Daily Creationism Is Back

The Daily Creationism Blog is back after a two month hiatus. It is written, I use that loosely, by Big Bang Myth. I am not sure if the guy is for real or if he is just poking fun of creationists' thinking.

Hovind's Arrest

Over the past few days, I have been looking over several web log posting on Kent Hovind's arrest. He was charged on Thursday with tax evasion (or is that ovasion?), Filing a frivolous lawsuit against the agency demanding damages for criminal trespass, filing an injunction against an IRS special agent, filing false complaints against the IRS for false arrest, excessive use of force and theft and making threats against investigators and those cooperating with the investigation.

After Hovind protested the charges, the judge took away his passport and guns Hovind claimed belonged to his church. Earlier this week, I tried to asked on Hovind's blog if he has informed people about his no contest pleading for the Dinosaur Adventure Land permits.

On a side note, I made a comment on blog that support Hovind and creationism. It was noted posted, so I informed about Hovind's arrest. He e-mailed me saying "if you've got beef with Kent, good for you. I don't care what he's done as a person, I believe in what he believes in."

I replied that he should care about what he has done. I said when the truth comes out Hovind will not be going to heaven and who is the more foolish, the fool or the fool who follows the fool? (from Star Wars)

He replied back that the "Fool has said in his heart, there is no God (from the Bible). Creation is proof of a creator, just as a painting is proof of a
painter."

He replied back with the proverb, A fool and his money are soon parted. i said that science has proven evolution, not creationism. I mentioned an article from the Associated Press shows that Darwin's finches having evolved a smaller beak after the arrival of a larger rival for its original food source.

I said "there is no credible evidence to suggest the universe and the earth is young and there is no evidence to suggest humans were created from modified dirt. If God is ominpotent, why can't He use evolution to create? Do you want to believe a big lie rather than the truth?"

I e-mailed me "are you 100% sure that you're right? And are you 100% sure that
you'll go to heaven if you were to die right now?"

I replied back "are you sure that YOU are right? Can a blind man lead
a blind man, will they not both fall into the pit?" (quote from the Bible)

"Apparently, you are denying the truth since you are either, unable or unwilling, to provide me with any evidence of creationism. Anyone who says I will not get to heaven, will not get to heaven."

I am waiting for a reply back.

Kent Hovind's Day

This is from A Day in the life of Kent Hovind - April 25 to 29

Apparently Dr. Hovind had a bad weekend. He had problems with hisequipment in Port Huron, Michigan, he could not to sleep, was awakened by a party in the next room and missed his flight because the motel gave someone else his wake-up call. He was interviewed by LA Times during the trip to Port Huron. The only article I could find was on the Dinny the roadside dinosaur bought by creationists last year.

He is upset the "idiot" shuttle driver dropped him off at the wrong terminal, he notes that most of the employees are "Arabs" and the coffee was mistake because it tasted terrible, even with no alcohol.

The plane is cold, the crew had to photograph a dent in the plane, delaying the flight, and misses his radio braodcast as his cell phone is dead.

He complains about his "supermodel" stewardess with a miniskirt, apparently raised in a country without training on modesty training on how to sit. I guess he just committed adultery for thinking this. He, also, complains about some people speaking in German.

In Kansas, his driver is so excited to talk to him that the driver was not paying attention to the road and had to slam on the brakes many times. He was "mobbed" by fans after a debate in Kansas City.

His flight back had mechanical problems and was cancelled and he had to re-booked another flight. My cell phone screen quit working so I can only call speed dial numbers I know by heart.

Maybe, God is telling the "Doctor" it is time to take some time off. Apparently his CSE blogs and his Dr. Dino web site has not been updated recently. His schedule is basically his speaking engagements and not family. With the trouble he is in with DAL, he should really take a sabbatical.

The Truth Of Kent Hovind's Age Of The Earth

Kent Hovind is the founder of the Creation Science Evangelism and has conducted seminars on evolution and creationism. I watched a DVD called Age Of The Earth produced by the CSE and it is full of inaccuracies of evolution, creation and the Big Bang.

For some reason, Kent Hovind starts off by talking about his family and saying how pride he is to have a "beautiful" family. Isn't pride one of the seven deadly sins?

Kent Hovind says that evolution is a dumb religion and says that if evolution is true then humans are worthless. However, according to evolution, humans are unique to other animals. We walk on our hind legs and we have large brains unlike any animal.

