#354: Ben Shapiro

Benjamin Aaron Shapiro is a new poster boy for the denialist Taliban right. He is a political commentator and author, among other things of “Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America's Youth in 2004,” in which he accused professors of being “totalitarian” because they promote “absolute sexual freedom” (including, according to Shapiro, pedophilia and statutory rape), and “indoctrination”, since they don’t generally focus exclusively on the Bible as the source of all truth. His subsequent books all deal with how the media and entertainment industry are in a liberal conspiracy to promote reckless sexual freedom and environmentalism, for instance exemplified by how Sesame Street indoctrinates children with left-wing propaganda. He has a particular hatred for Hollywood. You see, according to how Shapiro views the world, many Hollywood stars feel guilty about their prosperity since they are closet Marxist, so … well, who knows.

For instance, it is obvious that Obama is a militant atheist; according to Shapiro via Twitter: “Unreal that Obama doesn’t mention God in Thanksgiving message. Militant atheist. To whom does he think we are giving thanks?” How can you argue with evidence like this? He sure does not like Obama, as evidenced by this one. Of course, Shapiro once argued that we should prosecute anyone who criticizes the president and lock up anyone who disagreed with any war waged by the US, but that applies, obviously, only to critics of George W. Bush and his efforts. Obama is different. Obama is in a conspiracy with Iran to … well, it is not entirely clear.

Shapiro’s views on religion aren’t very much more coherent. According to Shapiro (this is best quoted in its entirety): “Human equality must spring from a Creator, because the presence of a soul is all that makes man human and equal. Biology suggests inherent inequality – who would call Arnold Schwarzenegger and Stephen Hawking equal in any way? Biology suggests the sort of Hegelian social Darwinism embraced by totalitarian dictators, not the principles of equality articulated by the Founding Fathers.”

Diagnosis: A dense, raging ball of persecution complex and confirmation bias, Shapiro seems to have gained some traction among the Taliban right, and must be considered moderately dangerous.

#353: Granville Sewell

Edward Granville Sewell is a mathematician, intelligent design advocate, and currently a Professor of Mathematics at the University of Texas, El Paso. He does presumably know math. His understanding of science is, however, sorely deficient.

Sewell is signatory to the Discovery Institute's A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism petition and has had (in 2000) an anti-evolutionary article published in The Mathematical Intelligencer. This is cited by the Discovery Institute as one of the “Peer-Reviewed & Peer-Edited Scientific Publications Supporting the Theory of Intelligent Design”, an assertion rejected by people who actually manage to distinguish science from delusional rants, including Judge Jones in the Dover trial.

In this and other articles the main claim reiterated ad nauseam is the claim that evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics (more here). It isn’t better supported than it sounds, and even Sewell’s attempts to battle strawmen is somewhat quixotic. Jason Rosenhouse’s Intelligencer article “How Anti-evolutionists Abuse Mathematics” is directly targeted at Sewell, as is his “Does Evolution Have a Thermodynamics Problem?”. Mark Perakh called Sewell’s work “depressingly fallacious”. Sewell’s “experiments” are, well, not exactly what scientists would call experiments, and his proposed “laws” aren’t what scientists would count as scientific laws. And as most creationist Sewell doesn’t see that even if evolution were to fail, it wouldn’t mean that Intelligent Design creationism is correct unless someone had actually formulated a theory, some predictions, and garnered independent support through testing.

Sewell also writes for Dembski’s blog “Uncommon Descent” (no link to the actual blog provided).

Diagnosis: “Sewell is to thermodynamics as Sal Cordova is to a) biochemistry, b) information theory, c) classical mechanics, d) all of the above” (Blake Stacey). He is also a professional but not very successful bane of strawmen. A pawn in the denialist movement.

Since we’re covering the fallacious second law arguments against evolution, it might be timely to bring up the all time classic quote on the issue.

#352: Jay Seegert and the cssmwi

John Scudamore, the guy who runs (and apparently believes everything written on) whale.to is British (Herefordshire), so unfortunately he has to be disqualified.

CSSMWI and its leader Jay Seegert are Milwaukee-based, however. CSSMWI stands for “Creation Science Society of Milwaukee”. Their website is here. Now, societies like cssmwi exist throughout the US and there is probably nothing particular about this one. This entry should thus stand as a representative for all such pockets of denialist lunacy anywhere.

In any case, CSSMWI is your typical Reversia stronghold where the idea of science is literal interpretation of the Bible and rejecting all evidence that cannot fit smoothly with the reading of the Bible that Seegert and his crew think best fit their preconceptions. They have helpful subsites on “Evolution is Religion, not science”, “Genomes project data indicate a young human race”, “radioisotope dating” (they have absolutely no clue) and the standard canards and fallacies generally promulgated on sites like this.

