skip to main |
skip to sidebar
David Duke is a radical far-right wingnut. A former Ku Klux Klan member, a member of the National Socialist White Peoples Party, and founder of the student chapter (LSU) of the White Youth Alliance. He actually wore a Nazi uniform to campus, and later worked to revive the Ku Klux Klan before founding a “more professional” organization, the National Association for the Advancement of White People. He is currently frequenting Stormfront.
He has repeatedly run for public offices on Democratic, Republican, and Populist party tickets, and actually managed to get himself elected to the Louisiana state senate in 1989 (he also ran for governor, and lost with a frighteningly small margin to a rather openly corrupt and morally contemptible opponent). He has recently been a strong supporter of the Tea Party, lending them credibility by asserting repeatedly that the Tea Party isn’t racist (argument by assertion). He describes himself as a “racial realist”.
So what’s he been up to lately? Well, he was not particularly happy that the Republican National Committee elected Steele as chairman, or more precisely: “I am glad these traitorous leaders of the Republican Party appointed this Black racist, affirmative action advocate to the head of the Republican party because this will lead to a huge revolt among the Republican base.” (full story here). Due to his impeccable credentials, Duke has also been one of the “scholars” (he holds a “PhD” from a Ukrainian diploma mill with the thesis “Zionism as a Form of Ethnic Supremacism”) the Iranian government has consulted to hammer out their view on the Holocaust.
His tie to Tony Perkins’s (utterly lunatic) Family Research Council is interesting. So is the (admittedly more tenuous) link to the Floria GOP.
Some lovely quotes here.
His wiki page is here.
In 1976 he also published a self-help sex manual for women on how to perform fellatio and anal sex, under the pseudonym Dorothy Vanderbilt (just a curious piece of trivia).
Diagnosis: I’ll leave this one to you. His ability to reappear almost everywhere is a bit scary.
Peter Duesberg is a prominent U.C. Berkeley retrovirologist and the most prominent and influential of all HIV deniers (here, and here). His personal influence and his scientific acumen in non-HIV-related work surely helped spread the word, and he must be considered the grandfather of all HIV-denialism (they all seem to trace back to him). He has contended at least since 1987 that illicit drugs, AZT (an anti-HIV drug) and other factors are the real cause of AIDS. His ideas have evolved little from his publications of 20 years ago – it’s still “Chemical AIDS” and “HIV is neither necessary nor sufficient to cause AIDS”; he has also pointed out the “gay lifestyle” (oblivious to the fact that the problems in the developing world is not a “gay problem”, although he has claimed that AIDS in Africa is largely misdiagnosed, usually accumulated effects of malnutrition and disease). His criticisms have been thoroughly refuted in a long number of publications, which hasn’t affected his arguments.
Through persistence he has attracted a many supporters, especially among HIV positives, who are not only given false hopes, but may also be encouraged to avoid effective treatment. In 1999, HIV denialism got its most important advocate: Thabo Mbeki, then president of South Africa. Mbeki, influenced by denialist literature, decided that the consensus on Aids was too Western. In 2000 he set up a panel of advisers, including several Aids denialists, Duesberg among them. Mbeki’s HIV politics are estimated to have cost at least 300,000 people their lives, and he is without doubt guilty of crimes against humanity. Duesberg is an accomplice.
Duesberg is also associated with the fringe organization “Doctors for Disaster Preparedness”.
Some helpful criticisms are found here, and here.
These posts are, I think, very helpful when dealing with this kind of person: here, and here.
Diagnosis: A serious threat to humanity – seriously. Once a respected scientist, Duesberg has fallen deeply into denialism and must be considered at least partially responsible for the death and suffering of many real humans. Undoubtedly one of the most dangerous and influential loons in the whole Encyclopedia, and cannot be underestimated.
One of the more well-known, and rabid, creationists and apologists out there. As a Christian author he has managed to concoct such literary masterpieces as “The Enemy At Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11” (basically: our liberal lifestyle, equality and freedom anger mullahs; therefore we should do away with it – here, and here) and “What's So Great About Christianity (?)” (where he attempts to appropriate the term “evolution”, but distinguishes “Christian evolution” (ID creationism) from “Darwinian evolution”; here). He is also famous for debating people such as Hitchens, Dennett, and Shermer. A debate with Dennett can be found here. It's another piece of mindrot – you are warned. Another one is here, and one here). He has actually hit upon a very useful debate strategy (well, it is normal snowing, really): present as many strawmen, caricatures, bullshit, non-sequieturs and lies as possible in as short time as possible; point out that your opponent hasn’t refuted or addressed every single one of them. Therefore, God exists. It is a common technique among conspiracy theorists and creationists (and AGW deniers), and sufficiently notorious to have been given a name, “gish gallop”)
He has also written “Life After Death: The Evidence”, which according to himself proves that there is an afterlife. The first proof is: In the human heart there is a universal moral code underlying acts of self-sacrifice and charity. It is incompatible with the Darwinian imperative to out-compete thy neighbor. Therefore God, therefore an afterlife. The second proof is: Since there is so much suffering in the world, there must be an afterlife to make up for it. Seriously; those are his arguments. And oh, there’s the Pascal’s wager offshoot: Believing in the afterlife makes you happy, and believers have better sex.
