#367: Roy Spencer

A.k.a. Official Climatologist of the Rush Limbaugh Show

Roy W. Spencer is a climatologist and a Principal Research Scientist for the University of Alabama in Huntsville, and one of a few climatologists who rejects (pretty much) AGW. Spencer is also an Intelligent Design creationist: “I finally became convinced that the theory of creation actually had a much better scientific basis than the theory of evolution, for the creation model was actually better able to explain the physical and biological complexity in the world ... Science has startled us with its many discoveries and advances, but it has hit a brick wall in its attempt to rid itself of the need for a creator and designer.” He is demonstrably completely ignorant about evolution, and on that basis claims that it is pure religion.

Having shown that he has no clue about what a scientific explanation requires (hint: independent testing and confirmation), perhaps his understandings of such matters are better when he says that “catastrophic manmade global warming” is not occurring (hint: no)? Concerning climate models, Spencer claims that “the people that have built the climate models that predict global warming believe they have sufficient physics in those models to predict the future. I believe they don't. I believe the climate system, the weather as it is today in the real world shows a stability that they do not yet have in those climate models.” (No evidence provided). See also this. 

He has written the books “Climate Confusion: How Global Warming Hysteria Leads to Bad Science, Pandering Politicians and Misguided Policies that Hurt the Poor” (Alex Jones style) and “The Great Global Warming Blunder: How Mother Nature Fooled the World’s Top Climate Scientists.” (Reviewed very politely, in three parts, here, here, and here; overviews here and here.)

He also appeared in Martin Durkin’s movie “The Great Global Warming Swindle”, has claimed that environmentalism is genocide, and is one of the most ardent proponents of the DDT hoax. Spencer is nevertheless counted one of the most respected and cited and credible AGW skeptics (denialists), which should tell you quite a bit about AGW skepticism.

Diagnosis: A severe case of crank-magnetism, Spencer is your typical example of a crackpot with credentials, whose credibility is nonetheless approximately equal to Russell Humphreys’s. He is very influential, however, and a real threat to the world.

#366: Suzanne Somers

Suzanne Somers, erstwhile TV celebrity associated with shows such as “Step by Step” and “Three’s Company”, is a prominent ignorant-celebrity-turned-self-help-guru. Among her bestsellers are “Ageless: The Naked Truth About Bioidentical Hormones”, which peddles T.S. Wiley’s scientifically unproven and demonstrably dangerous Wiley Protocol, and “Knockout: Interviews with Doctors Who Are Curing Cancer – And How to Prevent Getting It in the First Place”, hardcore cancer woo and conspiracy theories packed into the effective “who cares about clinical trials when we have anecdotal evidence and celebrity testimonials” rhetorical package. Her cancer writings have received apt criticism from the American Cancer Society. Of course, Oprah endorsed it (and received pretty harsh criticisms for it).

In 2001, Somers was diagnosed with breast cancer and declined to undergo chemotherapy (in favor of anthroposophic medicine). She claimed she was diagnosed with “inoperable cancer by six doctors”, which is false – even her doctors did not uniformly recommend chemotherapy, quite the reverse (and she did undergo lumpectomy and radiation, but according to herself it was of course the completely ineffective anthroposophic medicine that did the trick). She was furthermore (possibly) misdiagnosed in 2008, an event that (“invalidated Western medicine” and) seems to have spurred her bizarre crank adventures. Her interviews with frauds and cranks (such as Nicholas Gonzalez, Russell Blaylock, Stanislaw Burzynski, Burton Goldberg, and Jonathan V. Wright) over the course of 2008 provided the foundation for Knockout, which concerns alternative treatments to chemotherapy (and reality). The oncologists don’t understand cancer, you see. Fortunately Somers does it for them. Or it’s the conspiracies. According to Somers “Chemotherapy is big business, and the business end has been thoroughly thought out. Our med students are taught the company line, and after years of being intensively taught how to administer poisons, they are then graduated to go out and give these lethal medicines. To question this would discourage financial grants, and no one wants to be cut loose from pharmaceutical funding”. Then of course there is the Galileo Gambit (which Julian Whitaker invokes in the foreword to Somers’s book and Lee Schneider invokes at HuffPo).

Somers is also a water fluoridation conspiracy theorist and well into stem-cell woo.

