Monday, June 1, 2009

Michael Shermer Vs. Eric Hovind

Michael Shermer, Editor of Skeptic Magazine, debated Eric Hovind (son of Kent Hovind) on Talk 97.1 . Listen here.

5 comments:

Aaron said...

Man I live in Saint Louis and could have listened to this live. I can't believe I missed the chance to talk to Shermer and stump Hovind. This was on the most conservative FM station in Saint Louis. It feels pretty good that Glover and the other hosts sided with Shermer on the issue.

I called in last year during a Priest and a Rabbi segment in defense of atheism and they hung up on me only after letting me make one comment.

Aaron said...

Shermer's tack was weak.

The radio hosts fortunately recognized Hovind for the huckster that he is, but there were many opportunities where Shermer could have really either grilled or destroyed Hovind, but didn't.

I don't know if it was to be courteous, or if he just didn't know, or if he's just not a skilled debater, but after listening to that, if I didn't know better I'd say that Hovind came off sounding more competent.

HERP said...

Shermer is just too nice, like you said he had his chances to ''drop the hammer'' on Hovind but he didn't.

Anonymous said...

Shermer is aware of his audience. I believe he did just enough damage to discredit Hovind. The DJs comments at the end were proof of that. Their comments on what Hovind had left to sell had me in stiches, and did more damage to his credibility than Shermer, but that simply leaves Shermer as the wiser man. I especially loved Shermer's line-by-line analysis of Genesis and how it was wrong at every line, then calling out Hovind when he "interpreted" the bible, only to back-pedal to try and save face. Shermer didn't have to do much; Hovind digs his own grave. I applaud Shermer for his efforts.

AIGBusted said...

I thought Shermer did fine. He discredited Hovind's "interpretation" argument by showing that catastrophes leave behind signs that slow geological processes do not.