Evolution is stupid
Creationist will speak in Dover
Kent Hovind contends in a video that evolution is 'stupid.'
By LAURI LEBO - York Daily Record, 2/4/06
— Less than three months after a federal judge struck down the Dover Area School District's intelligent-design policy as unconstitutional, a well-known creationist will be coming to town to argue that the Earth was created in six days.
And even though they've been invited, it's unlikely any scientists will be debating him.
Kent Hovind, whose video, More Reasons Why Evolution is Stupid, was played at a Dover fire hall last year, will be giving a two-day seminar at Dover Area High School in March.
Hovind argues that science supports the Book of Genesis, that the Earth is less than 10,000 years old and that dinosaurs rode in Noah's ark.
Repent America, a Philadelphia-based group that is organizing the event, has invited scientists from at least three local colleges to address Hovind's arguments. The organization has not yet gotten any willing participants.
Its director, Michael Marcavage, said he finds it "interesting" that scientists are unwilling to go face to face with Hovind.
The Rev. Jim Grove, who hosted the fall showing of Hovind's video, said that scientists "don't have anything to offer" to Hovind's assertions.
Hovind argues that dinosaurs could fit on the ark because Noah only picked small juveniles that took up less space.
Karl Kleiner, a York College biologist, was one of the scientists invited, but he has declined.
"I don't think this is going to be a fair and balanced debate," he said.
Ken Miller, a Brown University professor and one of the plaintiffs' experts in the suit over the Dover intelligent design policy, said he rarely shies away from a debate. Co-author of the book Biology, which is used in Dover's science classes, Miller has even been criticized for his public wrangling with anti-evolutionists by scientists who think his participation lends legitimacy to creationists' claims.
But Miller believes that false assertions made by anti-evolutionists should not go unchallenged.
Still, "Hovind's ideas are not in the anti-evolution mainstream," Miller said. "His ideas are even rejected by the (organization) Answers in Genesis, who are the leading 'young Earth' creationists."
Miller also said Dover residents might need a break from this debate.
"I have a feeling that Dover's had enough of this," he said.
Cyndi Sneath, one of the plaintiffs in Dover's lawsuit, agreed. She said the case is over and to rehash it all will only foster divisiveness in the community.
"If we could get a dollar for every time the man says 'stupid,' we'd get quite a lot of money," she said, referring to Hovind's video, in which he addresses many scientific arguments with, "That's just stupid."
In a news release from Repent America, Marcavage also criticizes the newly elected school board and said it has been taken over by "by evolutionists who refuse to continue the legal battle for truth, and who, once again, are teaching students the lie of evolution as fact."