Category Archives: Literature

Creationist Kent Hovind’s PhD thesis is a jumble of juvenile jabber…

December 10, 2009   caraleisa   No comments

For those who blessedly don’t know, Kent Kovind Hovind is a leading voice in the young-earth creationist movement. He claims to be a scientist, however his MA and PhD degrees were granted by Patriot Bible University, which is an unaccredited fundamentalist Christian Correspondence school, authorized ONLY to issue ‘religious degrees’.

From Wikipedia:

Various criticisms have been made of Hovind’s dissertation, including charges of incompleteness, low academic quality, poor writing, poor spelling, and ungrammatical style. The lack of quality was described, in part, by the fact that “the pages are not numbered; there is no title; of sixteen or so chapters in the index only the first four are finished; misspellings are rampant (“Immerged” for emerged and “epic” for epoch “tentable” for testable are three examples); and the single illustration was apparently cut out of a science book with scissors and fastened to the thesis with glue or tape.”

Hovind’s “dissertation” has been a closely guarded document; contrary to the accepted practice of releasing PhD theses, Patriot and Hovind have refused to share his thesis. However, it is available here.

I read the first dozen or so pages and skimmed through the rest. I played a game – I rolled my scroll wheel to a random page and read it. Unbelieveable. Each page is truly a gem of inconceiveable irrationality. I would not have allowed my children to hand in something this poor in middle school, much less expect such a pitiful effort for a doctoral thesis.

Hovind’s ‘science’ is laughable. He has no grasp whatsoever of what evolution is, yet he argues against it a la the Kirk Cameron school of wide-eyed disingenuity.

It has either not been proofread, or proofed by someone as ignorant as Hovind himself. Any page is replete with mistakes and/or absurdities – usually both.

The last sentence on p63 into p64 is: “Microevolution is small little variations between the species that have been in the genetic structure by.” Yep, that’s it.

On the same page (pages are unnumbered but it is page 64 on the pdf) in ONE sentence he says, “In Scientific America… Allen Goode said … “ and he provides a short but supposedly direct quote. The magazine is Scientific American, and I believe it is Alan Guth who wrote the May 1984 article on Inflation that Hovind quoted. If he had the document to make the quote, he had the name of the publication and the name of the author that he could have copied. This degree of sloppiness is apparent throughout, though even if this had been a grammatically stellar document, the so-called science within it would make it unworthy of even a bad comic strip.

From Pdf page 11: “I would like to trace the history of evolution from the fall of Satan from heaven, through the last six thousand years, to modern day evolution, and explain what those teaching this doctrine have planned for the future. To really understand the history of evolution, we have to understand the author. Satan is the master-mind behind this false doctrine.”

Don’t miss the illuminating discussion of the light spectrum on pdf pages 80-83, including his POEM about atheists and blind men. It reduces me to speechlessness.

Ah yes, such brilliant scientific methodology, exquisite deduction tactics… eloquent prose.

Don’t take my word for it. Read it… if your stomach can take it. It would be funnier if it weren’t that there are people who actually believe what this fool says.

It is a national embarassment.

I give you “DOCTOR” Kent Hovind.

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Five things I’ve learned from reading literature…

November 19, 2009   caraleisa   No comments

The Instructions for this were: Think about the literature you’ve read—short stories, novels, plays, memoirs, and poetry. Any literature counts, from picture books to epic poems, and from romance novels to sci-fi fan-fiction. Answer each question, and explain your response in a few sentences.

I’m going to answer the questions, then, I’m going to list five lessons I’ve learned. Double your pleasure! Warning – I’m usually incapable of simple answers.

1. What piece of literature has stayed with you, even though you haven’t read it recently?

Anna Karenina for one. Discovering Russian literature and poetry was a highlight era, when I devoured the likes of Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Chekhov, Pasternak, Solzhenitzyn, and a bunch of others less memorable to me. (I was 12-14 and that was a long, long long time ago…) Sophie’s Choice is another which still haunts me, as is the diary of Anne Frank.

2. What character or story has influenced something you’ve done?

Rather than name one work, I have to say that most of what I read has influenced me, both in helping hone my own writing style, as well as opening new worlds to me. I don’t like pulp stuff like romances, vampire stories, horror, (excluding the classics, of course) etc, I much prefer literature – which is vastly more comprehensive in scope.

Started out with Grimms Fairy Tales. Exquisite illustrated edition… loved it.

As a grade-schooler, I was given the classics to read – Dickens, Twain, Austen, the Brontés, R L Stevenson, Alcott, Fitzgerald, W Irving,… I wasn’t allowed to read kid books like ‘girl’ series and stuff. Which is fine with me. (lest you wonder, I was a superb reader in a highly dysfunctional, abusive household, and my escape was reading, endlessly reading.)

The Russians were probably the most influential on my world view because there were so many different types of people and places in them, characters, politics, romance, you name it they had a dozen versions of it.

And in the high school years, many! Kafka, Hesse, Hugo, Steinbeck, Melville, Goethe, Heller, etc. I actually liked reading the assigned books, along with whatever else I was gobbling up!

Later, the deeeeeeep and profound thinkers got me going inside – Sartre, for example, made perfect sense to me around age 16 or so.

I went through a science fiction dozen years, and most loved Bradbury, Herbert and above all, Asimov … who taught me again to be open to unexplained but rational possibility.

In the last 20 yrs or so, I read far less fiction and much more science. But fiction writers whom I adore are Haruki Murakami, Salman Rushdie, Loren Eisely (not exactly fiction), TE Lawrence (again, not exactly fiction). Also more contemporary writers … and poetry.

3. What character or piece of literature seemed to relate to a recent news story or personal experience?

We live in a Blade Runner world, it seems. More and more so each day… I wanted to BE Anna K for many years .

4. What character has make you wonder why he or she did/said something?

I can’t think of one, but in general, if I wonder why a character is doing something, I figure it’s due to poor character development. You should be able to accept a character’s actions as ‘real’.

5. Name something from a work of literature (such as a character, setting, or quotation) that you find beautiful or vivid.

The description of the white birch forests in Russia in both Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina and War and Peace, and Pasternak’s Dr. Zhivago has always stayed with me. I finally got my own birches (not white, but river which are shades of off -white through dark brown) just a few years ago, in my front yard, and I love them as much as I expected I would.

The five things I’ve learned, in no particular order.

1. The world is a huge place and every place has its own culture, ethics and morals. It’s arrogant to try and push your own beliefs on others.

2. Cruelty, viciousness and violence never fix anything.

3. Sanctimoniousness, pretension and self-absorption are replusive to everyone.

4. Let your imagination run free, because far more than you can imagine is possible.

5. Never step in front of a train, stay away from Nazis, never torment a big wild creature and live for today for tomorrow never comes.

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