He claims to be not against science and says that evolution says humans came from rocks, slime and frogs. This is incorrect as it is known we evolved from a prehistoric ape-like creature and the evolution scale does not include rocks and slime and that we did not evolve from frogs (not our grandfather as Hovind puts it). He says that a wolf, a coyote and a dog all come from the same animal and that they are different from a banana. Is not this the same that a human, a gorilla and a chimpanzee are different from a banana?

Hovind states that science books say that the big bang came from nothingness and this is unbelievable. Yet, can he answer where God from? In his PowerPoint presentation, matter (mater) and humanism (hunanist manifesto) is misspelled.

Hovind uses the angular momentum law, in which planets and moons should rotate clockwise, to debunk the big bang theory. This is part of the Coriolis effect, where water in the northern hemisphere flows counterclockwise and clockwise in the southern hemisphere. Also, there is the uncertainty principle, which the position and velocity of a particle cannot simultaneously be measured with exactness.

Hovind states the evolution is the cause for rise in premarital sex, STDs, out of wedlock births, unmarried couples, divorce, violent crime, teen suicide and lower SATs. Some of these stats are only to 1995 and 1985 (unwed girls). The presentation was recorded in 2002. Also, the rises did not occur until 1970 and several have declined, particularly violent crime. Overall, all these stats have nothing to with evolution and thus they are cause-and-effect fallacies.

Hovind blames evolution for the Columbine massacre because one of the killers’ dad was a geologist, one wore a T-shirt that said “natural selection” and they killed two people because they were black and Christian. Yet, the killers were believers of Nazism that has links to Christian fundamentalists, white supremacy and hatred of the Jews. Although, social Darwinism has some connection to fascism, its immediate roots were in certain irrational, socialist, and nationalist tendencies of the turn of the century that combined in a protest against the liberal ideas in Western Europe.

Hovind states that scientists were wrong about planets revolving around the earth, big objects falling faster than smaller ones and bloodletting and scientists are wrong about evolution. Yet, it was Christian doctrine that accepted these things as facts, as in the Middle Ages, European barbers performed bloodletting tasks and Galileo was condemned to life imprisonment for “vehement suspicion of heresy.”

Hovind says that books now use BCE (Before Common Era) instead of BC (Before Christ) for dating. Yet, the Christian calendar borrowed the old pagan calendar and uses the names of several months that are named after Roman gods. He claims that Noah took baby dinosaurs on the ark, because taking adults would be too large and that dinosaurs could still exist citing the Loch Ness monster, which has been found to be a hoax.

In part 2, Kent Hovind compares the question of who was Cain’s and Seth’s wives to the Big Bang theory. He claims that they had sexual relationships with their sisters and it was not a problem for God until Moses (Letivicus). He claims that Adam was alive when his 7 great grandson was born and Shem was alive when Joseph was born. According to the record, Noah was not born until 1056 years after the creation and Adam lived 930 years. Shem died at 2056, 30 years before Jacob, Joseph’s father, was born.

There is no date in the Bible to suggest when Joseph was born and when Jacob died. Also, the word "father" or begat in this part of the Bible probably means ancestor.

Hovind claims that evolutionists say that we live in limited space and some people want to lower the population. There are many places that are unlivable for humans whether it is too hot (deserts), too cold (Antarctica), too mountainous or the oceans. He claims that the population can live comfortably in a small district of Florida. With over 6 billion people in a small area, there would be poor sanitation. According to 20/20’s Myths, Lies and Straight Talk, the world’s population would live better in an area the size of Texas.

Hovind states that one person, who carves walking sticks from trees, told him when he cuts a tree that he planted seven years ago, the rings numbered around eleven. Yet, typically, we plant tree samplings that are around four years old. So, when you cut a tree seven years later, the tree would have been around eleven years old.

Hovind claims that only a flood could explain why petrified trees can found in different layers underground, but a glacier can do the same. He was told that annual glacier rings tell the age of the earth. While the rings do reflect the warm and cold periods and not a yearly basis, the rings provide the age of the glacier not the earth.

Hovind states the stars were created at the time of creation and cloud galaxies may not exist. But how can light from galaxies and stars that are over million light-years away reach Earth?

