#052 - Mister Kent Hovind

Summary: In this episode of Trolling with Logic, the crew takes a hard look at the magical world of young-earth creationism, as envisioned by everyone’s favorite creationist Kent Hovind. Before spending the last decade in federal prison for tax fraud and evasion, Hovind was a traveling evangelist preaching creationism and attacking evolution, armed with wacky strawmen. There’s no shortage of weird and wonderful nonsense to unravel on this fascinating tour through the mind of a creationist: An Earth that’s 4,499,994,000 years younger than it looks (because scientists, like the IRS, are apparently agents of Satan), dinosaurs living with humans who live to be hundreds of years old, a global flood via magical comet, anti-government conspiracy theories, a single drop of water that can cover the whole Earth if you just spread it thin enough, and more. Links: Hovind’s “doctoral dissertation”: https://wlstorage.net/file/kent-hovind-doctoral-dissertation.pdf. Hovind’s “debate” with evolutionary biologist Dr. Massimo Pigliucci, moderated by Reginald Finley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rphxOs5YFcY. Tracey Holley, “Evolution is the Root of All Evil: An Examination of the Paranoid Style of Creation Science Evangelism,” http://www.ijessnet.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/2.pdf. Dave E. Matson, “How Good Are Those Young-Earth Arguments? A Close Look at Dr. Hovind’s List of Young-Earth Arguments and Other Claims,” http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/hovind/howgood.html. Trolling with Logic host Nathan Dickey wrote this 50-page deconstruction of Hovind’s “dissertation”: https://tinyurl.com/y7mvfg8c. Ronald L. Numbers’ book about the history and evolution of the creationist movement (recommended by Nathan): https://www.amazon.com/Creationists-Scientific-Creationism-Intelligent-Expanded/dp/0674023390.