Why do People Laugh at Creationists?

 

Why do people laugh at creationists?
Only creationists don’t know why.

There is the punch line to a great series of 24 (so far) videos on YouTube entitled “Why do people laugh at creationists?” by a YouTube poster called Thunderf00t.  They highlight the very worst logic that creationists have to offer and offer well thought out and insightful counterarguments to the nonsense.  

Now I am fully aware these videos do not constitute a thorough destruction of the creationism position or even a fair representation of their views.  Nonetheless there are some big names in the creationist movement represented here making some very daft points and the rebuttal is both eloquent and educational.

With that in mind these videos are really more in the nature of educational entertainment: watching idiotic statements getting eloquently shot down amuses me for some reason, and some of the counter arguments are actually very interesting (I even learnt quite a bit from them).  It also bugged me that I could never remember which video covered which points so I am also using this post as an index to the videos, and hopefully a useful resource. 

Here are the 24 parts and a brief discussion of what they cover:

Part 1: 

The Grand Canyon could have been formed in about 5 minutes, scientists have been desperately trying to find water on other planets, perfectly spherical orbit around the sun, Habitable zone around sun.

Part 2:

Hydrogen cannot turn into another element, moon covers sun exactly in an eclipse, chance of moon covering sun is 1 in a trillion

Part 3:

Kent Hovind’s giant ice meteor theory

Part 4:

Kent Hovind says one drop of water could cover the earth

Part 5:

Kent Hovind’s theory about a canopy of water above the atmosphere.

Part 6:

Kent Hovind argues that clouds stop x-rays and that x-rays cause aging.

Part 7:

Kent Hovind claims evolution says we started off tiny and we’re getting bigger, stronger, smarter etc.  Then he discusses hunter-gatherer tool making.

Part 8:

The “bogus improbability argument”.

Part 9:

Newton & Einstein quoted as believing in god, Ray Comfort’s buildings need builders, paintings need painters argument from the RRS debate.

Part 10:

Privileged Planet’s argument about fine tuning argument, Lee Strobel’s argument that changing the force of gravity by a tiny amount is catastrophic for life.

Part 11:

Noah’s ark, rate of change of salt content of sea, spiritual death and souls.

Part 12:

Kent Hovind garbles genetic biochemistry (badly)

Part 13:

William Dembski’s claims about complexity and design in DNA.

Part 14:

Various creationists use Bill Gates quote about DNA, random coverage of the Dover vs Kitzmiller trial.

Part 15:

Jonathan Well’s points about the cambrian explosion of life

Part 16:

Radiometric dating methods.

Part 17:

Kent Hovind explains how the code in the chromosomes is more complex and holds more information than all the computer programmes ever written combined.

Part 18:

Discussion of free speech and some creationist views of it.

Part 19:

Evolution is evil, microevolution is possible but macroevolution isn’t.

Part 20:

Moon recession rate from earth, a great cynical response to a mathematical error (3*4=1200)

Part 21:

Discussion of free speech/censorship based on banning of a creationist from youtube.
 
Part 22:

Ben Stein points out that Darwin didn’t know much and that there hasn’t been much progress since.

Part 23:

Ben Stein shows his ignorance of evolution.

Part 24:

Ben Stein explains how science leads to killing people.

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I’ll update this list if more videos are added.

Enjoy!