Hovind says that the moon would be close to earth based on that it is moving away from the Earth. What he fails to mention is that the moon has come closer towards Earth and the theories of the moon formation. He says that Pangaea is a dumb theory and questions where central America is, which was formed by the mountain ranges rising from the water. If Pangaea did not happen, how did animals get to the Americas and Australia? How did the dodo (a non-flying bird) get to the Mauritius Island? How did the kangaroo get to Australia? How did the tree sloth get to the central American rainforest?

Dr. Hovind seems to make a lot of lies. More examples can be found at No Answers In Genesis, 300 Creationist Lies and Talk Origins. It is obvious he lives by the Hitler quote he uses at the beginning of the DVD to denounce evolution. "If you tell a lie long enough, loud enough, and often enough, the people will believe it."

Creationist Claims Part 2

Evolution hasn't been proven.

Fallacies include argument from ignorance, equivocation and slothful induction

This claim is true, but it doesn't go far enough. No scientific theory can be "proved"; this is because in science, you can never be 100% certain you you've identified all of the relevant axioms and principles. The best you can hope for is that a theory is well-supported by empirical evidence, and evolution is extremely well-supported.

Evolution cannot be proven, but it has been observed. When scientists took a sample of Nereis Acuminata, separated it, and exposed them to three different environments, they were unsuccessful in their attempts to cross them, which is one of the many evidences for natural selection and evolution.

Evolution could be disproved. Many have attempted to disprove it; all of them have failed. This means that it is probably true.

Evolution can't be replicated.

This is a four term fallacy (science, replication of experiments, evolution, replication of evolution)

How often has Creationism been replicated? This one example of a Creationist argument which would be at least as damaging to creationism as it could be to real science. Science can be based on observation & deduction. Falsifiability is probably a better criterion for determining science. Evolution and common descent are both falsifiable.

Humans have created (evolved) thousands of breeds of domesticated plants and animals. Bacteria evolving resistances to antibiotics or insects evolving resistances to insecticides happen again and again. The beaks of "Darwin's Finches" evolve again and again with climate changes. No, we can't re-run millions of years of history in the lab to re-create a particular evolutionary history; however, we can replicate fossil finds to confirm previous results and run genetic comparison experiments again and again.

Science requires that experiments can be replicated (assuming that it is possible to replicate the experimental conditions). Evolution is a theory, not an experiment.
Many sciences are not replicable by the above logic, including astronomy, archaeology, and history. Is the study of Ancient Rome not a science because we cannot replicate the Roman Empire? What is important is that observations of the evidence can be made repeatedly and consistently and that experiments based on those theories produce replicable results, not that events themselves can be replicated.
The eruption of Mt. St. Helens can not be replicated but its consequences and causes can be studied scientifically.

Evolution is only a theory.

Fallacies contained in this claim include slothful induction, equivocation and too broad.

The germ theory of disease is "only a theory" and so is atomic theory, as well as the special and general theories of relativity, and, indeed, every scientific concept that has ever been confirmed by empirical evidence. If "it's only a theory" is a valid reason to dismiss the theory of evolution, it is, equally, a valid reason to dismiss all of science. It is a measure of how utterly weak the Creationist position is, that Creationists must resort to arguments which would, if valid, nuke the entirety of scientific endeavor.

Theory is used to mean an idea that may or may not be true; a scientist would refer to this as a hypothesis. When a scientist uses the word theory, s/he means a hypothesis which has been tested and has so far passed all of its tests.

Experiments confirming or disproving scientific theories are being conducted every day. Evolution, as a "theory", has stood the test of time - dismissing it as a wild guess or based on no experimental evidence blatantly ignores the last few centuries of research and proof of its validity. In the spectrum of valid theories: [Evolution : ID :: Gravity : Astrology]

Evidence for evolution has not been observed.

This a slothful induction fallacy.

In science, "evidence" usually only has meaning when related to a hypothesis. We compare data to the predictions of a hypothesis. If the data agrees with the predictions, it becomes evidence for the hypothesis, otherwise it becomes evidence against. In a way this might be referred to as interpreting evidence to fit the hypothesis, but the process isn't so subjective as the word "interpretation" implies. All of the sciences work in this manner, so criticizing evolution for it is hypocritical.

Science is about explaining the makeup of the natural world, not interpreting it to fit a preconceived belief. If a theory explains the natural world properly, interpretation is not an issue. Evolution does precisely that, and Creationism does not.

Recapitulation theory is not supported

This is an equivocation fallacy.

While recapitulation of the sort propounded by Haeckel is no longer supported, homology of embryonic developmental stages can and does provide support for the theory of evolution.