Diagnosis: Ignorant dunderhead. Lacks any trace of a clue about pretty much everything she writes about and in possession of the critical thinking skills of a mole in a whack-a-mole game. She is probably being widely read by a host of other critical-thinking-challenged people (that is, the “critical-thinking-means-feeling-your-way-to-the-truth” crowd), and must as such be considered a threat to civilization.

#365: Wesley J. Smith

Wesley J. Smith is a lawyer, award winning author, and a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute's Center on Human Exceptionalism. In fact, Smith is one of the Tute’s most highly profiled associates. He was a prominent figure in the discussion surrounding the Terri Schiavo case and a vocal opponent of assisted suicide and euthanasia, and also of human cloning research and environmentalism (which is “anti-humanist”). His opposition to bioethics has been criticized, unsurprisingly, for selective use of evidence, conspiracy mongering and for being “prepared to bend the truth to make a point, turn a stomach, and potentially radicalize a reader.” Who would have thought this about a Discovery Institute fellow? No surprise that he was a prominent critic of Obamacare’s death panels.

Given that his schtick is human exceptionalism, and that he promotes human exceptionalism in DiscoTute garb, his take on evolution is predictably dumb. Yes, it is the “confusing the truth of a claim with the consequences of believing it” fallacy, combined with a complete mischaracterization of what the consequences of believing it in fact are (as illustrated by his attempt to saddle Dawkins with promoting eugenics (though he did, in all fairness, apologize).

A good response to his contributions to the Schiavo case can be found here. 

His contributions to the stem cell debate are discussed here. It’s hard to single out what’s dishonesty, what’s ignorance, and what’s wishful thinking.

Diagnosis: More careful, and less obviously insane than many of his fellow Fellows, Smith is nevertheless driven by dogma in selecting which evidence he chooses to endorse. He enjoys a rather high profile, and must be considered dangerous.

#364: Jerry E. Smith

Jerry Smith is associated with Redicecreations, a group of conspiracy theorists who appear to think that Alex Jones fails to ask the really big questions. Smith’s forte is AGW conspiracies, including the agenda of the Green movement and how it connects with the Banksters, Global Government, Global Warming and Weather Warfare. He is a promoter of the garbled Maurice Strong conspiracy (first promoted by Ronald Baily, who later sheepishly retracted it, recognizing its utter silliness). Topics discussed by Smith (in addition to Maurice Strong) include “the watermelon movement” (I have no idea), Agenda 21, Global Warming and Global Government, Weather Manipulation & Weather Warfare, Scientific Studies (which Smith wouldn’t be able to recognize or understand if his life depended on it) & Military Application, Rain prevention during 2008 Beijing Olympics, Black Ops, Wilhelm Reich, Cloud busting, Project Popeye, and The Earth Charter.

Smith is a self-proclaimed expert on Domestic Terrorism by Air performed by “black, unmarked helicopter”. He has continued the work of the late Jim Keith, author of the book “Black Helicopters Over America: Strikeforce for the New World Order” (“Briefly, it’s a plan to blow away the sovereignty of nation states and place them under the control of one ruling body, namely the United Nations. The United Nations, however, has its masters, and these are the international bankers and industrialists and criminals who groom the politicians.” Evidence: Imagination). As for himself, he is the author of “HAARP: The Ultimate Weapon of the Conspiracy". 

A nice resource covering the gamut of Smith’s conspiracy beliefs can be found here.

Diagnosis: Whacko with little time or concern for or ability to discern reality and evidence when imagination is so much more exciting. Probably harmless.

#363: Bradley R. Smith

Bradley R. Smith is a former media director of the Institute for Historical Review. In 1987 he founded the Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust (CODOH), which has repeatedly tried to place newspaper advertisements “questioning” whether the Holocaust happened. They are in particular targeting college campus newspapers, though Smith has also attempted to utilize other avenues to promote Holocaustdenial with little success. The reason for choosing college newspapers is aptly summed up by Smith: himself “I don’t want to spend time with adults anymore, I want to go to students. They are superficial. They are empty vessels to be filled […] I wanted to set forth three or four ideas that students might be interested in, that might cause them to think about things or to have questions about things. And I wanted to make it as simple as possible, and to set it up in a way that could not really be debated”. Standard approach, in other words. Next thing would presumably be Smith writing history textbooks aimed at homeschoolers as revisionists, denialists and cranks are wont to do.

