Wednesday, February 19, 2014

#923: Joseph Mastropaolo


A.k.a. JoMo (affectionately)

Joseph Mastropaolo is a kinesiologist with the Institute for Creation Research. He’s also known to be one of the most frustrating human beings you could ever encounter. Mastropaolo is a proponent of the mock-challenge-to-debate strategy of scientific inquiry. He does not care about research or data, but takes evolution to be refuted primarily by the fact that scientists won’t debate him under conditions determined by him. He has for instance issued challenges for trips to China and blasting anyone who failed to take him up on it because they had better things to do as cowards and fools, then – when no one takes up his offer – he follows it with screeds such as “The Evolutionist: Liar, Believer in Miracles, King of Criminal”.

Among the more notable challenges was the Life Science Prize Challenge (issued with one Karl Priest). It is described here. The fact that scientists have long managed to prove everything he asks for, even in the venues he asks them to prove it matters less, for they haven’t proven it by debating him under his ridiculous conditions (yes, there were some significant catches to rig things in Mastropaolo’s favor). When no one stepped up to debate, he created a list of debate dodgers (the list is reproduced here) that even his own home network, True.Origins, decided to take it down due, according to Tim Wallace, who runs True.Origins (a site that attempts to mirror the godless evolutionism at Talk.Origins), to “questions about the potential legitimacy of the debate challenge itself”. Dawkins, characterized as a Debate Dodger by Mastropaolo and Priest, suggested to them that since the challenge was going to based upon scientific evidence perhaps it would be better to have it judged by scientists rather than by a judge (as Mastropaolo & Priest suggested). Dawkins was, promptly and predictably, accused of trying to rig the results in his favor.

Karl Priest thinks evolution is refuted because i) evolution has been exposed as pagan Cebelese religion as practiced in Greece 2,500 years ago; ii) evolution is completely absent in the universe today, always has been, always will be; iii) every item associated with humans, animals and plants are creations, always have been, always will be; iv) creation is science because it is observable by billions of people trillions of times, always has been, always will be; and v) You [in this case Wilfrid Elders] refuse to defend your ideas in a debate for $10,000.00.

Mastropaolo is also known to argue that defenders of evolution mistakes evolution with devolution, since “[c]hange over time, ‘definition one’ of evolution, actually describes devolution to extinction, the exact opposite of evolution … actual epidemiological data from human genetic disorders and fatal birth defects, identify ‘natural selection,’ the alleged ‘primary mechanism’ for evolution, as actually a mechanism for devolution to extinction, the exact opposite of evolution.” He doesn’t quite understand evolution, does he? Note that his primary evidence for “devolution” is that the Biblical patriarchs lived very long lives, and current humans live much shorter lives; clearly, our genes must be poorer. The superiority of the patriarchs was apparently the reason they were able to hunt and domesticate the T. Rex.

A nice summary of Mastropaolo’s abysmal lack of understanding of evolution, science, evidence or reasoning can be found here.

Diagnosis: Does not have the faintest clue how science works or scientific issues are settled, nor any clear idea about what scientific theories actually say. A hysterical, rabid, fundamentalist fanatic. 

18 comments:

  1. I could find no other way to contact you, so I'm using the comments here. I recently encountered the website of a rather unhinged white supremacist by the name of John de Nugent and I think he deserves to be included in the encyclopedia. Not just because he's a vile racist (which he is) but because he also has some rather "unusual" "theories" about history and science (among other things). He mixes UFOs with secret societies, government conspiracies and "cover-ups" by the scientific community with lots of crazy to go around. Of course, the website displays the horrible design and never ending rambling posts full of YouTube-embeds and non sequitur images which seem almost mandatory for loon-sites (not as bad as TimeCube, but still).

    Here is an example (I read it on his website just recently but it's been taken down now apparently, I was still able to find it with a little help from archive.org thought) of Mr Nugent's "ideas" following the findings that we all carry some Neanderthal DNA: https://web.archive.org/web/20111127204139/http://www.democratic-republicans.us/neanderthals-and-semites (spoiler: of course it's the Semitic peoples who have the most Neanderthal DNA, you can see it by looking at their slanted foreheads!)

    If you have the time, please take a look at his website, it contains plenty of material fitting for inclusion here and "N" is coming up soon!

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    1. I have briefly encountered that one before, and I'll add him to the list.

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    2. Great, looking forward to it!

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  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  3. When True Believers in Evolutionism (TBEs) don't have any science they resort to loony webpages like this.

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    1. You are aware that there are thousands of papers published every year on evolution by thousands of researcher, plenty of books, and a multitude of good, informational webpages devoted to explaining evolution and following the research?

      This is not one of them. Yet, apparently, the existence of a snarky blog like this one somehow negates all that research being done? Or is it just that you are looking for an excuse not to have to look at actual research or teach yourself some actual science?

