Remember when evangelist Ray Comfort told us bananas were atheists’ worst nightmare because they were proof — proof! — that evolution didn’t happen? God must have designed the banana, he argued, because it was so clearly made with humans in mind.

As people who understand science have been pointing out ever since, the kind of banana Comfort used in the video was actually a perfect example of evolution in action. Bananas of the past looked nothing like the yellow fruits we eat today. We can thank artificial selection for that.

Creationist Kent Hovind must be jealous of all the attention Comfort got for that bit, because he’s now trying his own version of the “I don’t understand food, therefore God did it” argument.

During his daily livestream yesterday, Hovind argued that God must have created broccoli, because there’s no way it could have evolved.

Broccoli. How could broccoli have evolved slowly by chance? I would like an answer to that. A very simple answer. How many trillions of intermediate steps would there have to be to change from an amoeba or from a single-celled creature to broccoli? Is there any scientific evidence for these supposed changes that you guys believe in — capital B, believe? Evolution is a religion. Is it more logical to believe that maybe broccoli was created by a really smart Creator?

The irony here is that broccoli is another example of artificial selection. We got cabbage, brussels sprouts, kale, cauliflower, and broccoli from the same ancestor. It was just a matter of artificially selecting certain traits from that ancestor to flourish. It didn’t take trillions of steps. In fact, it happened in about 2,500 years.

That means Hovind isn’t just talking out of his ass. He’s speaking with authority about something he didn’t even try to research. That’s how Creationists operate. They argue scientists can’t explain things, but the reality is, even when scientists can explain things, these Christians stick their fingers in their ears so they can remain in their fantasy bubble where the Bible contains all the answers.

Hovind, whose doctoral thesis from the unaccredited Patriot Bible University opens with the line, “Hello, my name is Kent Hovind,” went on to argue that people who accept evolution “cannot silence their critics with logic.” Which… really sounds like a self-own.

He then blamed his critics for his jail sentence — “they put me in prison for over nine years, over absolutely nothing” — not mentioning that he was in prison for tax fraud, not because he believed in silly superstitions.

Later in the show, Hovind returned to his broccoli argument, claiming that scientists could never create broccoli in the lab… even though, technically speaking, broccoli is a man-made creation. Just because we haven’t replicated life in a lab to the satisfaction of Creationists doesn’t mean God poofed everything into existence.

These Creationists really pick the worst examples in their attempts to destroy evolution, don’t they?

(via @paulogia0)