Lucy's knee was found far from the rest of the skeleton

This is a false rumour. Johanson was discussing another A. afarensis knee and NOT that of Lucy that had been discovered in 1973.

There are flood myths from all over the world

Most cultures have been located near bodies of water prone to regular flooding, it is unclear why anyone should think that the prevalence of flood-type myths is a mystery that requires any explanation at all, let alone a Divine "explanation".

Most ancient cultures had only a very limited understanding of the size of planet earth. To them, their little land was the "world", and if it was flooded, this was, quite literally, "the end of the world". Common flood-mythology does not indicate a single shared past experience. It is possible that flood-event experiences propagated among cultures from one source. Common shared experiences of floods in no way mean said flood was of divine origin or covered the entire world.

Examination of flood myths indicates they can vary extremely, from world-destruction to world-creation, from localized to encompassing the entire planet. If there was one primal flood, more consistency would be expected.

Very few of the world-destroying flood myths describe humanity escaping in a boat. Some speak of people avoiding the flood by hiding within giant trees, escaping to higher ground, and in some cases, the myths speak of how the entire world was completely destroyed or how the flood was stopped before any devastion was caused.

Other myths appear amongst many cultures. Numerous cultures recognize creatures that live off of stolen human blood, frequently identified as unnaturally prolonging their lives after death. Nearly every culture has myths of humans who can change shapes into animals, either at will or under some imposed circumstance. Does the prevelance of these myths indicate that vampires and werewolves actually exist? The average creationist would certainly reject the idea that there are many gods, despite the fact that belief in Pantheons occurs worldwide.

Many myths represent the experience of the populace writ large. People who live in regions with large reptiles tell stories of gigantic reptiles. People who live in areas prone to forest fires tell of the fire big enough to destroy the world. People who live near glaciers have myths of when the world was consumed by ice. The prevalence of flood myths needs no explanation except that humans like to live near water and water sources have a tendency to flood periodically.

Given that all but Noah et al perished in the Biblical flood myth where then do the stories from other cultures come from? These groups of people would have to be descendants of Noah's family repopulating the world and therefore wouldn't they have the same story?

What is the point of reporting the other flood myths in that often the myths are severe contradictions to the Genesis version. If Genesis is literally true, then these other myths must be false, and if they are false how do they add weight to the Genesis account? And, of course, why aren't these other versions of myth more believable than the Genesis version thereby directly proving Genesis wrong?

Failure or shortcomings in experiments involving the application of evolutionary theory to the production or use of computer hardware of software demonstrates that evolution can not work elsewhere.

Fallacies contained in this claim include argument from ignorance, false analogy, straw man and fallacy fallacy.

Computerized evolutionary models have proven effective. An analysis of the Avida software and it's results indicates that computer models can be used to demonstrate evolutionary theory.

The criticisms about evolutionary models are often directed at a Brandeis experiment in evolving concepts for machines via simulation of the evolutionary process. These are better viewed not as a simulation of evolution, but an application of evolutionary concepts to producing mechanical design. Though useful and interesting in that it did produce surprisingly sophisticated mechanisms, it was not a full-bore testing of evolutionary theory in the vein of the Avida software.

There are programs that use computer-simulated evolution to solve certain tasks. One amusing and rather simple example of this is breveWalker, where an animal made out of blocks uses evolution to learn how to walk.

Genesis 1 got the order of events right.

This is a begging the question fallacy.

The odds are nothing more than a combinatorial expansion of 10!. Counting "in the beginning, there was a beginning" isn't a valid stage. At the very least, the count should be 9! or 1 in 362,880. Other events also simply cannot be in any other order (land plants cannot be before land, etc.) and so reduce the unlikelihood still further.

Some of the steps are not clearly derived from the Bible at all. Point two has Earth "...enshrouded in heavy gases..." not because anything in Genesis suggests this, but as part of an effort to save the order by asserting sunlight wouldn't have been visible during the early stages of Genesis. Adding elements to save the order rather injures the argument that the accuracy of the order is amazing.

The order proposes that land plants existed for a significant fraction of time before the sun could be seen from earth. The idea that plants existed for any length of time without access to direct sunlight is contrary to science and common sense.
And by any reasonable definition, "tame beasts" had to await the arrival of man to even have any meaningful notion of "tame". By most genomic studies a dog is still a wolf in an arrested state of development due to the artificial selection by man. Did dogs really exist before man? And if so, wouldn't their wild beast variants have quickly either killed them or reverted them back to "wild"?

