Eric Hovind misrepresents a children's science book to dismiss scientific study

[Questioninggeller]

Recently Eric Hovind, son of convicted fraudster Kent Hovind, wrote:

The Real Way Dinosaurs Died Off Is a “Gas”
Eric Hovind of CreationToday
September 15th, 2012

You have probably heard about the theory that is circulating now that Dinosaurs killed themselves off with their own gasses! That is right, flatulence is what actually killed the dinosaurs. Believe it or not, this idea is actually not new. Back in 1995 the Young Oxford Book of The Prehistoric World by Jill Bailey and Tony Seddon, made the suggestion that the dinosaurs had killed themselves off with their own Flatulence.
...
Despite attempts at bringing this idea back to life, it still can’t be true.

Full: CreationToday (Link includes a slide from Kent Hovind's presentation on the matter.)

A copy of the actual part from the book is below. Here is the text of that image (any transcription errors are mine):

From slipped disks to flatulence

Something very odd happened at the end of the Cretaceous period. The belemnites, ammonites, pliosaurs, plesiosaurs, itchthyosaurs and mosasaurs all became extinct from the world’s oceans. The dinosaurs suddenly died out on land and the pterosaurs disappeared from the Cretaceous airspace. Scientists have been puzzling for a long time about this mass extinction and especially why the dinosaurs suddenly died out.

Many theories have been put forward. Some scientists suggest that the earth’s climate changed as temperatures became cooler. Others support the theory that a gigantic asteroid collided with the Earth. Such a collision would have caused a huge cloud of dust that would have blotted out the Sun, on which all living things depend. Maybe dinosaur eggs were eaten by the up-and-coming mammals. Perhaps the biggest dinosaurs suffered from the slipped disks because of their great weight. Other theories lay the blame on a sudden enormous massive downpour of acid rain following Earth’s collision with the asteroid. A scientist from Indiana has even suggested the startling theory that the dinosaurs killed themselves off with their own flatulence (wind). The methane they produced caused the earth’s atmospheric temperature to warm up, creating a king of “greenhouse effect.” This might have increased global warming to a point where dinosaurs could not stand the heat.

Firstly, these two paragraphs from the 1995 (17 year old children’s book) is the ENTIRE section that addresses the extinction of the dinosaurs. In does NOT say what Hovind wrote. The book clearly surveys the different and varied ways scientists think about the extinction. As it is a children’s book, Jill Bailey and Tony Seddon don’t make judgments about the theories, but point out what they are, including the strange that will interest children. Indeed, the book says "a scientist from Indiana" came up with the flatulence idea. Further, they wrote: "Scientists have been puzzling" over it. That means doing what scientists do: come up with ideas and test them.

Secondly, it is quite revealing that Kent and Eric Hovind get their knowledge about science from children’s books, which in this case is nearly 20 years old. Why not cite a young adult book, or even better, the actual scientific literature? A child's book is Eric Hovind's best source?

Thirdly, after about 20 years since the children’s book’s publication, here's the recent study mentioned in the press and by Hovind:

Could methane produced by sauropod dinosaurs have helped drive Mesozoic climate warmth?
Current Biology Vol 22 No 9
David M. Wilkinson, Euan G. Nisbet, and Graeme D. Ruxton

Mesozoic sauropods, like many modern herbivores, are likely to have hosted microbial methanogenic symbionts for the fermentative digestion of their plant food [1]. Today methane from livestock is a significant component of the global methane budget [2]. Sauropod methane emission would probably also have been considerable. Here, we use a simple quantitative approach to estimate the magnitude of such methane production and show that the production of the ‘greenhouse’ gas methane by sauropods could have been an important factor in warm Mesozoic climates.
...

Full: http://download.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/PIIS0960982212003296.pdf

Fourthly, Eric Hovind seemingly dismisses the research. Why does Eric Hovind ignore the paper? What evidence does he have refuting it? Hovind doesn’t give anyway.

