Challenge to KENT HOVIND to engage in a Written Form of Debate and Discussion

We who sign this petition would like to see Kent Hovind (advocate of Young Earth Creationism and holding the perspective that Evolutionary theory is religious, unscientific, and dumb) engage in a PUBLICALLY ACCESSIBLE WRITTEN EXCHANGE with one knowledgeable in the sciences.

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Kent Hovind has never, not once, engaged in such a written exchange and continues to complain against it by suggesting that such written material available to the entire world would not help anyone properly digest the information and evidence against or for evolutionary theory or creation ex nihlo, an old or young earth, a global flood (dogmatic neo-catastrophic geology) or conventional geology and would reach few if any people.

We the undersigned understand that this is nonsense. We understand that by participating in written exchanges both the participants in the discussion and those reading along will be able to carefully digest the arguments provided and to critique themselves, at their own pace, the scientific evidence and claims of diagnostic results from what is claimed to be good scientific research in favor of whatever hypothesis. We understand that in 'live debates' -- which Hovind has restricted himself to -- one is not capable of doing this effectively and that ones arguments, claims of scientific evidence, and results of research are entirely limited by what is within the immediate reach of the participants mind. The debate is then not an inquiry into what is true or false, but of who is most PERSUASIVE in leading listeners to believe they are correct.

We would like to see an exchange wherein which the possibility of rhetorical tactics and strategies involving fallacies of logic such as straw men and red herrings is by far reduced directly because of a participants ability to carefully apply himself in their search for the truth.

We would like to see an exchange wherein which the participants are not able to simply shrug off an argument without first coming to a tenable conclusion regarding the truth or falsity of that argument.

We think that if Hovind is wrong about his views or has been involved in the misrepresentation of data or is simply ignorant of the truth of what we can gleam from the results of scientific investigation -- we want to see it established in written form to serve as a concrete reference for those spectators interested in the truth.

We think that if Hovind is right about his views and scientists and those who regularly mock the credibility of his arguments or have been involved in the misrepresentation of data or is simply ignorant of the truth of what we can gleam from the results of scientific investigation -- we want to see it established in written form to serve as a concrete reference for those spectators interested in the truth.

We the undersigned think and believe that Kent Hovind holds a moral and ethical obligation to defending his radical views in the most effective and timeless environment possible (that of a medium of publicly accessible literature). Further, for the purposes of full disclosure we would like to end many years of criticism which hold that Kent Hovind is simply not confident enough in his 'scientific methods' (nor the results thereof) or his supposed many reasons to believe and evidences that scientists are foolish to accept the Theory of Evolution and a old earth as some of the best established scientific hypotheses in the history of mankind.

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We want Kent Hovind to show us that he is interested not simply in finding "evidence" for preconceived beliefs, but that he is interested in conveying what is the TRUTH and in condemning that which is FALSE regardless of whatever moral, religious, ethical, or aesthetic filter is applied to it.

We who accept the theory of evolution and an old earth want to see Hovind defend his claims, because our search for truth has led us to think they are nonsense.

And we who are Creationists and believe or accept a young earth and global flood want to know the truth of Kent Hovinds arguments, because we believe we are seekers of truth and want to see the truth stand up to an effective means of criticism, and want to see what is false condemned and thrown away.