His ability to connect premises and conclusions is seriously questionable. For instance, he argues (discussed here) that atheists are hateful robots because Dawkins wasn't invited to any of the memorials at Virginia Tech, and because he couldn't spot any atheists in the crowds. This, according to Dinesh, shows that the problem of evil is a bigger problem for atheists than for Christians and that modern science is bunk.
He does try to have it all ways, though. While he rejects evolution, he also arguest that evolution supports conservatism (here), so liberal scientists are doubly confused. To ensure that the conclusion goes through he glues it to his (moronic) premises with a naturalistic fallacy. It is almost as good as his liberal left caused 9/11 fallacies, entailing gems such as: if you've ever given money to Planned Parenthood or the ACLU, you've been aiding groups “at least as dangerous as any of bin Laden's American sleeper cells” (no failure to separate opinions from fact in that one, no?); here, and here.
This “man is like a magnet of wrong", and he just doesn’t get the naturalistic fallacy.
Diagnosis: Ardently moronic nitwit who wouldn’t be able to distinguish facts from wishful thinking or identify a fallacy if his life depended on it. Zealous. How he has achieved the status and influence he has ought to be a mystery (but really isn’t).
The amiable, lovable Wiley Drake is a Californian Southern Baptist minister and talk radio host, and a prominent member of the American Independent Party. In fact, he was their vice-presidential candidate in 2008 (with Alan Keyes - who will be covered later - rest assured, as the presidential candidate). He is most famous for calling for prayers for the deaths of those who disagree with him, including political opponents.
He was most famous for urging his followers to pray for the death of Obama ("Imprecatory Prayer is now our DUTY"). In fact, his obsession with imprecatory prayer is based on its success rate. God had already answered his call with the murder of George Tiller who, according to Drake, “was far greater in his atrocities than Adolf Hitler, […] so I am happy. I am glad that he is dead". Actully, Drake said he didn’t think the killer was pro-life – rather, the killer was planted by Obama to make anti-abortionists look bad.
Well, it wasn’t his first attempt at calling down the wrath and death mongering of God. The reason he wanted to take down Americans United for Separation of Church and State was primarily not because they defend the separation of church and state, but because they filed a complaint against him with the IRS for violating his church's tax exempt status. A fairly typical Jeebus and Christian™ cause for invoking the wrath of God, in other words.
Before running on Keyes’s ticket, Drake had endorsed Huckabee. Even Huckabee wasn’t particularly pleased about that.
Drake is a birfer. In fact, his main (official) argument against Obama is that he was born in Kenya rather than Hawaii and is thus an usurper.
Diagnosis: One of the most repugnant characters alive. Clinically insane, fascist piece of mindrot who needs serious medical attention. His influence is to some extent marginal, but he can’t be written off as harmless.
Oh boy. Robert Dowling might not have reached celebrity status of fame, and pray he never does. This repulsively stupid, clueless bugbear, cultmaster and woo-champion goes – like so many others – for the big one with his quackery; Cancer, and primarily breast cancer. Apparently, he thinks dental pathology is the cause for all cancer and sells (of course) a "cure" for breast cancer called “Quantum Health Management” (oh yes, quantums – they’re like magic). It is supposed to have a 100 % success rate. That should be a pretty solid red flag. Here is a report from one of his talks.
As Orac points out it is curious how alternative medicine proponents complain that science-based medicine have a “one size fits all attitude” and “no individual adjustments” on the one hand, and on the other holds that all cancer has one source and require kind of treatment. In this case the source of ALL cancer is... dental cavitations.
Of course, Dowling has no studies, no evidence and he is not a doctor; he claims to have proof (i.e. proof by evasion or proof by dodgy answers?) but on his website you’ll find exactly what you expect: anecdotal evidence – by mostly anonymous patients whose claims to even have had cancer is unverified (of course, he claims to use FDA approved techniques, so it might be that he actually carry out surgical removals of tumors in one way or another – that could work, but is not alternative and has absolutely nothing to do with cavities).
Oh, and it is not just cancer: oral pathology is the cause of all disease; Dowling claims it causes cancer, heart disease, and alzheimers, and most likely lupus, fibromyalgia, Parkinsons and diabetes (which he has himself – and has apparently not manage to cure).
A nice, and very tactful, discussion of his work is found here.
