The Final Presentation!
October 13th, 2011 Posted in Creationism, EducationThat’s it, I just posted the 25th and final presentation in my series on science and creationism, analysing the slide presentations of Young Earth Creationist Kent Hovind.
You can find it here:
Presentation 25 : Miscellaneous
It’s been a strange project – I originally started this because I wanted to update my slides and produce a really rigorous takedown of all of Hovind’s arguments, but after a few presentations it became so obvious to me that the arguments just didn’t deserve it – most of them were so obviously wrong, and could be shown to be wrong with just a cursory glance, that I almost felt like I was wasting my time and that I ought to instead spend more effort putting together really decent educational presentations on central topics from my own point of view.
But I’d set it as a goal to complete this series, so I persevered. And here we are. I’m going to update my Presentations page in the next few days to point at the new slides, and the transcripts that I’ve been preparing (sorry that it’s taken so long to do this!). And then I’m going to start planning my next presentation series. I think it’s going to be on the topic of scientific method. I’m beginning to realise that Creationism is just an unworthy target – those who believe it are so far away from rationality that they aren’t going to be swayed by any rational argument. As Sam Harris once said, “If someone doesn’t believe in evidence, what evidence can you give them to show them that they’re wrong?”
So my new presentations will be aimed at getting people thinking in a more scientific way. They’ll be attempting to put a stop to nonsense that lies much closer to the everyday world around us – absurdities like homeopathy and other ‘alternative’ medicines, and general antipathy towards scientific progress.
So I hope you enjoyed the presentations, and watch this space for more!