Jay Seegert is their ringleader; he is the President & Principal Lecturer for the Creation Education Center, as well as a national speaker for Creation Ministries International (the world’s largest creation organization). Yes, it’s all about lectures and reaching out to the children; the “research” part of science seems to have been lost on them: their website has a lot on Seegert’s background as a minister; none on his research work, rather unsurprisingly.

Their other speakers include:

- Keith A. Robinson, who’s written a novel about the origin of life and the universe as he sees it and is therefore a qualified researcher.

- Kitty Foth-Regner, whose scientific data for creationism comprise revelation, wishful thinking and appeal to emotion.

- Ken Bahr, high school teacher “prepared to teach your kids in church and at school”.

- Russ Hanson, who has a bachelor’s degree in science.

- Gary Locklair, a professor of Computer Science at Concordia University and probably the most dangerous of the lot.

- Tim Chaffey

- Jerry Frye, who is president of an employee benefit brokerage firm.

- Nathan Jastram, head of the Theology Department at Concordia University who has worked on the Dead Sea Scrolls, which “demonstrate the extreme accuracy of the copying of Biblical manuscripts, contrary to the assumptions of evolutionary scholars and others.” Yes, those dastardly evolutionary scholars; they always threaten to oppose Jastram’s firm confirmation bias.

Diagnosis: Overall, these people are actually really dangerous, and do a lot of harm by spreading denialism, ignorance and lies. There’s really nothing cute about them, despite their rather helpless take on reality.

#351: Michael Schwartz

Michael Schwartz is a nutjob chief of staff for senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma (at least he used to be), whose job seems to have been to make Coburn come off as the paragon of intellect, integrity, sanity and reasonability. With the clinically insane moron Jim Inhofe as his sidekick, one wonders why Schwartz was deemed necessary. He nevertheless failed: despite his own lunacy, there is no way Schwartz is going to make Coburn come off as sane.

Anyway, Schwartz is notable for his claim that “All pornography is homosexual pornography, because all pornography turns your sexual drive inwards”. The purpose of the point, although a little unclear, seems to have been to tell kids that “porn is not cool”. That does not make the claim any better, really. It did make it to the Daily Show, however.

Schwartz also has views about the legal system.

Diagnosis: Quite delusional. He seems to be able to button his own shirt (who knows), but that’s about as far as his intellectual capacities go. Impact unknown

#350: William Schnoebelen

A.k.a. Christopher Syn (name taken in the 1970s for numerological reasons)

William Schnoebelen is an evangelist, author (sometimes with his wife Sharon) and lecturer, known for his anti-Mormon, anti-masonic (yes) and anti-Wiccan views and for his fundamentalist Protestant viewpoint. His views are slightly more insane than Jack Chick’s (Schnoebelen is published by Chick Publications), and possibly only challenged by Gene Ray. He currently runs his own organization With One Accord Ministries (website here). His antipathy toward the organizations mentioned above can partially be explained by the fact that he is, in fact, himself a former Mormon and wiccan, as well as a Gnostic Bishop with the Monastery of the Seven Rays, voodoo priest, and member of the Church of Satan. He claims to have reached a high rank with the Freemason (reaching “Palladium Masonry”, which is a well-known hoax and doesn’t exist), and to have been part of the Illuminati (he has published the video “Exposing the Illuminati from within”: two parts, here and here. You get an idea of where he comes from.

To top it, Schnoebelen claims to have been a practicing vampire from 1979, and has released a nine-hour DVD program titled “Interview with an Ex-Vampire: A True Story” (hosted by one Stephanie Relfe, who provides a biography of Schnoebelen here), although there is ample evidence that Schnoebelen doesn’t quite know what “True Story” means. Unfortunately his vampire activities came to an end (he was also a practicing sorcerer) in 1980 when he failed a saving throw against an evangelical bank clerk who promised to “be praying for you in Jesus’ name,” was turned, and subsequently lost all his magical powers. He doesn’t like D&D, by the way (more on that below), and there is probably a connection here.

According to none other than Schnoebelen, part of Schnoebelen’s spiritual education was extra-terrestrial, apparently.

Sort of to complete the circle, he also has an “N.D. degree” from Trinity College of Natural Healing in Indiana, and is also certified by the Certified Natural Health Professionals organization in Warsaw, IN. His whale.to profile is here.

Among Schnoebelen’s numerous books are “Masonry: Beyond the Light”, which exposes the freemasons as Satanists; “Wicca: Satan’s little white lie”, which exposes Wiccans as Satanists; “Mormonism’s Temple of Doom’, which exposes Mormons as Satanists, and “Blood on the Doorpost”; which tells you how to conquer the Satanism in your life and achieve success through the power of the Law of Attraction and The Secret (yes, that The Secret). He may be most famous for his attacks on Mormonism, however, since some Mormon responders actually took it as a serious threat. Together with one Ed Decker Schnoebelen raised concerns about, among other things, the spires on Mormon temples, claiming that they were really “Satan's spires” and represented “an up-side-down nail pointing defiantly toward heaven, as if to impale the Lord Jesus Christ anew when he comes in the clouds” and that because of “the trapezoidal shape” of the spires they “draw demons like fly paper”.

