why has the section on support from Creationist organizations removed? Why is the update that AIG has retracted their criticism of CSE removed? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kjbman (talk • contribs) 00:51, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure what section you're referring to; what reliably sourced information do you want to add to the article, and what sources are you using? -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 00:55, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

As far as memory (and a quick check back through this article's history) serves me, there was never such a section (at least not in the last couple of years). The reason for this is that Hovind, as arguably the least intellectually rigorous prominent creationist, garners little in the way of public support from other creationist groups, who seem to view him as somewhat of an embarrassment. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk(P) 05:53, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

"Hovind's views, not surprisingly, are challenged by evolutionists."

This has been inserted in the lead four times in the space of 25 minutes by one editor to replace the pre-existing "Hovind's views are contradicted by scientific evidence and research." Edit warring of this sort is frowned upon as per WP:EW. Please discuss the matter here. Catfish Jim & the soapdish 13:07, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Changes clearly violated WP:NPOV and I have reverted them. Yobol (talk) 13:10, 21 April 2011 (UTC)