Talk:Kent Hovind's doctoral dissertations

Shouldn't this have its own article without the forward slash? 03:56, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes. 04:33, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
 * And done. 04:36, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Copyright
Aren't both Patriot University[sic] and Dr[sic] Hovind denying that this is in fact his dissertation? This being so they surely can't claim copyright so can't we actually post it here? 00:14, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
 * They are saying that it is a rough draft. 00:16, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
 * It's fair use anyway if we critique it. We also should critique their illiterate "response".  00:35, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Copy
Are we hosting a copy? tmtoulouse 02:46, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, someone uploaded the pdf. 04:29, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Here 11:12, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Comic
I've just read it cover &mdash; cover (Well I read pages 1-4, a scattering of the middle few & page 102) and OMG what is he thinking. It reads like a seven-year-old's ramblings (apologies to any seven-year-olds out there). It's actually funny, worthy of any stand-up. 11:12, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Text copy?
Does anyone have a copy of this in actual text format? I'd like to run it through some of those algorithms that Google Documents has, for instance, that will analyze the complexity of the writing. I'd be interested in seeing at what level it is estimated...JFisher (talk) 23:17, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Don't think so: anyone got a reasonable OCR prog? Can't find one for Linux. 23:26, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I tried running a few pages through Microsoft OneNote 2007's text recognition thing and the results were pretty terrible. JFisher (talk) 02:50, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, yeah, your basic mistake was using MS software. Nice try, though.  04:11, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I done copied the OCR from that page linked by David Gerard to here. 14:37, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Fantastic, thanks! I plugged the text into GoogleDocs and got some metrics on it. Approximately 7th grade writing, which is a bit frightening.JFisher (talk) 16:42, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Patriot illiterate university
The level of spelling and grammar is just awful, it reads like youtube comments, yet it is a press release from a higher-education establishment. They don't even know how to use a fucking apostrophe! 13:10, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think he proofread it once, which, combined with the fact that a 10 year old could write better, makes for a really shitty paper. 13:42, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
 * In-fucking-credible. They consider themselves a center of learning, but don't even begin to get what the objections are.  It's not that it's rough.  It's not that it's incomplete.  The dissertation is unimaginably juvenile, nonsensical, and down right silly.  14:47, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Worth
The Patriot Univeristy page about this contains quite an insightful sentence: "Patriot issues Bible degrees for the purpose of equipping students for ministry; Patriot is not a research institution". Oh really, tell that to "Dr" Kent Hovind. 14:07, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
 * More like, Patriot issues degrees so that smart-ass creationists can tack a "Dr" onto the front of their name. 14:09, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
 * But surely if they perform no research then they cannot issue PhDs? 14:53, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
 * All it takes to get a PhD is for you do some work, write it up and for someone to say you've done enough work and credit it to you. The nature of this "work" isn't really dictated by the term "PhD" itself - many PhDs in arts and arts/humanities/literature subjects won't do research in the sense that science would understand it. Potentially, we could give out degrees from the RationalWiki foundation, although I'd be careful about turning our own site into a diploma mill, even for comedy value. From there, the issue is about accreditation and standards, hence why large organisations (US Department of Education, the Royal Society etc.) give their names to universities and institutions that give out PhDs. That's what gives the qualification its weight, not the letters themselves. So Patriot are allowed to give out PhDs, but they are and always will be degrees from Patriot, not Harvard, or MIT, or any respected university group world wide.
 * However, it is interesting to note that the US doesn't have an explicit law that protects the terminology in use here (in the same way that you get other protected terms such as "medical doctor", "dentist" etc.), although the US is required to publish a list of institutions it endorses so you can easily see if a "university" is on that list. Notably the establishment clause has been used to get around some government regulation too, as theology based degrees are religious in nature, so they wiggle out of accreditation that way. 12:25, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Arts PhDs don't involve scientific research, but they're just as hard work as science PhDs - David Gerard (talk) 13:21, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Rough Draft Allegation
With Patroit University claiming that it was a rough draft of Kent's dissertation that they sent, why did they not claim this when it first critiqued by Karen Bartlett. Why did they keep a rough draft on file anyway? Why would the rough draft contain a title page? --Cms13ca (talk) 19:52, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
 * And what would be the difference between a "rough draft" and a final copy anyway? If you're at a draft stage, the content is there, it's not going to magically do an about-face-turn and change completely. 11:55, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Readability
For comparison, I ran a Flesch-Kincaid test on some of my own and some colleagues documents. My 12 month TAP report came out at about 35.5 with a grade level of 13.5, a full thesis (which took a little longer to run) came out as 30.2 with a grade level of 14.1. That was raw documents. I suppose for a better analysis I should have pre-processed them to remove the figure captions, abstract, acknowledgements and preamble which would naturally have much shorter sentences and thus underestimate the complexity of the document according to the scale. Also, results sections of science dissertations also have naturally short, punchier and fact driven sentences - although that may be compensated for by the syllables per word factor. 12:02, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
 * This article comes out at 37.14 for readability and 14.32 for grade level. Most RW articles of decent length seem to come out around this with reasonably little deviation. 12:07, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I think this is unacceptably low, we should be aiming for 15 on all article. 12:19, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
 * FYI, you don't want public space documents to read that high. You are looking for tools for people who are not graduate students, to say "what the fuck is this creationism shit, and how do i fight it".  Newspapers are generally 8th - 10th grade, i think (we have some journalist students here, we should ask them).
 * Time to start killing all those full-stops then... 12:29, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The article really should make a better point of what a PhD in a similar field is expected to be. I can find some from CU's Education dept, to run - assuming that's really the topic of his dissertation.  I figure CU, or UNC are lower to middle quality schools in colorado and would reflect an average to lower level academic?  --[[Image:green mowse.png|25px]]Godot  She was a venus demilo in her sister's jeans  18:26, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