Since there is no mention of animals before, then did the pollinators arrive to keep land plants (#6) reproducing? or perhaps were the first land plants not flowering (as the science shows) and that later "evolved" when the pollinators arrived in #8?

While one may believe that mainstream science is wrong, doing so would negate the test of the Bible's accuracy that this order supposedly entails.

Scientists lie if they talk about an old earth and evolution.

This is an abusive ad hominem fallacy.

Lying implies that the person knows better. Even if creationists were right, scientists could just be mistaken. Lying also implies that evolution and old earth are false, for which there is no evidence. See all the failed attempts at proving evolution false. If all scientists who accept evolution were lying, this would be a world-wide conspiracy with thousands of members, which is not believable. To accept that you need to be paranoid. How do we know that all creationists are not the ones who are actually lying? How can we be sure that even all teachers of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, or any other religion is lying?

Creationism and evolution are the only 2 models.

This is a false dilemma fallacy.

Creation and evolution are both broad categories. Each contains a potentially infinite set of actual models. Furthermore, the two sets overlap (Theistic Evolution). Fred Hoyle's idea of a universe that has always existed is a third model.

The Christian model of creation is currently the single most popular, but by far not the only creation story. Many other religions had or still have their own creation story. Additionally, there are parodies of creationism, such as Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, that work just as well. No shread of objective scientific evidence credits one above all others.

Evolution excludes the existence of a creator.

Evolution functions on the principle of methodological naturalism. This principle states briefly that natural causes are the only things that can be objectively identified. As a result, science functions on the principle that science itself is incapable of elucidating a supernatural cause.

Many creationists conflate methodological naturalism with metaphysical naturalism. Metaphysical naturalism states that the natural universe is all that exists, and this position does exclude the possibility of a creator. However, methodological naturalism does not exclude the possibility of a creator, nor does belief in evolution require disbelief in a creator. Indeed, there are a great many theistic evolutionists and the Clergy Letter Project shows that at least 7000 clergy see no conflict between evolution and faith.

Creationst Claims Part 1

Creationist Claims From EvoWiki.

Macroevolution has never been observed and no new species have been observed.

Depending on the definition, this may be true. Nevertheless, large-scale evolution is well-evidenced. Direct observation isn't the only way to confirm a theory in science. There have been observed instances of speciation. Of course, creationists will claim this is microevolution since they define the border between macroevolution and microevolution by the existence or non-existence.
· The honeysuckle maggot fly has recently been found to have directly arisen from a hybridization between the snowberry maggot fly and the blueberry maggot fly.
· In 1905, in his patch of Oenothera lamarckiana, Hugo de Vries discovered an unusual specimen, and found that he was unable crossbreed it with its parent-plants. He later named it O. gigas, and found that it had 2N=28, while its parent had 2N=14.

Created kinds are distinct and all kinds could fit on Noah's ark.

It is true that living things are naturally divided into kinds or species. The species designation is in fact the only natural classification are purely human constructions. Almost without exception, the most important naturalists and evolutionary biologists of all time have been taxonomists dedicated to the classification of kinds. Additionally, a large part of the work of evolutionary biologists is researching systems of classification that can reflect the evolutionary history of organisms or the field of systematics.

Evolutionary theory does allow for hybridization between closely related species, under those species concepts that allow for it. If the hybridization is frequent and prevalent, the component species are usually not designated good species. If the hybridization is infrequent, or only during special circumstances, while the separate species maintain their distinctive character, the speciation is considered true.

None of this invalidates the fact that a species can change through time, the process of anagenesis, or that sometimes they split into two, the process of cladogenesis, and that these two follow their own evolutionary paths.

Creationists' term of kind is rather vague, since it tends to be poorly defined.
What about diseases? They had to be carried as well, most won't survive in silty water. Which member of the crew volunteered to have their brain eaten, which is the only way to transmit Kuru? How about diseases that have a cycle less than 40 days?

Evolution requires as much faith as creationism.

Evolution has been directly observed in viruses, bacteria and smaller changes in animals and plants. It was observations of changes in beak shapes in the Galapagos islands that helped inspire Darwin's theory of evolution. We can use indirect evidence to make very strong predictions about occurrences in geology, astronomy and cultural anthropology, so we can in biology. There is a lot of this sort of evidence that supports the idea that evolution is the source of species.

