#661: Mary Fallin

Mary Fallin is the Governor of Oklahoma and a former representative for Oklahoma's 5th congressional district, and damn if she isn’t quite insane. Fallin is a staunch creationist and is on the record expressing a preference for religion over science (but so is her last Democratic opponent Jarl Askins). And of course you presumably see where this is going for education in Oklahoma.

In 2011 Fallin responded to a heat wave sweeping her state by asking citizens to seek divine intervention: “The power of prayer is a wonderful thing, and I would ask every Oklahoman to look to a greater power this weekend and ask for rain,” she said in a manner worthy of Rick Perry. It didn’t have any measurable effect, but does tell you quite a bit about a certain group of politician’s attempt to find solutions to the ordeals facing their constituencies. Indeed, one would think that the Oklahomans who believed this measure to be effective had already prayed for rain, making Fallin’s urge doubly idiotic.

Diagnosis: Another moronic godbot who has been given an irresponsible amount of power to wield, and sure enough uses it to cause as much damage as possible to civilization.

#647: Paul Ellwanger

It’s thirty years since Paul Ellwanger achieved fame and we have barely heard from him since the eighties. I really have no idea if he is still kicking around, but no evidence of his demise either. So we’ll assume that he’s still qualified for inclusion. Ellwanger was the guy who drafted the creationist “balanced treatment” bills that became law in Arkansas and Louisiana, and which were eventually declared unconstitutional in the celebrated MacLean vs. Arkansas Board of Education (thorough documentation related to the case can be found here) and in Edwards vs. Aguillard. It is a little remarkable how this local crazy, leader of the groupe Citizens for Fairness in Education, was able to have his rants passed as law, but he did, and the world is thirty years on an altogether better place for it (because, of course, of the subsequent court cases). His policy suggestions from 1988, updated in the face of the rather severe drawbacks of being judged unconstitutional, are discussed here. Less famously, Ellwanger is/was also a geocentrist and actually attempted to have “equal time” bills for geocentrism passed as well.

Whatever the case may be with Ellwanger, at least Wendell Bird, the guy who officially pushed the Arkansas creationist bill, is still on the loose. In 2005 Bird filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of an association of Christian schools against the University of California system accusing them of discrimination because they wouldn’t recognize the validity of some courses at Christian secondary schools that use creationist textbooks (these books, including a hardcore creationist Biology textbook by Thomas E. Porch & Brad R. Batdorf that states that “If the conclusions [of scientific research] contradict the Word of God, the conclusions are wrong, no matter how many scientific facts may appear to back them”). They lost that one (also here).

Diagnosis: As opposed to the vast majority of loons in our Encyclopedia Ellwanger’s contributions are actually among the most significant demonstrably positive contributions to the side of reason in the US the last decades. Unintentionally so, of course, but Ellwanger was to a large extent responsible for both Edwards v. Aguillard, and for MacLean v. Arkansas Board of Education, two landmark victories for sanity. 

#639: Tim Dunkin

Nothing out of the ordinary about Tim Dunkin insofar as blathering insanity counts as “ordinary”, which the numbers of entries in our Encyclopedia is starting to suggest that it does. Dunkin writes for RenewAmerica and Conservative Underground, and among his schticks is – you guessed it – the malicious gay agenda. Indeed, Dunkin has joined the Scott Lively train, and taken it upon himself to warn America that not only is same-sex marriage not a right, but that homosexuality itself “is a lifestyle choice that lends itself to violence, degradation, disease, selfishness, and exploitation.” From this not particularly well-supported premise he concludes that gay rights must be “fought, defeated, and thrown back” along with “the rest of the broader revolutionary socialist agenda.” Homosexuality will destroy America also because homosexuality is associated with violence, pedophilia and abuse. But mostly because it is homosexuality and hence icky, on suspects.

It is curious that when pressed for arguments, he appeals to the same shit fluffpot woo-meister hippies generally use: “it’s unnatural”. Though he does, of course, not even get that one right.

Dunkin’s rants on evolution and environmentalism are likewise rather exasperatingly devoid of understanding of either (in Dunkin’s world evolution requires a magic transition from non-life to life; microevolution is well-supported – macroevolution is not and so on), and appallingly fond of strawmen, misrepresentations, and misapplying words he doesn’t understand. But that wasn’t much surprise, was it? (No, you get no link to his drivel; google "Dunkin" and "evolution".)

Diagnosis: Fundie bigot. Standard fare.

