#1530: Rick DeLano

Like intelligent design creationists there are plenty of groups of weird kooks on the Internet who lament the fact that their particular brand of alternatives to mainstream science (i.e. anti-science) isn’t taken seriously or e.g. given equal time in public schools. “Teach the controversy,” is the common battle cry, and for Rick DeLano, the really controversial idea is heliocentrism, which he rejects. He has even produced a documentary on the subject, “The Principle”, in which he interviewed several real scientists and clipped it to make it appear as if modern cosmology is in trouble and that his completely ridiculous delusion is somehow respectable and taken seriously even by people like Lawrence Krauss, who was interviewed but, uh, expressed dissatisfaction with the editing. DeLano also, famously, got Kate Mulgrew to narrate it, though according to her he was not particularly forthcoming with what claim the documentary was going to promote.

The documentary is based on the views of Robert Sungenis, and DeLano proudly admits to never having finished high school or had any relevant education – so he is certainly not corrupted by the status quo. Like all anti-science fanatics, DeLano readily admits that “I have great respect for science.” However, “[w]here I become offended is when people ignore the evidence,” which is an interesting statement given the approach he takes in his documentary. “They haven’t proven that something can come from nothing,” argues DeLano, which … isn’t particularly relevant to anything whatsoever. And science refuses to consider the evidence because science is an atheistic conspiracy to undermine the Bible. So much for loving it.

Some examples of DeLano’s understanding of science can be found here. NASA, by the way, has conspicuously removed material from their website that suggest geocentrism, it seems, so neither DeLano nor you will find any such material there – which is apparently evidence that there must be a conspiracy and that geocentrism is correct.

The WND promoted the “documentary”, of course (their review by Drew Zahn, who knows as little about science as DeLano, is discussed here).

Diagnosis: Village idiot. Even committed creationists seem very reluctant to take DeLano seriously (which tells you a bit about how radically fringe-idiotic the WND is, if you didn’t already know). Probably pretty harmless in the grand scheme of things.