December 11, 2024

A Mammoth Wager

There is one more thing I need Bob Enyart to be aware of before he posts his final submission to our debate, because this is going to matter, and he should know that he’ll have to address this particular point or it will cost him.

Now I don’t really expect him to honestly concede EVERYTHING he got wrong in our debate.  He’s a pastor.  Think about it.  Having to admit that you lied -about everything- to all those people in the pews who’ve been paying your bills for all these years!?  It’s unthinkable.  Look at his website, and his donation page.  He’s got a lot invested in some of his lies.  If he were an honest man, he would of course concede and correct every point he got wrong with me on his show, which was everything he said at that time.  That implies a continuing pattern, a life-long commitment to Wrong.

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If Bob were to owe up to ALL the errors saved in his archive, he’d have no ministry left.  He’d have to get a job and work for a living.  So no, I’m not trying to take away his indoctrination station, his church and his radio show, his online store,   I just don’t want him marketing our argument on a DVD for $24.99 like he did with so many other science-minded people.

I’m gonna focus on one particular point.  It’s not as good as proving he was wrong about phylogeny, or forcing him to admit that no one ever found undecomposed dinosaur blood.  This is a classic, so plainly disproved that even AnswersinGenesis lists that as one of many arguments creationists should not use anymore.  Amazingly Bob is still clinging to it.

In Part5 of our argument on the radio, which can be heard at 15:15 of his radio link, Bob and I had the following discussion.

(I’m in bold type; Bob is in italics.)

Here’s the way science works, because accuracy matters: When you have two guys like us and we’re talking, -and it’s always been this way with me- I mean, when people say “you know, they found this or that or the other thing and, it’s been since like I was a little kid, I keep hearing the story of like, say for example millions of mammoths flash-frozen with tropical flora in their mouths. And then eventually, when you get to a point where you have access to the internet for example, you can start looking up these things to verify who ‘they’ are, and how many mammoths they really found, etc. etc. I found that there were fifty-one mammoths, not millions, and that none of them, not one was found with tropical flora in their mouths unless a tulip from Denmark can be considered ‘tropical’.

OK I actually have the data. I’ve got the data. The tonnage of mammoth tusks that were sold on the world-wide market indicate that there were millions of mammoths that were buried in Siberia and at the Arctic circle and north of the Arctic circle, and there were mammoths that had the seeds of tropical plants, the seeds, in thier digestive tract.

Wrong.

Well I could give you the data.

I challenge you.

Hey, you think I’m wrong…?

Yeah I do.

…about over a million mammoths buried?

Yeah, I definitely do, and yes, it’s a formal challenge.

How about we have a bet? Five hundred dollar bet to your favorite charity -or mine- that the documentation shows that over a million mammoths have been buried?

With tropical flora?

No, no, there was one of that!

…in their mouths?

There was one of that. There was one of that.

Tropical?!

Yeah, tropical.

We then argued the definition of ‘tropical’ -just to be clear, and I clarified again:

OK so you’re gonna tell me that you found, or that somebody found multiple millions of mammoths in the Arctic circle and that ANY of these mammoths were found with flora in their mouths that are only found in tropical regions?

Yeah, I just said that one mammoth was found with seeds of tropical vegetation.

At that point, we agreed that the number of frozen mammoths was in the dozens only, and we both agreed that there were likely millions more buried mammoths that were not frozen. Yet I still challenged Bob to show his data on one last point, that none of them were found with tropical flora in or around them.

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I don’t want to go into all the silly reasons why Bob perpetuates this particular urban legend.  It has to do with Walt Brown’s rationalizations for the flood that never happened. So Bob asserts that whole world was tropical then -even at the poles.  He says that mammoths couldn’t even survive where or how we know that they did.  Suffice it to say that everyone knows that Bob’s claim is not true, and he should admit it.

Now I’ve been told not to expect him to do anything that was kind, sporting, charitable, or altruistic.  What I’ve seen of him online implies that he’s not that sort of person.  But that might be the one thing he might actually be able to prove me wrong about.   Here’s how he could do that: When Bob posts his response to my list of his contested errors in our debate, he needs to present adequate proof from verifiable sources showing that any of these frozen arctic mammoths had tropical flora in or on them.  If he can’t or won’t do that, then I will remind him that my favorite charity is Médecins Sans Frontières.  They have an up-coming benefit this September 8th – 9th on DPRJones’ BlogTV channel.  The Richard Dawkins Foundation described this occasion as the largest atheist charity event in the world.  P.Z.Myers, James Randi, Matt Dillahunty, Seth Andrews, Mr.Deity, and many others will join me and ZOMGitsCriss and a number of other ‘YouTube’ atheists for a 24 hour annual telethon which has, over the course of the last three years- raised over $100,000.00 for Doctors without Borders.  I doubt Enyart would do anything to contribute to this, but if he is a man of his word, as I am, then when that time comes, he should honor his wager in response to my formal challenge, and donate $500.00 either by the JustGiving or FirstGiving links provided for that purpose.  100% of all donations go directly to MSF with no deductions for anyone.

