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REPLY #56 TO
"EVOLUTION VS. CREATIONISM" NOTE: A reader has sent me several commonly-available photographs that were apparently gleaned from Kent Hovind's articles in support of his ravings about how "living dinosaurs constitute disproof of evolution". First, Hovind shows disturbing ignorance in not knowing that plesiosaurs are marine reptiles and are not "dinosaurs". Second, his examples range from outright frauds to old and inconclusive cases to examples that are actually the decayed remains of basking sharks. Third, Hovind is simply flat wrong in declaring that living examples of dinosaurs, plesiosaurs, or any other ancient creature would constitute disproof of evolution since evolution is not dependent upon any such creatures actually being extinct. Each of the reader's examples is listed below. I have provided links to relevant information that is available for these examples. (R) This apparent Plesiosaur washed up on Moore's Beach in Monterey Bay, California in 1925. The neck was described as being about 20 feet long. No credible explanation has ever been made to explain it, other than Plesiosaurs still living in the Pacific Ocean. (MB) Of course, this depends on what one considers to be a "credible explanation". Hovind's comment reflects the fact that this case is 75 years old and was never subjected to a thorough examination since, at the time, nobody seriously considered the remains to be anything other than a decomposed shark or sea lion. Check this out at: http://www.strangemag.com/seaserpgallery.htm (R) This photo of the Lake Champlain monster was taken by Sandi Mansi in 1977. Dr. Hovind interviewed her. The interview is on Seminar video tape #2. Thousands of people claim to have seen this creature in Lake Champlain, on the New York/Vermont border. (MB) A famous case that is thorougly examined in a Discover magazine article (Vol. 19, No. 4, Apr 98). Check this out at: http://www.discover.com/cover_story/monster.html (R) These two pictures are of an apparent Plesiosaur caught by a Japanese fishing boat off the coast of New Zealand in 1977. It had apparently been dead for a couple weeks. It was 32 feet long and weighed 4000 pounds. (MB) This is the single most famous "plesiosaur" case. Read the facts of the case at: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/paluxy/plesios.html (R) On November 16, 1970, this 50 foot long carcass washed ashore in Situate Harbor, Massachusetts in the middle of the night. Before it could be safeguarded and studied, a crowd had gathered and mutilated the body. Many of those who saw it felt it was a sea monster. (MB) Hovind seems to be the only person who knows about this incident since I can find no other references to it. One has to wonder about his account, though, since Hovind misspells the location (it should be "Scituate") and seems not to know (or chooses to ignore) that the area is famous for very large sharks. In fact, the world record for the largest shark ever landed with a rod and reel was set here. (R) This 31" creature was found and mounted by taxidermist Pete Peterson on the shore of Lake Erie. It is currently at the Creation Evidences Museum in Glen Rose, Texas. (MB) This one is a joke. Pete Peterson was a monster movie stop-motion special-effects master from the 50s and 60s. (Perhaps, his most famous movie was "The Black Scorpion".) A 31" figure would be consistent with the types of models used for his effects. The "Creation Evidences Museum" is, in reality, a house trailer maintained by noted Creationist fraud Carl Baugh. Here, Baugh seeks to perpetuate such long-discredited junk as the famous Glen Rose "dinosaur/human footprints" fraud from the Depression era. Baugh is a guy who is nuts enough to have planned to live in a tank filled with ozone in the belief that it would grant him the next best thing to immortality. Interested readers may get a few laughs about Baugh at this link: http://www.onthenet.com.au/~stear/baugh-for-kids.htm The bottom line here is that fantastic claims need to be investigated rather than given blind faith support. In most cases, the real answers are readily available to anybody who wants to find them. Creationists are in the business of suppressing or altering facts and hiding the real answers and Hovind is one of the worst offenders. If he's not doing it deliberately, then he's painfully ignorant. In either case, he's hardly somebody who's worthy of being given any credibility.
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