Fire breathing T-Rex, just ask Dr. Dino

[OmegaGuy]

Exactly where does the 'pull the arm off' crap come from? It doesn't seem to be a useful lie for creationists.

[weemadando]

Exactly where does the 'pull the arm off' crap come from? It doesn't seem to be a useful lie for creationists.

It is a very useful lie, because, to an undecided moron, it sounds plausible. That plausible statement draws in the undecided moron who continues to read and finds more and more "plausible" statements. Then some that aren't plausible, but he's already too far gone to realise.

[OmegaGuy]

It seemed to be one of the most moronic statements in the entire thing if you ask me.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Exactly where does the 'pull the arm off' crap come from? It doesn't seem to be a useful lie for creationists.

It seems like he's trying to discredit science. Think of it this way "Scientists think you could tear off the arm of a T-Rex! HAHAH they don't kno what they're talking about so we shouldn't trust them"

[Hillary]

I tend to think this is really one big elaborate hoax by one of the major TV channels in the US.

In about 5 years or so, someone will leap out with a microphone (a la Candid Camera) and shout

"Gotcha!! Can't believe we fooled you with all this dinosaurs-living-with-people stuff. We started off slowly by telling you all that there was a world-wide flood and such, then simply became more and more outrageous to see how far we could go until you sussed us out. I can't believe you never did. We were sure you'd spot that Fox News wasn't a real TV station"

[Magnetic]

I tend to think this is really one big elaborate hoax by one of the major TV channels in the US.

In about 5 years or so, someone will leap out with a microphone (a la Candid Camera) and shout

"Gotcha!! Can't believe we fooled you with all this dinosaurs-living-with-people stuff. We started off slowly by telling you all that there was a world-wide flood and such, then simply became more and more outrageous to see how far we could go until you sussed us out. I can't believe you never did. We were sure you'd spot that Fox News wasn't a real TV station"

Yeah, kinda makes me think that way too, that it is some kind of hoax.


Anyway, about the T-rex arms. . . . . .How do they compare, in size, to present animals, . . . or to OUR arms? Any animals with similar sized appendages that are "easily torn off"?

Yeah, makes me think that this is a hoax. . . . . . . . . . . .or the ideas of a retard.

[Molyneux]

T-rex arm is roughly equivalent in actual size to a human arm, I believe; it may be somewhat shorter, however.

[Darth Raptor]

T-rex arm is roughly equivalent in actual size to a human arm, I believe; it may be somewhat shorter, however.

And yet, despite its almost vestigial nature, muscle scars suggest it's several times stronger than a human arm.

[Magnetic]

You know, . . . . looking at a T-rex, it is a pretty ODD look. If one didn't know better you'd think that they accidently placed the arms of a completely different dinosaur on the T-rex (back when it was first discovered). A smaller dinosaur that died along side the T-rex who was feeding on his dead carsas, . . . . . gets attacked himself, gets killed, eaten, except for the little puny arms that got left behind as the rest of him was caried off. . . . . . . . . oh, and this other dinosaur was a pack hunter whose other members of the pack made off with the T-rex's actual arms as other larger scavengers approached. . . . . . .

That is my imagination, ladies and gentlemen. . . . thank you very much. I'll be here all week.

[Darth Raptor]

Tyrannosaur arms didn't make sense when they did the original back-breakingly vertical reconstructions. But that's just it, tyrannosaurs don't stand perfectly erect. No theropod does.

Theropods, and most bipedal dinosaurs for that matter are like a walking lever. The hips act as a fulcrum and there's an endless balancing act between the head and tail. The more massive the head, something else has to give in order to maintain ballance. In tiny dinosaurs or herbivores with tiny heads they seem to have proportional-sized arms. When you get to the big carnivores like allosaurs and megalosaurs, who did their killing with their mouths, the arms become increasingly diminished.

T. rex is just an extreme example of this phenomenon. A head more massive than any other theropod before it. As a result, the arms are practically useless. Some have hypothesized that had the tyrannosauridae continued to exist into the Paleocene, the arms would have disappeared completely.

[defanatic]

That would have been fairly interesting to look at. As well as the vestigial arms. Pointless bones on the shoulder, and a shoulder as well.

[wolveraptor]

I never understood why such apparently vestigial organs would carry that much strength (for their size; the arms were theorized to have a pull of several hundred pounds, which is of course miniscule for a 7 ton animal).

[Molyneux]

I never understood why such apparently vestigial organs would carry that much strength (for their size; the arms were theorized to have a pull of several hundred pounds, which is of course miniscule for a 7 ton animal).

They may have still been useful for something; I've heard it theorized that the larger predatory dinosaurs used them to help lever themselves up somehow from a lying-down position.

[Darth Raptor]

Or to help males grapple onto females' backs when they're getting their freak on.

[Molyneux]

Or to help males grapple onto females' backs when they're getting their freak on.

The idea of a Hovindite trying to wrap their head around (and the subsequent head explosion) makes me very happy.