What is his dissertation about
One thing this article is missing, is a simple statement of what Hovnid's dissertation is supposed to be about. I *think* we are saying it's about "creationism in history", but that's not really clear. can someone who's read the disaster add that to the top section. If not, I'll read it when i feel like a good laugh or horror show, and add it. :-)--Godot She was a venus demilo in her sister's jeans  18:15, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Ok, i just read his intro paragraph. I know why no one can summarize his thesis -- there is no thesis. This is worse than many of my first year "intro to religion" papers.  Seriously.   --[[Image:green mowse.png|25px]]Godot  She was a venus demilo in her sister's jeans  18:30, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I wish it was that easy to get a real PhD. Генгис silverbrain.png 19:19, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I do want to do something like this to get a second. Scarlet A.pngsshole silverbrain.png 20:06, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I think for the hell of it, you should apply for a phd in theology! [[Image:green mowse.png|25px]]Godot She was a venus demilo in her sister's jeans (edit) Just say "god is good, god is great. I love god. I hate atheists".   20:15, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
 * It would be awesome to have a real PhD from a proper uni and then a second PhD from a diploma mill. Генгис silverbrain.png 20:34, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
 * My theology dissertation/"book". "I love god.  God is great.  God hates atheists".  I think i could write that for 24,000 words.[[Image:green mowse.png|25px]]Godot  She was a venus demilo in her sister's jeans  21:00, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
 * You could add a few limericks as well. Генгис silverbrain.png 00:02, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
 * If you're feeling spendy Scarlet A.pngnarchist silverbrain.png 22:30, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Hmm, Angelology. Генгис silverbrain.png 22:46, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I still think we should flog RWF accredited degrees in exchange for donations. Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>sshole silverbrain.png 22:36, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I wonder if they'll give me a PhD in exchange for bringing their website forth from the days of Geocities. [[file:Nuttysig.svg|95px|link=User:Nutty Roux|Nutty Roux]]100x100 anarchy symbol.svg 23:15, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

