#368: Peter Sprigg

Peter S. Sprigg is Senior Fellow for Policy Studies at Gary Bauer & James Dobson’s Family Research Council in Washington (not the same as Paul Cameron’s Family Research Institute). His “research” and writings have addressed issues of marriage and family, human sexuality, the arts and entertainment, and religion in public life. He is unsurprisingly no fan of gay marriage and has frequently testified before federal, state and local courts on these issues. To take a quote from his interview with Chris Matthews: “I think that the Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas which overturned the sodomy laws in this country was wrongly decided,” [“wrongly decided” does not mean “legally wrongly”, of course, but that Sprigg doesn’t like it – although he doesn’t see the difference between the two things]. Furthermore, he “think[s] there would be a place for criminal sanctions against homosexual behavior.” On a direct question of whether we should outlaw gay behavior, Sprigg said “yes,” because he is a psychopathic Taliban monster. More here. You can see Sprigg struggling to argue that his (and anyone else’s) arguments against homosexuality are not based on religion here (yes, his failure is epic), and his tortured attempt to argue that gay marriage is still generally overwhelmingly unpopular among the public here. He vigorously attacked the Obama administration’s call to protect LGBT people from violence, calling it an “unconscionable” promotion of “the radical ideology of the sexual revolution,” apparently because protecting people from violence is un-Christian. To counteract the administration’s measures he reverted to the most efficacious weapon in his arsenal: prayer.

Sprigg has also been caught advocating fractally wrong claims about evolution, claiming that even secular evolutionists (though he doesn’t believe them) must support traditional marriage (by some less-than-non-fallacious appeal to nature). Sprigg is really an ardent creationist, however, from which it seems to follow that intellectual honesty should not be considered a virtue. He is known for complaining, with regard to a new book on evolution written by actual scientists, that it failed to address challenges to the theory of evolution but instead rehashed the same arguments (the book in question presented evidence, by the way, but Sprigg doesn’t understand the difference): “What's lacking is the true scientific debate about the merits and weaknesses of evolutionary theory as presented by Darwin.” Such a debate was evidently missing because evolution is obviously wrong and scientists don’t agree with him on that obvious truth.

Among his books are “Outrage: how gay activists and liberal judges are trashing democracy to redefine marriage,” and (with one Timothy Dailey) “Getting It Straight: What the Research Shows about Homosexuality,” which does, needless to say, not report what the research shows about homosexuality.

Sprigg was also a firm opponent of introducing the HPV vaccine in Michigan: “We don't feel using school attendance as a form of coercion to get parents to vaccinate their child is appropriate, simply because this disease is not transmitted through casual contact the way other diseases are that are subject to school mandates.”

Diagnosis: Certified Liar for Jesus, staunch denialist and ardently anti-science, as well as hell bent on  showing the world that he is a psychopathic monster. His life’s work is built on the delusion that “secularists are promoting a pro-science agenda as part of their age-old persecution of Christians”. He does have some influence, however, and should be considered dangerous.

#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.