Incidentally, there's an article on the DrDino site pointing to the bombardier beetle as proof of irreducible complexity; I sent them an email linking them to Talk.Origins' article on the possible evolution of that species, but so far I haven't received a reply. Think they'll actually read it?

[Anguirus]

The idea of a Hovindite trying to wrap their head around (and the subsequent head explosion) makes me very happy.

I think even individuals as staggeringly prudish and idiotic as they have to accept that animals will mate with each other.

[DPDarkPrimus]

Incidentally, there's an article on the DrDino site pointing to the bombardier beetle as proof of irreducible complexity; I sent them an email linking them to Talk.Origins' article on the possible evolution of that species, but so far I haven't received a reply. Think they'll actually read it?

No.

[Superman]

Or to help males grapple onto females' backs when they're getting their freak on.

The idea of a Hovindite trying to wrap their head around (and the subsequent head explosion) makes me very happy.

Incidentally, there's an article on the DrDino site pointing to the bombardier beetle as proof of irreducible complexity; I sent them an email linking them to Talk.Origins' article on the possible evolution of that species, but so far I haven't received a reply. Think they'll actually read it?

Don't waste your time with him. I tried talking to him once, and it was like banging my head against a brick wall.

It's not a matter of changing his mind, it's a matter of showing him to be a con artist. He's not doing this because he believes in this crap.

[Superman]

By the way, let's not forget that Maury Adkins, an elder in Hovind's Creation Science Institute is a convicted con man.

10/31/1977 UTTERING FORGERY 02/11/1981 DUVAL 3Y 6M 0D
07/17/1985 FRAUD-CHECK 01/15/1986 DUVAL 8511355 4Y 0M 0D
08/12/1985 GRAND THEFT,$300 LESS &20,000 09/17/1985 DUVAL 8508895 1Y 3M 0D
09/12/1985 GRAND THEFT,$300 LESS &20,000 01/15/1986 DUVAL 8510135 4Y 0M 0D
06/24/1988 FRAUD-CHECK 08/03/1989 DUVAL 8905182 1Y 0M 1D
09/13/1988 FRAUD-CHECK 08/03/1989 DUVAL 8905479 5Y 0M 0D
10/12/1988 FORGERY/UTTERING 08/03/1989 DUVAL 8901696 5Y 0M 0D
10/12/1988 UTTERING FORGERY 08/03/1989 DUVAL 8901696 5Y 0M 0D
06/24/1988 FRAUD-CHECK 08/03/1989 DUVAL 8905182 0Y 3M 0D
09/13/1988 FRAUD-CHECK 08/03/1989 DUVAL 8905479 0Y 3M 0D
10/12/1988 FORGERY/UTTERING 08/03/1989 DUVAL 8901696 0Y 3M 0D
10/12/1988 UTTERING FORGERY 08/03/1989 DUVAL 8901696 0Y 3M 0D
01/25/1989 FRAUD-CHECK 08/03/1989 DUVAL 8905479 0Y 0M 60D
03/04/1994 GRAND THEFT,300 L/5,000 06/09/1994 CLAY 9400386 1Y 0M 0D
03/04/1994 GRAND THEFT,300 L/5,000 06/09/1994 CLAY 9400386 2Y 0M 0D
05/10/1995 GRAND THEFT,300 L/5,000 09/13/1996 DUVAL 9509037 3Y 5M 23D
05/26/1995 ORG.FRAUD - UNDER $20,000 09/13/1996 DUVAL 9509037 3Y 5M 23D
07/12/1995 GRAND THEFT,300 L/5,000 12/12/1996 CLAY 9600032 3Y 5M 23D

And Hovind himself has had his own problems with the law.

Hovind has gotten in trouble with authorities repeatedly for scofflaw behavior related to his anti-evolution ministries. Hovind operates a "theme park" in his native Pensacola, Florida, called "Dinosaur Adventure Land", for which he has been charged with failure to procure proper building permits. In 1996, Hovind was ordered by the Internal Revenue Service to pay several years' back taxes after having been found to have failed to file income tax ever. Hovind attempted to circumvent the ruling by filing bankruptcy, but his bankruptcy claim was found by the courts to have been filed in bad faith. [4] (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/hovind-decision.html) In April 2004, Hovind's offices were raided by the IRS, who accused Hovind of failing to report millions of dollars in income. According to the IRS none of Hovind's enterprises has a business license in Escambia County or has tax-exempt status as a nonprofit enterprise.

Hovind's response to all of his legal troubles has been to cast himself in the role of martyr and victim of religious persecution. He believes the US government has no legal jurisdiction over his church.

from here

Several years ago he was ordered to pay back taxes after having failed to file with the Federal government ever. In an attempt to circumvent the ruling against him, Hovind tried to declare bankruptcy, claiming that he had no assets or income. The court ruled that his bankruptcy was filed in bad faith.

here

In 2002, Hovind was brought up on assault charges. The charges were later dropped.

here

Here are his court records:

Hovind bankruptcy decision, 1996

Hovind v. Schneider, 2002

Escambia County Clerk of Courts

Let's see, he associates with criminals, lies under the guise of religion (while saying things like he is offering a 200,000 dollar prize before, during and AFTER filing for bankruptcy) and he's been in the court system numerous times. If it walks like a lying con man, talks like a lying con man... you get the idea.