#630: Mark Downey

And just in case you thought you’d seen the worst of lunacy by now, we give you Mark Downey. Reverend Downey is the culprit behind the “Christian Identity” website Kinsman Redeemer Ministries, which is a good place to go to give up all hopes for humanity. Downey’s main tenet is that the so-called “Chosen People” of the Bible are – as opposed to what the Bible suggests – not the Jews, at least not today’s Jews, but rather the “Germanic, Celtic, Scandinavian, and Anglo-Saxon” peoples. And thus you may get an impression of the direction in which Downey is headed. And indeed: “Adolf Hitler showed the world the mercy and loving kindness of Positive Christianity,” he says, but we failed to listen and were instead fooled by a Jewish conspiracy to view Hitler as evil. Yes, that’s the idea, and even among the most insane it will probably remain a minority view for some time. As for anti-semitism, Downey has revived most myths from ancient and medieval times. “How many of the innocent youngsters you see on milk cartons have fallen prey to the ceremonial knives of rabbis and lie buried in secret graves or were ground up into dog food in some jewish-owned processing plant?” asks Downey in his series of articles charmingly titled "Why We Hate the Jews", and follows it with this.

But Downey isn’t quite done. The whole idea of the notion of “Kinsman Redeemer” is that Jesus came to redeem not all humans, but his kinsmen. His kinsmen were the white people (since, as most renaissance paintings so accurately depict him, Jesus was blond and blue-eyed). It doesn’t really help, then, that Downey actually purports to reject “white nationalism” – he rejects white nationalism since white nationalism is, according to Downey, a pagan movement. Instead, he prefers to view his ideas as “Christian nationalism”, which combines the main tenets of white nationalism with dominionism and hysterical endtimes babble. It is not as charming as it sounds.

Of course, Downey and his group also rejects evolution – not on technical grounds but because evolution implies common descent and by the inference rule of Downey’s wacky wishful thinking evolution must therefore be false. Instead they claim that all races were created separately (and should not be mixed – “race mixing adulterates God's plan for the Ages”) and that the different races represent not only different species, but different genera (no, they do not exhibit any trace of having the faintest idea what that would mean).

To really emphasize their fervent contempt for reality, they are also 9/11 troofers (though you probably saw that one coming), and promote the idea that the levees of New Orleans were destroyed on purpose by the guv’mint during Hurricane Katrina, which, alongside most other natural disasters, was a punishment from God for America’s rejection of God’s laws on race in any case. I don’t think much good can come from delving deeper into Downey’s ideas so we’ll leave it at that. (We are also reluctant to link directly to any of Downey’s own stuff; you’ll have to google it).

Diagnosis: Could he be the most deranged psychotic madman we’ve encountered thus far? His candidacy is at least a strong one, though his influence will probably remain somewhat limited for the foreseeable future.

#619: David DeWitt

Dr. David A. DeWitt, a neuroscientist with some background in biochemistry, is nevertheless on CMI’s list of scientists who accept a Biblical account of creation. Those who suspect a modicum of compartmentalization, dishonesty, and self-delusion are thus in for some easy predictions. DeWitt is a frequent contributor to Answers in Genesis, and responsible for a lot of AiG’s most egregious bullshit on evolution. He has also had some publications in Answers in Genesis’s House Journal, Answers, and his work has been used as a source in Ray Comfort’s legendary “Evolution: A Fairy-Tale for Grownups”, which is not something good people would mention on their CVs.

So where do you take your career when you have a real degree but no real understanding of the method of the field in which you have your degree? Yes, DeWitt is no less than the Director of the Center for Creation Studies at Falwell’s Liberty University, and teaches their mandatory “creation studies” course. You can see a report from an “advanced section” of his class (for biology majors) here, where he uses the movie “March of the Penguins” to illustrate that the penguins that get eaten are the ones who are unlucky (or, more likely, evil), not the ones who are less adapted. Hence evolution is false. Duh.

His book, Unraveling the Origins Controversy, is reviewed here. The reviewer (Rosenhouse) had to take issue with some examples of quote-mining, dishonesty, and distortions. Who would have suspected.

DeWitt and one Jed Macosko were also biological advisors to the free webgame CellCraft, and it sort of shows, in a rather subversive manner. He was also credited in Frank Peretti’s novel Monster, which really tells you all you need to know.

Diagnosis: Standard, zealous fuckwit, responsible for churning out shitloads of ignorant addleheads through his classes at Liberty U, and hence a significant negative force in the world these days.