 

20 thoughts on “A Mammoth Wager

  1. You are currently linking to a CMI page that doesn’t have anything to do with the Fresh Dino Blood urban legend.

  2. It is sort of like NephilimFree and several others of that ilk. If it can be found through Google on Creationist websites, then it is true (by definition). On the other hand, what is found in peer- or jury-reviewed academic, scholarly, and/or scientific journals (that cannot be immediately found through Google) cannot be true (by definition).

    This fellow did a Google search, found somebody’s nonsensical claim, adds it to his belief system, and continues to re-state that claim. For folks like this, the obligation to prove or to disprove is always on the other side but is not an obligation for them.

    The rules of logic do not and never will apply to folks such as these… well, at least from their viewpoint. Remember, belief systems are bulletproof.

  3. I would think that what is seen of him online means he is not worthy of debate – convicted of beating his 7yr old stepson with a belt. And the hypocrisy…

    On the show, Enyart frequently bashed the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which he has said helps guilty criminals go free and defends child pornographers.

    But in a peculiar twist to his own case, Enyart enlisted two ACLU lawyers, Patrick Mulligan and Randy Canney, to argue his Constitutional rights to free speech were being violated.

    Enyart was unavailable for comment, but the unusual alliance was not lost on his attorneys.

    “The irony of it all is hilarious,” Canney said.

    His free speech was being violated by being prosecuted for child abuse!

    1. Actually should have said to be clear that his punishment for child abuse was violating his free speech! Although I would think one time that someones free speech is not a concern is when they are advocating things they have been found guilty of…

      Probation officials sought to block Bob Enyart from appearing tonight on the Father’s Day edition of ABC’s Politically Incorrect because it would undermine Enyart’s rehabilitation by giving him a national forum to justify his actions, despite his criminal conviction

  4. To be fair, he only bet you that his documentation said that there were a million mammoths. He didn’t bet that his documentation was accurate. 😉

  5. 100% of all donations go directly to MSF with no deductions for anyone.

    Well, except for the 2-5% that JustGiving takes.

      1. From your link:

        Once we have successfully reclaimed Gift Aid for the charity, we take a fee. It’s between 2% and 5%, depending on the amount the charity has raised (plus a card-processing fee of up to 1.3% for a credit card, charged by our partners Barclaycard and PayPal). Charities also pay £15 a month (plus VAT) to be a JustGiving member.

        So, your point is?

        1. When you donate using JustGiving, we pass on 100% of your donation to the charity within days.

          We then reclaim an extra 25% for the charity in Gift Aid from HRMC. Our technology enables us to reclaim this tax relief much more quickly than a charity could themselves.

          Once we have successfully reclaimed Gift Aid for the charity, we take a fee. It’s between 2% and 5%, depending on the amount the charity has raised (plus a card-processing fee of up to 1.3% for a credit card, charged by our partners Barclaycard and PayPal).

          100% of your donation is passed on without deduction as claimed, the additional 25% given by HMRC is where the reduction comes. Your claim would be valid only if YOUR contribution was reduced.

          1. a) Not all donations qualify for Gift Aid, those that don’t still have the 5% fee taken.

            b) When I donate to MSF directly they get both my donation and the Gift Aid on my donation, so they do get less money from me donating through JG

            I’m not arguing that they don’t earn their fee, but to claim that there’s “no deductions for anyone” is demonstrably false.

  6. The typical reply from cultists when offered a wager to support their assertions is to loudly and publically agree, tghen go in to hiding, then deny they ever agreed.

  7. I tried reading the debate you linked, but after 45 minutes or so Enyart’s stupidity made my brain hurt, so I grabbed a beer and a cigar and went out on the back porch to listen to some music on my iPod. I feel better now.

    Thanks for taking on this charlatan, Aron.

  8. I love MSF, though I would have been much snarkier and requested donations to the ACLU or an Atheist charity group in the states, just to let it sting 🙂

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