#504: Ken Blackwell

John Kenneth Blackwell is the erstwhile mayor of Cincinnati (from 1979 to 1980), Ohio Secretary of State from 1999 to 2007, and later gubernatorial candidate in Ohio. He is currently Vice Chairman of the Republican National Committee's Platform Committee and senior fellow for family empowerment at the Family Research Council, as well as several other positions such as this one, and this one.

He rose to national fame for his attempts at voter disenfranchments during the 2004 election (he has, in fact, been sued a number of times, often successfully, given his careless attitude toward the law when it does not serve his interests, and even by American standards his activities would be counted as borderline corrupt. In particular, Blackwell lacks the ability to grasp the fact that he and his organizations do not have a constitutional right to tax exemption.

He did lead the campaign for the 2004 Ohio Constitution Amendment banning state recognition of same-sex marriage and civil unions, and did not shy away from comparing gay people to arsonists and kleptomaniacs, and same-sex couples to barn animals.

Although he originally said that abortions were defensible when the mother’s life is at risk, he has since gone rather more extreme; his attempts to evoke science in this regard have been sorely pathetic, apparently being unable to apprehend the fact that ”I want to believe X” does not analytically imply ”science supports X”.

There’s a fine Blackwell resource here. His defense of Rand Paul is … noteworthy as well, as is this one.

Diagnosis: A surprisingly lowkey fellow, though one does not have to look too hard to find Blackwell revealing himself as blithely denialist. In any case his association with the Family Research Council is a dead giveaway. Blackwell must be considered very dangerous.

(Honorable mention also to Prescott, Arizona’s Steve Blair for this one, though I'm less sure he deserves a separate entry).

#38: Sam Brownback

US senator (Kansas-R) and a pretty high-profile fellow. Fundamentalist theocrat and outspoken creationist. Yes he’s been known to pound on the “evolution is just a theory” confusion, thereby automatically displaying his meager understanding of science. Even worse he believes in “micro-evolution, but not macro-evolution” (a well-known gambit, using a distinction that makes absolutely no scientific sense), relies on false appeals to controversy (look, biologists don’t agree on the details, hence the theory of evolution must be false), claims that evolution is an atheistic conspiracy (evolution entails materialism and determinism, modus tollens), and says that evolution means that everything is just chance (no, he doesn’t understand the theory of evolution). Dunning-Kruger running rampant, in other words, but ignorance has never stopped a politician like Brownback.

Brownback also asserts that if science contradicts the Bible, then science must go:

“While no stone should be left unturned in seeking to discover the nature of man's origins, we can say with conviction that we know with certainty at least part of the outcome. Man was not an accident and reflects an image and likeness unique in the created order. Those aspects of evolutionary theory compatible with this truth are a welcome addition to human knowledge. Aspects of these theories that undermine this truth, however, should be firmly rejected as an atheistic theology posing as science.”

His views on science are nicely summed up here, and (more succinctly) here, and also here.

The famous “blogs for Brownback”, notable for arguing that heliocentricism is an atheist conspiracy and that electrons are really angels in disguise whereas protons are demons, is widely believed to be a parody and might easily be.

Among other notable views, Brownback is known to support stem-cell research – conditional on advice from the Family Research Council (the “Research” part must surely be a typo), as described here. Brownback also wishes to ban human-animal chimeras. Also seems to toy with David Barton-style reconstructionism.

Diagnosis: Zealous Lysenkoist. His understanding of science is best characterized as a severe case of Dunning-Kruger. Moron. Wields some power, but will apparently retire from the Senate this year.

#10: Ted Baehr

Baehr runs Movieguide which, despite its neutral name, describes itself as a ministry "dedicated to redeeming the values of the mass media according to biblical principles, by influencing entertainment industry executives and helping families make wise media choices" (i.e. rave reviews of creationist propaganda). Baehr is also chairman of the Christian Film and Television Commission and a columnist/movie reviewer for Worldview Times. He wasn’t happy with Religulous, as this review shows (and this review alone merits Baehr’s inclusion in the Encyclopedia):
http://www.worldviewweekend.com/worldview-times/article.php?articleid=4011.

Also a vigorous opponent of e.g. stem cell research (apparently he views The Family Research Council as an authoritative source here); staunch anti-elitist religious crackpot who argues that science (at least science whose results don’t support (his interpretation of) the Bible) is a liberal conspiracy, as in the article discussed here:
http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/religious_right_leaders/

Diagnosis: Zealous, paranoid wingnut and pathological liar, religious fundamentalist and general loon. Angry. Influence: hard to tell; there are a lot of these guys out there, but he is relatively prolific and seems to have some readers.