Apparently, his center does research as well (carried out by one Robert Jones – the name is interesting, since one “Robert Jones” of South Carolina has, as pointed out by Quackwatch, been involved in this business before and has received at least one FDA warning: ). It is completely ridiculous. Seriously.
Diagnosis: Complete idiot with no understand of science and no will to look at evidence, reason or data. A fraud, but probably intentionally so. He might not be a big mover or shaker among quacks, but his promises might actually lead to real damage for real people.
A staunch opponent of the scientific method, Larry Dossey argues that the scientific method leads to Hitler and that indoctrinating children with the scientific method is a form of child abuse.
It is unclear what he wants to replace it with; presumably intuition, anecdotal evidence and “different ways of knowing” (i.e. “facts are just opinions and claims that are true for you may not be true for me”); perhaps something like this. You see, Larry is completely out there – he’s a virulent defender of all kinds of woo - Deepak Chopra, Gary Null, Joe Mercola, Gary Zukav and those kinds of people. He is, in fact, reckoned as one of the “Three musketeers of Woo”. Dossey is the author of (among other books) “Healing words: the power of prayer and the practice of medicine”, “The power of premonitions” (uh-oh) and, with Lewis Mehl-Madrona (who must be considered equally insane on this evidence alone) “Coyote healing” about the power of Native American healers to produce "miracles". Betcha there was a lot of controlled studies behind that one. He is also the former co-chairman of the Panel on Mind/Body Interventions, National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, National Institutes of Health. And he is the executive editor of the “peer-reviewed” journal “Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing” (the journal known for this one, and this one). He seems to accept any conclusion as long as it is not science-based, since science is a conspiracy of the pharmaceutical companies and therefore a sham (which, you know, does not follow even if the premise is true – it’s called “ad hominem”, and is, in this case, a fallacy). Kinda like Alex Jones.
Diagnosis: Clinically lacking in critical thinking skills and understanding of the scientific method, and utterly lost to confirmation bias. Impact uncertain, but he does (of course) write for Huffington post on a regular basis. Total moron.
Bill Donohue is a curious case. He is the president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, a job he takes very seriously. Point is, Donohue cannot, as far as I am aware, reasonably be said to be a crackpot – in the sense that he seems relatively pro-science, not a creationist (well, it is a little unclear), not an AGW denier, not a woo-proponent. But he is still a first-class loon. His screeds are completely insane strings of logical fallacies (so much so that they are excellent fodder for intro to critical thinking student on the first day of class), rabid, hateful and paranoid – as rationalwiki puts it, his rhetoric lies somewhere between Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps.
His topics are usually selected defenses of the Catholic church from all – and, apparently, that means all – allegations, such as their being or having been anti-science and … other things. Here are some clues to his stuff (ok, he is anti-gay-rights, and apparently his argument is the hoary slippery slope one). His devotion to the Catholic church is total, and he has no misgivings about distorting virtually all of history, or any fact, to portray it as ‘whatever you say is good, the Catholic church is better, and the Catholic church is always the exception to anything bad’, as in here.
Donohue is also, among other things, one of Mel Gibson’s staunchest defenders. Donohue on the Passion of Christ: “Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. It's not a secret, OK? And I'm not afraid to say it. That's why they hate this movie. It's about Jesus Christ, and it's about truth. It's about the messiah.” (more here, and here - beware, this is a crazy one). He is, however, engaged in a personal war with the Simpsons and with Penn and Teller.
In fact, Donohue seems to lack any clear understanding of how things work. I suppose the event referred to is familiar to most; if not you can look it up here. Donohue’s first press release was insane; the second, however is so over the top paranoid and lunatic that it must be seen to be believed.
His main attribute (and favorite argumentative technique) is rage. He was enraged (and looking very silly and stupid) when he was furious that the Empire State Building didn’t celebrate Teresa's birthday (see here - I don’t like linking to fox, but the spectacular display of absence of reasoning skills in Donohue’s rant is too good to pass over). And he and his League went completely unhinged over Lady Gaga's new video in the utterly paranoid screed reported on here. His fatwa envy is also notable.
His defense of priests charged with child abuse threads the line between the hilarious and the scary without much elegance: see here, here, and here.
Diagnosis: Vile and hateful fellow with a notorious persecution complex, and in general utterly insane. His impact is uncertain, but is presumably limited to a small group. He comes across mostly as entertaining for his unbridled anger at everything and everybody.
David Duke is a radical far-right wingnut. A former Ku Klux Klan member, a member of the National Socialist White Peoples Party, and founder of the student chapter (LSU) of the White Youth Alliance. He actually wore a Nazi uniform to campus, and later worked to revive the Ku Klux Klan before founding a “more professional” organization, the National Association for the Advancement of White People. He is currently frequenting Stormfront.