A mention
Some blog: Hovind's dissertation is not as bad as its critics on RationalWiki think.--ZooGuard (talk) 16:17, 16 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Anything factual in there that we should take note of? I'm not familiar with ancient Greek philosophers. But if we have factual errors in the article we should fix them. Doctor Dark (talk) 01:52, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

"I don´the garbage heap"
Seriously, anyone knows what this bit actually means? --Ray´s Super Fun Hellhole! g͘͡r̸̀a̸̶̡n̶̶͜ţ̡ ̀҉̴̨͡m̀͘͜͢e͡ ̸͟҉̷̢ỳ̸̡̀͞ơ̡̢̡ų̧r̴̀͡͝ ̡҉҉̧̛s̵̕͏̡ǫ̀́͢ų́l̵̕҉ 12:31, 16 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Simple failure to proofread, if you ask me. See cdesign proponentsists. Alec Sanderson (talk) 13:30, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

"Evolution doesn't happen"
Try telling that to those involved in selective breeding - including canaries/budgerigars,, and  (to take but a few examples), and the crab species (I think it was) which appears to be dividing into 'top of the beach' and 'close to the water' varieties if not species. 82.44.143.26 (talk) 15:45, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Idea for expanding the article
Knowing one of his "Doctorate" "Degrees" is a D.Min degree, why not have a side by side comparison with Kent Hovind's dissertation and one from an accredited seminary?--Rationalzombie94 (talk) 00:43, 13 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, (a) his D.Min. is not availible (we are pretty sure it doesn't exist); (b) his other two dissertations are way too long for a proper side-by-side; (c) to do so you will of course need a proper dissertation that isn't copyrighted. JorisEnter (talk) 05:14, 13 October 2015 (UTC)


 * I admit I do not know too much about dissertations, only the basic stuff but I though Kent Hovind's dissertation for his D.Min was released via wiki links?--Rationalzombie94 (talk) 12:48, 13 October 2015 (UTC)
 * O wait you're right. His D.Min. was one of the two released 'dissertations', it's the D.D. and the Th.D. that are 'honorary'/fake. Still, it's 200-something pages. It would be easy to point out some of the stupidity in it, though. JorisEnter (talk) 13:34, 13 October 2015 (UTC)


 * How about this, compare Hovind's "Thesis" with the regulations of a D.Min set by the Association of Theological Schools then?--Rationalzombie94 (talk) 15:03, 13 October 2015 (UTC)
 * If those regulations can be copied without trouble about copyrights, I'd say: why not? JorisEnter (talk) 15:21, 13 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Though not exactly what I mentioned, I did do a comparison on Patriot Bible's requirements and an accredited seminary's requirements on the Patriot Bible University page.--Rationalzombie94 (talk) 15:58, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

Something that is better than Hovind's "dissertation"
My 10th grade mythology paper on Santa Claus. Hell, I think my 7th grade paper on the Gas Giant planets is probably better. Anyone else have papers from school that are better than Hovind's dissertation?--Rationalzombie94 (talk) 22:32, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
 * My essay on Cicero which I wrote at age 11. Also my paper on "Modern scientific theories and principles in Plato's Timaeus and Politeia", written at 16. Basically anything I wrote in high school is better than this.--JorisEnter (talk) 23:09, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Silver rating?
Seems ready enough? Reverend Black Percy (talk) 15:56, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Hmmm, it's a bit short and could use some more citations. A debunking in the style of Expelled: Leader's Guide would be awesome, but I'm afraid Hovind's 100+-page "dissertation" is a bit too long for that (plus it would simply take way too long to write an actual refutation).--JorisEnter (talk) 14:50, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

I dare any of you to "study" through Patriot Bible University
It would be hilarious. Flaunt your, "doctorate" and act like you are right on subjects such as education (even if they are outlandish)--Rationalzombie94 (talk) 02:13, 10 August 2017 (UTC)