Lastly, here is a criticism of how the paper has been misrepresented by the media:

Media Blows Hot Air About Dinosaur Flatulence
May 9, 2012
smithsonianmag.com

It sounds like perfect journalist bait: Earlier this week, a new Current Biology paper proposed that the accumulated output of dinosaur farts could have changed the global climate. You could hardly ask for a better story. Dinosaurs are ever-popular media darlings, and the science of sauropod farts is just silly enough to grab the public’s attention. Too bad sources like FOX News, Gawker and the Daily Mail issued some rather noxious stories about the research.
...
The media coverage has been even cruder. In the past month we’ve had vapid reports of aquatic dinosaurs and alien dinosaurs, but at least three news sources decided to up the ante with additional bad reporting. Fox News led off with “Dinosaurs may have farted themselves to extinction, according to a new study from British scientists.” Wrong right out of the gate. Wilkinson and co-authors didn’t say a thing about dinosaur extinction in their paper. Not to mention that the idea doesn’t make any sense. Titanic sauropods were around for about 130 million years. If their gases were so deadly, why did it take so long for the world to be overwhelmed? The Fox News gloss isn’t even a misrepresentation of what the researcher said. The story’s headline and lead are outright fabrications. And the same fiction was repeated on the network’s late-night roundtable of chattering commentators, Red Eye.

Full: smithsonianmag.com

So Eric Hovind and Fox News didn't understand the paper. Hovind didn't understand the children's book either.

 

[marplots]

You could have made that much shorter by just telling us that dinosaurs farted themselves extinct. (Really needs a graphic though.)

 

[Madalch]

Secondly, it is quite revealing that Kent and Eric Hovind get their knowledge about science from children’s books, which in this case is nearly 20 years old. Why not cite a young adult book, or even better, the actual scientific literature?

Because they've got such big words in them. Eric needs to stick to books meant for his own reading level.

 

[Acleron]

Amusing that he capitalises flatulence.

 

[Sideroxylon]

Amusing that he capitalises flatulence.

He must be referring to divine flatulence.

 

[zooterkin]

He must be referring to divine flatulence.

Are you suggesting he's Kamikaze?

 

[marplots]

Did anyone say, "Ex-stinked" yet?

 

[xtifr]

Secondly, it is quite revealing that Kent and Eric Hovind get their knowledge about science from children’s books, which in this case is nearly 20 years old. Why not cite a young adult book, or even better, the actual scientific literature? A child's book is Eric Hovind's best source?

If your goal is to promote a personally-favored hypothesis which is utterly lacking in any scientific foundation, then yes, criticising a children's book that disagrees with your hypothesis is probably about as good as you're going to get. Anyway, his target audience probably isn't ready to handle anything more advanced.

 

[Dinwar]

Did anyone say, "Ex-stinked" yet?

I assure you, that joke has been made many, many, many, many times....

The K/Pg extinction is a popular one. It's the end of the truly alien monsters--even the most monsterous Cenozoic creature is still a mammal, after all (or a bird, but there are large birds today as well). So it's drawn its share of wackadoodle theories. Dr. Robert Bakker has proposed my favorite: that land bridges formed, and dinosaurs from different continents infected each other with diseases, wiping each other off the face of the earth. Never mind the multiple invasions of North America by South American fauna (and vice versa, obviously), or the fact that European invaders into the New World quite obviously didn't all die off. If you want to find an insane idea, look at mass extinction research.

Secondly, it is quite revealing that Kent and Eric Hovind get their knowledge about science from children’s books, which in this case is nearly 20 years old. Why not cite a young adult book, or even better, the actual scientific literature? A child's book is Eric Hovind's best source?

That answer's easy. I've spent 10 years trying to wrap my head around the K/Pg mass extinction. Others have spent far longer. None of us truly gets it entirely. It's much easier to make crap up and pretend it's true, then find sources to convince yourself you're right.

But to be fair, it's not necessarily the Creationists' fault. Science publication is horrendously bad. I remember reading an article on FoxNews.com dealing with, according to the title, legless crabs in the Jurassic. I knew the author of the paper in question. She was.....well, I've honestly never seen her angrier. Also saw the fossils, which were your standard disarticuluted decapod crustacean stuff--very cool, and very informative, but certainly not something as weird as a decapod with no legs! If the Creationists aren't going back to the original publications, they're going to get a very weird view of paleontology--in part due to their inherent biases, yes, but also in part due to the fact that reporters don't even TRY to accurately report paleontological findings.