D. James Kennedy: why do these upstanding moral leaders rely so heavily on dishonesty? January 23, 2008
Posted by Evil Bender in Origins, Religion, Science, wingnuts.trackback
D. James Kennedy today released his latest in a long line of historically inaccurately screeds, this one against evolution. No transcript is available at the moment, but you can get an idea of Kennedy’s tactics from the blurb at the above link:
Just how flimsy is the case for evolution? Even Darwin himself said, “Not one change of species into another is on record.” So why do his followers continue to support his crumbling theory? Find out, on Truths That Transform with Dr. D. James Kennedy.
Naturally, that quote is irrelevant, since Darwin built up an impressive case for evolution, and since then we’ve expanded that to an overwhelming avalanche of evidence for evolution. What’s worse, though, and surely a, ahem, respected scholar like Kennedy should have known, is that Darwin never said that. He said something moderately similar, in the context of explaining the strong evidence for evolutionary theory, but he never wrote or said the words Kennedy attributes to him.
The whole of the sermon is similar to that slip-up: quote-mining, out of context nonsense, claims without a word of evidence, gibberish about every evil “ism” in the world, from Nazism to communism, being caused by Darwin, and the usual argument from consequences that has absolutely no merit.
I don’t recommend listening to it unless you have a strong stomach.
But anyway, you don’t have to: Kennedy demonstrates in his blurb that he cares nothing for the facts or the evidence. He demonstrates he’s either a liar or completely incompetent, and either way he should not be taken seriously. It’s staggering pathetic. It would make me laugh how easy it is to refute Kennedy, if it wasn’t for how large and credulous an audience he has–and many of his ilk have.
I’m sure you probably know, he died last year.