Science as an Epistemology rests on certain philosophical assumptions about how the universe works. While its true that these assumptions might be false, it's hypocritical to only reject them in areas of science that creationists disagree with.


Evolution rests on scientific evidence. The only major assumption is that the scientific method is a good way to investigate the universe.
The only "faith" evolution requires is faith that any God which exists is not a deceitful trickster who goes around when you're not looking, stage-managing the Universe so that the physical evidence cannot be trusted.

Do you want to be descended from a monkey?

This is a wishful thinking fallacy. Creationist would not like it if asked if they wanted to be descended from dirt.

If man comes from random causes, life has no purpose or meaning.

This is an appeal to consequences, a straw man and a naturalistic fallacy

The goal of science is to explain the workings of the world. It makes statements about what happens and what causes those things to happen. Statements about what should happen and why those things should happen belong to the fields of philosophy and religion.

Science alone cannot provide a meaning to life. Criticizing a scientific theory for failing to provide ultimate meanings is missing the point of science. Evolution is not composed entirely of random causes. Even if evolution were composed entirely of random causes, how would that necessarily make life meaningless? Even if evolution were composed entirely of random causes, and even if this somehow did devalue human life and meaning, these negative consequences wouldn't disprove evolution.

Evolution is a religion.

The scientific theory of evolution does not say anything about values or meanings. Some people may add on such constructs to the theory, forming a separate philosophy that should not reflect on the theory itself.

It is true only if one accepts an overly-expansive definition of "religion", under which any number of unrelated things would count as "religions" as well.

The term religion is confused with what would be more agreeably called a ‘world view’. Any system of thought or perceptive will inherently be value laden and supported by various underlying assumptions of metaphysics. Thus while both modern science and Christianity are approaches to explain, interpret, and view existence, they differ in the supports and values on which they rest. While no perfect definition of religion, or science for that matter, is agreed upon, a clear demarcation of the underlying differences between the two generalized approaches can be seen in the questions that are asked. The questions of religion such as: Where do 'we' go when we die? What exists outside of existence? and, Who is God? are not so much unanswerable by science but more inapplicable as the religion’s underlying metaphysical conceptions inherent in such questions are not shared by the scientific perspective.

Science, as a way of viewing the world, may be a religion, but evolution in and of itself cannot be. While it maybe the case that evolution is *bad* science, such a claims would need to be submitted with evidence for peer review.

The Bible must be accurate because archaeology supports it.

Fallacies contained in this claim affirming the consequent and exclusion.
While some bits of the Bible have indeed been confirmed by modern archaeological research, some bits of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey have been confirmed by modern archaeological research. If the bits of the Bible which have been confirmed are reason to believe that all the Bible is accurate, the bits of the Iliad and Odyssey which have been confirmed are, by that same reasoning, reason to believe that all of the Iliad and Odyssey are accurate.

Bible is harmonious throughout.

Any "harmony" the Bible has is greatly enhanced after one comes up with rationalizations to account for what would otherwise be obvious contradictions. You can always come up for a justification for any discrepancy, the concept of the Bible being harmonious is almost circular. The official Bible was hand-picked by the Council of Nicea several centuries after the death of Jesus. When a group of established religious leaders is able to choose which books are a part of the Bible and which books are not, it is a simple matter to ensure that the theme and content are consistent throughout.

Records say civilization was man's original state.

Since we know humans existed before writing, I would be curious to see what exactly they recorded. Civilization is relative. Ancient Chinese, saw themselves as the sole civilization in the universe and all other races as either barbarians or subhumans.
Civilization does not prevent evolution from occurring, nor does evolution prevent civilization from existing, so this issue is entirely irrelevant to the theory.

Jesus refers to creation and flood as though they were literal.

This an appeal to authority fallacy.

Mark 10:6 is teaching about divorce. Jesus uses the Genesis creation story to illustrate his point in verse 9: "What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." This point can still stand even if the reference verse 6 was allegorical. Just because Jesus refers to scripture, doesn't demonstrate that the scripture was intended to be taken literally.

This assumes that the texts of the New Testament accurately document Jesus' words. Not all people agree on this point; only those that do will find this claim convincing.

Genesis must be literal; it is straighforward narrative.

This suggests that the person has not actually read the Bible with all its poetry, metaphors or looked into the history of the various interpretations/redactions/translations. Even if the Bible were "straighforward narrative", this wouldn't tell us anything about its truth or otherwise.
The first and second chapters of Genesis actually give differing accounts as to the order that God made the various things. The Lord of the Rings is a straightforward narrative, but we all know it isn't historically true.