The campaign deploys the usual denialist tactics: attacking the entire field of Holocaust Studies as “characterized by anti-German prejudice and based on forged documents, false testimony, doctored photos, induced confessions”, etc. (Anne Frank’s Diary is a “literary production”), and claim that airing Holocaust denial propaganda is an issue of “intellectual freedom”. See also this.

More here (this is a good resource site for Holocaust denial).

Diagnosis: Standard denialist using standard denialist tactics; take away the racism and you get the antivaxxers, creationist and global warming deniers. Of course, Smith’s racism does make him even worse. On the other hand he is probably less influential.

#362: Lonnie Skinner

Lonnie Skinner (the absolutely legendary Zecharia Sitchin, discoverer of Nibiru and its inhabitants, met his untimely demise in September 2010, for those who were expecting him) is a Texas-based Baptist Minister. He is most famous for being the founder of the Patriot University, the unaccredited (though see this) “institution” (diploma mill) that granted Kent Hovind his “PhD”. For a while the “institution” was located in Colorado; it is currently located in Del Norte and shares its address with the home address of Lonnie Skinner. You can read Kent Hovind’s defense of his alma mater here. It seems like Hovind’s dissertation advisor and Skinner associate, Franklin “Wayne” Knight, is having some troubles of his own, by the way.

Diagnosis: This guy awarded a degree to Kent Hovind! Even though he got paid for doing that, and even though the degree is worth shit, it is inexcusable.

#361: S. Fred Singer

Siegfried Fred Singer is a physicist currently habitating the George Mason University, and a legend within all denialist movements. Thing is, Singer is the epitome of an expert for hire.

First of all, Singer’s credentials as a scientist are genuine. He graduated from Princeton and did much work in technology and engineering early on, such as mine detection technology, atmospheric physics, designing satellites, satellite instrumentation, and so on. He is also a recipient of the Flat Earth Award, which will raise his credentials among conspiracy theorists everywhere.

He first rose to general notability in the 80s when he presented himself as a cutting-edge researcher (false) on matters related to ozone layer depletion. In typical denialist vein, he published op-eds and testified before Congress, but avoided peer-review; he quote-mined the science and applied hardcore confirmation bias to come up with “no danger here, just a conspiracy”. Of course, he failed to mention that he was being paid large sums by the petroleum companies for his work, an observation that might have counted as ad hominem if Singer hadn’t avoided doing any real research on the topic, contradicted all evidence there was, lacked any expertise in the area, and been repeatedly caught lying and distorting the evidence. In those circumstances the observation is telling.

At the same time, he entered the second-hand smoke denial camp (an area not within his field of expertise) and quickly became a central figure in the movement denying the dangers of second-hand smoke. In typical denialist vein, he published op-eds and testified before Congress, but avoided peer-review; he quote-mined the science and applied hardcore confirmation bias (and blatant lying and ignorance) to come up with “no danger here, just a conspiracy”. Of course, he failed to mention that he was being paid by Philip Morris-backed groups for his work. See the previous paragraph.

Guess where he is now. Well, his think tank, The Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP), is among the many think tanks out there denying AGW. Their money comes from oil interests and, for a while, the Moonies.

Since 1995 he has been an ardent advocate of cherry-picking data, misquoting and neglecting inconvenient data, and has claimed that the satellite data shows cooling. He has produced enormous amounts of crap, and has even set up his alternative to IPCC, the NIPCC (Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change) (yes, conspiracy theories galore, and the alleged conspiracies are notoriously without clear agendas, but hey; everyone knows the government is out to get you, so claiming a conspiracy is a surefire trick). The NIPCC and its hilariously (were it not so unfunny) over-the-top crackpottery reports (yes, you’ll find every denialist talking point in them, including this) was predictably endorsed by the Heartland Institute.

Singer is pretty good at utilizing every piece or rumor or every event he gets hold of to tweak out a denialist attack, and to get his voice picked up by mainstream media – not only Steve Milloy, who mistakes him for an expert (or Singer exploits the media’s hankering for false equivalencies). And Singer is, of course, a truly remorseless liar.

You can find an archive of some of his antics here, and a biography here.

As always, this one is pertinent.

Diagnosis: It is not entirely clear whether Singer actually believes the shit his spreading, or whether he just doesn’t care anymore. He is in any case the epitome of denialist dishonesty, and extremely dangerous.