Friday, February 14, 2025

Why Kent Hovind's evolution challenge is nonsensical

The infamous young-earth creationist Kent Hovind has issued many times during the past decades a challenge to "evolutionists": He will pay 10 thousand dollars (or whatever sum) to anybody who can give him a proof of the theory of evolution.

Why is this challenge completely nonsensical?

Because he himself is the only and sole self-appointed judge of whether the proof given to him is valid or not. There are no predetermined terms or conditions or anything: He will judge the "validity" of the proof, as it is given to him. Whatever he determines, right there on the fly, will be the final judgment.

The blatant bias of this shouldn't even be necessary to be pointed out. After all, he can just reject any proof given to him, and that's it. He doesn't even need to give any counter-argument. He can just reject the validity of the proof, and he doesn't need to pay. Which, of course, makes this a very easy and safe "challenge" to offer, as there is no danger of ever losing it.

And, indeed, that's exactly what he does. In fact, he has a standard answer to any proof and evidence given to him, no matter what it is, which he almost always uses as a matter of course: "That's not evolution."

Yeah, that's it. "That's not evolution." Because not only is he the only and sole judge of whether the given proof is valid, but he himself is the one outright defining what "evolution" means. Never mind what the scientific definition is. He defines what it means, and thus whether any given proof fits that definition. Never mind that he has never given any definition, that doesn't matter. The definition is whatever he wants it to be, and always something (usually unstated) that rejects the given proof.

So, "that's not evolution." Nothing more needs to be said or argued. Proof invalid, challenge failed. He can then go boast about how nobody has ever been able to give him any proof of evolution.

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