Haeckel's embryo drawings were proven wrong in 1874 and are still in biology books and human embryos don't have gill slits.

Frequent claim by the creationist movement as it proposes to cast into doubt the embryological evidence for evolution and common ancestry. However, it attributes a number of observations to Haeckel which he did not in fact make. Haeckel emphasized many embryological similarities in order to support his view of "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny". This idea proposes that our embryonic development "replays" our evolutionary history. He emphasized the fact that our embryos had a series of gill arches early in development because by Haeckel's time, this was already a well-established observation made by Baltic-German embryologists Karl Ernst von Baer, Heinrich Rathke, and Christian Pander. It was Rathke, not Haeckel, who described the "gills" of chicken embryos. Similarly, it was von Baer who noted that, in the early stages of development, it was often difficult to tell the embryos of different vertebrate classes apart. The observations and principles of the Baltic-German school are the earliest foundations of modern embryology and are hardly in dispute.

As noted by Gilbert, Haeckel's views had already been disposed of by von Baer in the 1830s. Von Baer's ideas of a nested hierarchy of embryological homology was more Darwinian and was in fact the greatest influence on Darwin's use of embryological evidence. Haeckel's views of embryology and evolution are fundamentally non-Darwinian. Moreover, they in no way form the basis of modern developmental biology or evolutionary developmental biology. The presence of "gills" in all vertebrate embryos has been known since Rathke and have never been in dispute by any biologist, nor is the concept of embryological homology. It is dishonest to attribute the discovery of gills in vertebrate embryos to Haeckel, in fact, it is as dishonest as Haeckel fudging his drawings.

Haeckel's drawings should be removed because they are fraudulent and do not represent a modern view of evolution and development. However, the points about embryological homology should be discussed in biology classes and texts as they help students understand the mechanisms of morphological evolution.

Gill slits are simply the invaginations between the pharyngeal pouches. The pouches contain mesodermal tissue, the gill arches or gill bars. The term is correct because the slits make contact between the outside and the pharynx. Let's not succumb to creationism paranoia. The gill arches themselves were not actually discovered by Haeckel, but some three decades before Darwin by a Baltic-German embryologist Heinrich Rathke in his two-volume treatise on human and animal development. The existence of these structures is not in dispute.

Most experts now agree that Lucy was only an unusual chimpanzee.

This is a misrepresentation fallacy.

Most experts in the field do not support that statement at all. Lucy remains a premier example of Australopithecus afarensis (Johanson 1999). A creationist making the claim needs to back up the statement with some references.

If it truly were the case that "most experts agree" that Lucy was only a Chimpanzee, Lucy's genus classification would have been changed from Australopithecus to the Genus Pan, which is that of Chimpanzees. A unanimous or near consensus opinion would force a change in Genus classification. Lucy still remains in the Australopithecus genus rather than Pan and, as such, is testimony that Kent Hovind's statement is but a falsehood.

Fairness demands evolution and creation be given equal time and teach the controversy.

Fallacies include false dilemma and appeal to pity and equivocation.

The statement is an appeal to false bisection. It is not the case that differing points of view must be included in teaching with equal weight, irrespective of their objective merits. Different hypotheses, theories and conclusions have objectively differing merit based on reasoning applied to the available evidence. Teaching of science must necessarily favor those hypotheses, theories or conclusions which have such greater merit, and discard hypotheses, theories or conclusions not supported by reasoning applied to the available evidence.

If this argument were valid, every other pseudoscience could also demand equal time with the scientific theories and hypotheses which are taught. The result would be that mainly questionable world views and pseudoscience would be taught in school instead of knowledge which is based on good science.

In fact, it would be remarkably unfair if in public schools time would be wasted for learning pseudoscience like creationism instead of preparing students by teaching good science for a world in which science is constantly becoming more important. In this case, this would be in particular unfair against students which could not afford expensive private schools where no time is wasted with pseudoscience, and which would then have even more advantages. Also, in the age of globalization and global job markets, students would have a disadvantage compared to students of other countries where proper science is taught.

It would be unfair to allow Creationism to bypass the scientific process and directly enter public science education when the theory of evolution has successfully gone through that process and continues to be supported by the world's experts.