      And you are aware that you just committed one of the most epic ad hominem fallacies I have seen, right?

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    2. Papers that show the flaws of evolutionism are censored. There are plenty of peer reviewed papers on that debunk the non-science of evolution if you look.

      Anyway, True Believers in Evolutionism have to admit creation. See http://www.insectman.us/articles/karls/evos-admit-creation.htm

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    3. Wait...are the anti-evolution papers you mention being actively censored or are there actually plenty of them in peer reviewed journals? Because these are contradictory statements.
      At least have the integrity to pick one bullshit narrative and stick to it, please.

      Delete
  4. For some amazing examples of the sheer lunacy of Dr. JoMo please check out this link.
    https://radaractive.blogspot.ca/2010/07/batting-cleanup-dr-joseph-mastropaolo.html
    In particular, take a look at the comments section where the good doctor stops by to share his "thoughts". You wont be disappointed.

    - Canucklehead.

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    1. Canucklehead, thank you so much for that link. It was well worth the time to slug through the all comments, such limitless entertainment value!

      "Draw a picture of yourself with teeth filed to points dripping poisonous saliva on your claws. Post it on your refrigerator door to admire every day."

      I need to have a portrait like this! If only I could draw such a work of art.

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  5. Mastropaolo was the greatest kinesiology professor I ever had and has been an incredible influenced on my life for the past 25 years. If he's a loon, I am proud to be one too!

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  6. Karl Priest was a mathematics teacher par excellence. He taught my son math so well that at age 13 my son was able to prove to a university calculus professor that an answer in the teacher's edition of the calculus textbook that the professor had used for years was incorrect, resulting in the professor's having to report the correction to the textbook publishers, who had to change the answer in the next edition of the textbook. BTW, IMHO, Karl's specialty (mathematics) is one of the best proofs that evolution (as an explanation of the origin of living beings) is as near to impossible as the meaning of the word can be. If Karl is a "loon," the public school system could use a lot more "loons" instead of the many, many people that it currently employs (the vast majority of whom couldn't teach the opening lesson in a calculus book if their lives depended on it).

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    1. Being a good pedagogue is not the same as being a good scientist, and being a good mathematician doesn't magically confer any kind of expertise in science. In any case, thinking that you can mathematically prove that evolution is wrong suggests a serious misunderstanding of the distinction between axiomatic-deductive reasoning and empirical research (you have not provided the premises Karl Priest supposedly used in this proof). And evolution, by the way, is not a theory of the origin of life, at least not if by "origin of living being" you mean abiogenesis - that's a question for biochemistry, not evolution.

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  7. Dr. Mastropaolo "doesn't have a clue how science works"? This despite having and earned Doctorate and Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship and teaching two science courses for 26 years at Cal State? This despite being the physiologist on the Gossamer Albatross and Gossamer Condor teams where, for the first time in history, they got a man to be able to fly totally by human power, trumping the accomplishments of the Wright Brothers?

    I think it's you loons who don't have the clue. That's why nobody will DARE take up his challenge (or even offer an alternative form of debate). You know that when challenged, your religious faith of evolutionism will be exposed as lunacy.

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    1. That Mastropaolo doesn't have a clue how science works, is a conclusion strongly supported by the evidence cited in the entry, and further corroborated by the evidence provided in the links. One would expect that someone with a Doctorate and a Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship would know, but there is pretty overwhelming evidence, given and cited above, that he doesn't.

      Getting a man to be able to fly totally by human power is an impressive feat *of engineering*. It has nothing really to do with science. It's striking that so many people don't know the difference between the two.

      And people have successfully taken up his challenge. The links in the post show that. Thinking that scientific questions are settled by *debates* - which depend purely on rhetorical skills, not reasoning and/or evidence about complex issues - is further evidence that one doesn't know the first thing about how science works.

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    2. It's clear as crystal that you do not understand what is a scientific fact, theory or hypothesis. Before you wrote your vile criticism about Mastropaolo, maybe you should have opened up an encyclopedia or faster yet, Googled the definitions...By your written article you have expressed and exposed your hatred to the existence of a creator, and just because you want to shout louder doesn't mean your right, to the contrary, to you 1 + 1 = 3, and the scientific law of Thermodynamics is not real.....By the way, if evolution were real, we would have warehouses all over the world the size of amazon warehouses filled with millions of evolutionary fossils in all stages of development.......We don't even have one single thing, to go further, you couldn't dig 20 feet down in the earth without finding some transitional fossils....Please think hard before embarrassing yourself.

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  8. Dr. Mastropaolo is the best instructor that I have ever encountered in my educational career.

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  9. And one last thing, as evidence of your mental disorder, you defend Charles Darwin a man who lived with know mental disorders.....You'll go to any extreme to hate the idea of a Creator, even with all your hatred, God, who's name is YHWH, will forgive you in a split second, is essence your so lucky for that !

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