Besides such high-flown theology, Schnoebelen’s book “Space Invaders” is about UFOs and seems to assume that the eponymous Arcade game is a real-life documentary (“Bill shows how the "cute little space aliens" have their roots in the rituals of such black magicians as Aleister Crowley” and “reveals how flying saucers and ‘alien abductions’ may well figure into the end-time plans of the Beast. Drawing on Genesis 6”). Schnoebelen knows, since Schnoebelen has been a vampire. What more expertise in magic and the occult do you need?

He is no fan of Harry Potter, and produced a video “Harry Potter: Politically Correct Paganism” with Jan Markell (already covered) and one Wendell Amstutz. Neither is he a fan of Dungeons and Dragons, which involves evil, brainwashing (“Erosion of family values – the Dungeon Master (DM) demands an all-encompassing and total loyalty, control and allegiance”), real sorcery, Satanism, immorality (“male characters in the game often try to seduce female characters”) and – worst of all – science (“In this worldview, there is no sovereign God; but rather the universe is run like a gigantic piece of machinery”). Updated here.

Diagnosis: Clinically unable to distinguish imagination and reality (preciously few of his claims about his own past have been substantiated) the amazing Bill Schnoebelen is one of a kind. He’s probably harmless.

#349: Don Schmierer

Don Schmierer is an insanely lunatic and thoroughly evil person. Together with Scott Lively and Caleb Lee Brundidge, Schmierer participated in a 2009 workshop in Kampala to, pretty much, provide the architecture for the Ugandan anti-gay bill (discussed here). Schmierer is a board member of Exodus International, an organzation devoted to promoting “freedom from homosexuality through the power of Jesus Christ”. After the law passed in Uganda and brought about some horrible deaths Schmierer said he felt “duped”, arguing that he had been invited to speak on “parenting skills” for families with gay children and that, although he claimed homosexuals could be converted into heterosexuals, he had no idea some Ugandans were contemplating the death penalty for homosexuality.

There are reasons to think Don is not as stupid as he claims he is, and even if he were he would nevertheless be responsible.

It is telling that he mentioned receiving threats and more than 600 hate mails related to his visit: “I spoke to help people,” he said, “and I’m getting bludgeoned from one end to the other.” No, Don. You are not the victim here, and you don’t get to claim that you are.

Diagnosis: Vile loon who should be charged with crimes against humanity; he is a representative for a very dangerous trend: extremist religious organizations who, unable to establish theocracy or use violence against those they dislike in the US, targets Africa instead – and are extremely successful at it. Exodus (headed by one Alan Chambers) is one such organization.

#348: Debbie Schlussel

Debbie Schlussel is another rightwing columnist and blogger. She has done some right stuff, in fact, such as looking into Sean Hannity’s “charity work”, but that doesn’t alter the overall assessment. Her main focus is targeting what she regards as negative elements of American Islamic society. That means, in general, typical wingnut populist idiocy and deliberate misinformation. See here - Schlussel responded to this one by calling Mediamatters “far left”. The idea that this counts as a response tells you a lot about what kind of approach Schlussel takes to reality. She also compared them to Nazis (in particular, for some arbitrary but predictable reason, George Soros). In 2010 she claimed that the new Miss USA, Rima Fakih, was a terrorist because she was of Lebanese descent. Her sources were apparently the voices in her head. In 2007 also complained that atheists targeted her for, uh, blatant racism; she argued that this was natural, however, since atheists are Muslim-lovers and most of them will, in a few years, be fanatic Islamists. She also blamed the Virginia Tech shootings on the Muslims, of course, so it comes as no surprise when she voices her shock and horror that Whole Foods actually sells food to Muslims. In a civilized society they would be indicted for supporting terrorism!

To take a few more examples: Schlussel has also claimed that it was OK for the Europeans to take the US from the Natives because, well, because the Natives were also immigrants some twenty thousand years ago, and she is adamant that “freedom of religion” does not mean or encompass “freedom from religion”. During the captivity of American journalist Jill Carroll, Schlussel claimed that Carroll hated Israel and America, implying that she sympathized with her captors and explicitly calling those who disagreed with her “blind worshippers of Jill Carroll”. In 2007, she asserted that WNBA player Anna DeForge is a bad role model because she is a lesbian, and in 2011 she stirred up some dissatisfaction by suggesting that CBS reporter Lara Logan deserved the sexual assault she suffered while covering the protests in Egypt. There is a pattern here.

Diagnosis: Described as “Ann Coulter without the charm”, Schlussel is a deranged dimwit and some may suspect truly mentally ill; she is still pretty dangerous, however.