Would Creationists like it if the Star Wars concept of midi-chlorins created life or that we were cloned by extra-terrestrials?

Scientifically, there is no controversy. Creationism is pseudoscience, and the theory of evolution has no scientific rival. It might well be a good idea for schools to teach students about the creation/evolution controversy. Since this controversy is basically political, it follows that the best classes in which to teach it would be those dealing with political science or social studies. There is clearly no reason to consider 'teaching the controversy' in biology classes, any more than any other political controversy ought to be presented in a biology class.
It should not be a goal of the education system to teach falsities along with truth. Teachers should not, for instance, teach that the holocaust happened, and then give "equal time" to holocaust deniers. If one wishes to teach critical thinking, taking all viewpoints to be equally valid is not the way to do it.

Darwin was racist, evolution is racist, Darwin's work refers to preservation of favoured races and Hitler based his views on Darwinism.

Fallacies contained in these claims include an abusive ad hominem, poisoning the well, appeal to consequences, naturalistic fallacy, theoretic fallacy, straw man, equivocation and guilt by association.

Regardless, what does this have to do with whether or not his theories are valid?

Darwin was remarkably egalitarian, in as much as he was a staunch opponent of slavery and had compassion for members of other races.

Since this Creationist argument is implicitly dependent on the proposition that the racism of a theory's proponents is a valid reason to reject a theory, it is worth noting that a number of prominent Creationists have been racist. The list includes Louis Agassiz, who denied that blacks and whites were even of the same species; George MacCready Price, who held that Negroes were a degenerate form of homo sapiens; and Henry Morris, who, in 1976, argued that the "genetic character" of "Hamites" is such that they are often "displaced by the intellectual and philosophical acumen of the Japhethites and the religious zeal of the Semites".
Darwin in The Descent of Man (chapter 7), after much consideration, concluded that all human races were probably the same species. He used the word "sub-species" for races, to designate that there were different varieties which did not differ significantly enough to be considered independent species. He thus undercut one of the major arguments for racism.

Racism is an ideology of value. It places different value on people of different race. While many racist ideologies may depend on some version of Darwinism, this does not mean that they are its logical consequence. Theories do not address fundamental values.

Some racists often misuse evolution as an explanation for the "superiority" they believe some races to have over others. Their belief, though, is usually held for reasons independent of this explanation. Evolution is completely devoid of racism; it is not even possible to be both a racist and an evolutionist. Since all races are currently surviving and reproducing, they are currently well-suited for survival on this planet.

"Race" to a 19th century naturalist simply meant differing populations. To be very specific, human races are not discussed at all in Darwin's first book on evolution, nor is human evolution. So any claim that Darwin was "racist" for the title of the book would suggest that he was "racist" concerning pigeons, or pigs, or mollusks, three of the more common examples given in the book.

Even if the connection between Darwin and Hitler were true, the consequences of a world view are irrelevant to its truth.
A particular person's misuse of a scientific theory does not invalidate the theory anymore than someone's misuse of scripture would invalidate religion.

Hitler abused science to justify his abuse of religion. In other words, his views were not based on Darwinism, but rather his distorted religious beliefs. Darwinism appeared to support his case, so he twisted it to fit his purposes.

Were you there?

This is a slothful induction fallacy and is equally effective against creationists.

Past events often leave evidence that can be found in the present. Techniques can be developed to extrapolate from findings. This is the basis of a great deal of science, industry, economics, and human interaction. This argument makes all human acts of logical deduction, intuition, extrapolation, and analysis meaningless. "Yes, I was." How do you know it's not true? Were you there?

Questions That Creationists Cannot Answer

Who was Cain’s wife? This question was asked to William Jennings Bryan at the Scopes trial by Charles Darrow. Also, creationists do not know who was Seth’s wife. Creationist Kent Hovind claims that Cain’s and Seth’s wives were their sisters and that God allowed this kind of sexual relationship until Moses.

Did Adam live to 930 years old? How come humans cannot live that long?

What did Adam and Eve look like, what was their colour of their skin, did they have a vertical forehead, large brain and limb bones similar to us?

How old are the fossils that are found by scientists? Is the dating system accurate and if not, do creationists have a better system?

How could a large wooden boat float, would it not be prone to leaks without a steel frame?

How could Adam and Noah be giants and smarter than humans now? There is no evidence given by creationists to suggest that were giants and these humans must have been meat eaters to have big brains and be smarter, creationists believe they were vegetarians.