Even Answers in Genesis (as do many Christian groups) has a problem with this guy. Hovind has no answers from Genesis

Now, he's not just a con man (in my humble opinion), but he's also showing signs of being psychotic.

I suspect SARS is one of the many, many, many man-made pathogens to purposely lower the human population. That's just what I would suspect. I love my country, I fear my government, okay. There have been all kinds of things produced in the last 50 years in various laboratories - and things like that - that are designed to kill people. Bottom line. I think SARS is probably one of those man-made pathogens, like probably AIDS is the same thing.

Source: Truth Radio 7 August 2003 @ 42:30

Chemtrails, you know, the airplanes that fly over in a criss-cross pattern in the sky - you know, makes the big checker board trails in the sky - when they are releasing chemicals that are dispersing through the atmosphere and covering large cities. Many people have gotten extremely seriously worried about this, and rightfully so. [.....] There's a lot of theories about what is going on - there is a whole lot of secrecy too about what is going on - nobody seems to know for sure. It appears there are some people who seriously would like to reduce the population of the planet to about a half billion. [.....] And there are an awful lot of folks who think, and I happen to be one of those that agrees, that this chemtrail thing is one of the things that sets up the population for plagues, or whatever, coming soon.

Source: Truth Radio 1 October 2003 @ 28:45

Oklahoma City bombing was done on purpose. Did you know the Federal Government blew up their own building to blame it on the militias and to get rid of some people that weren't cooperating with the system?

Source: Part 5---Evolution: the Foundation for Communism, Nazism, Socialism, and the New World Order Video @1:36:10 [June 2003]

Satan is seeing to it that well meaning parents are destroying their children's immune system by putting over 22 viruses into their system before they are two.
Source: http://www.cbbc.net/RS/ 6 Jan 2002 Session #3 @ 18:00

My take on what happened with the moon landing was [......] they suspect [sic] that on impact that the cameras would be damaged because back in 1969 cameras weren't, you know, like they are today, as good. So they had a studio set up at CBS to mimic the moon landing. And sure enough the cameras broke and so they flipped, you know, the CBS studio on. And what you saw of the footage of the '69 moon landing was actually at CBS studio.

Source: Creation Evolution and Dinosaurs session #5 Q&A @ 1:55 [January 2002]

I love this next one. This comes straight out of the DSM as a symptom of paranoid schizophrenia.

I have heard that the cable TV system is going to be set up where not only can you watch the TV, the TV can watch you to monitor what is in your room. Kinda like Orwell's 1984. Big Brother is watching, course in our case it will be Big Sister [Ma Bell] [.....] I'd suspect the technology is here where the TV can watch you, even if you have it shut off, your TV can watch you to see what is going on.
Source: http://www.lanset.com/crknudson/hovind.htm Questions About Creation - Part 2 @ 18:30 [accessed March 2002]

Anyway, check out more of his quotes here:

Kent Hovind is sane. Yeah, really.

So if you're trying to debate him, or even talk to him, have fun.

[Molyneux]

Drat it...well, the girl I talked to on the phone (there's a toll-free number, and the comment system on the Hovind site was down) sounded nice enough...maybe she'll realize the amount of bullshit he's spewed before it's too late?

[Superman]

Drat it...well, the girl I talked to on the phone (there's a toll-free number, and the comment system on the Hovind site was down) sounded nice enough...maybe she'll realize the amount of bullshit he's spewed before it's too late?

And maybe the atomic weight of Boron will suddenly become 25 Gg.

[PainRack]

Just a question.

Is it even possible for Neil Armstrong, the FBI or any other person implicated of lying or involved in a huge conspiracy cover-up to sue Kent for slander?

[Superman]

Just a question.

Is it even possible for Neil Armstrong, the FBI or any other person implicated of lying or involved in a huge conspiracy cover-up to sue Kent for slander?

I thought of that once as well. I once asked James Randi why he doesn't sue Sylvia Browne for libel and slander (she said he doesn't have the prize money and that he lied), and he simply said "too much time and effort."

Don't forget that here in the U.S., all parties involved in court pay their own legal costs. It would be a lot of work, and probably not worth the time. There's nothing criminal there (civil maybe, but not criminal) and they don't need his money.

If a judge could slap a "stop being a screwball con artist" statute on him, then it would be worth it. Otherwise, probably not.

[Master of Ossus]

And I thought the punching a shark on the snout thing was stupid.

Actually, Mythbusters tested that and found it to be plausible. They couldn't guarantee that it would work in an actual shark attack, but their attitude was, "It seems to be effective in scaring off more passive sharks, so you might as well try it if you get attacked." The episode also featured the woman on the show in a bikini top.

[The Spartan]

According to a shark special on the Discovery Channel I saw a few nights ago, it's actually better to aim for the eyes or gills. This according to a shark expert who was on the show and is the director of a shark attack database (or some such).