#85: Martin Cothran

Fellow traveler with the Discovery Institute creationists, global warming denier, shill for James Dobson and Pat Buchanan, sycophant who defends Buchanan’s holocaust denial while at the same time accusing Obama of being an anti-semite.

A staunch opposer of gay marriage (claiming that it’s not really a question of marriage, since marriage by definition is between man and woman) and an affiliate of the hardcore fundamentalist group Focus on the Family. Theoconservative.

Nothing particularly notable about these views, of course. What makes Cothran notable (for the purposes of this Encyclopedia) is the fact that Cothran is a logic teacher (at a small private school) and has written an Intro to Logic textbook. One would have to conclude that Cothran the logic teacher is a real, living Chinese Room. He is further discussed here.

Diagnosis: Stock loon and bigoted theocrat. Unimportant and hardly notable were it not for his background.

#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.