#2583: David Boyd

Bob Jones University is a fundie bible school located in Greenville, South Carolina, and one of the more infamous among a rather significant number of schools in the US that offer a Biblical literalist alternative to education. Its biology program, for instance, is young-Earth creationist to the core, and though the Head of the Department of Biology, David W. Boyd, has a real degree from the (questionable but accredited) nearby Clemson University, he views his education mostly as having been a test of faith. Biology at Bob Jones is not about science but about how to best retain one’s belief in a literal reading of the Biblical account of creation despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

 

Boyd also writes articles for Answers in Genesis. Here, for instance, is a commentary on an article of his about bird speciation: there are more than 10,000 species of birds, and not all of them could have been on Noah’s Ark, so which ones were? According to the pseudoscience of baraminology, Noah’s Ark carried kinds of animals from which current species have … well, you shouldn’t say “evolved”. Apparently, though, the number of birds is a bigger problem for “a scientist with a materialistic worldview” who has to explain evolution from “the first bird”, and “that would need millions of years”; someone (Boyd uses “scientist”, but that seems like the wrong word) who conforms to a Biblical view of things, however, “would only need thousands of years”. Yeah, silly materialists. How would Boyd’s alternative work, though? Well, there were apparently just under 200 kinds of birds on the Ark (because!), and if each of those underwent speciation once every 750 years, we would have about 10 000 of them today. Though Boyd is dimly aware the claim “does not account for many variables”, it seems to him much preferable to all that complicated science stuff.

 

Here is a comment on his review (with one Brian Vogt) of Michael Behe’s silly book Darwin Devolves. They recommend it – and at least they recognize it for the religiously motivated screed it is.

 

Diagnosis: AiG is still running its bizarre sideshow, and we suppose some people who don’t know better and were prone to motivated reasoning could mistake someone like David Boyd and his religiously motivated cargo cult science for a scientist doing science, given his titles and how he presents himself. Utterly ridiculous.

 

Hat-tip: Sensuoscurmudgeon

#2582: Jennifer Hollie Bowles

Jennifer Hollie Bowles is a homeopath and astrologer and generally promoter of anything fluffy and magic and nonsensical she comes across without the faintest trace of concern over whether what she says has anything whatsoever to do with reality. Bowles is the astrologer for the website Holistic Horoscopes, and has putatively, for some reason, “studied Astrology for almost twenty-five years”. Her fundie musings (for at this level, astrology is a brand of religious fundamentalism – a very snowflakey brand, but fundamentalism nonetheless) have been published on a variety of websites – including NaturalNews – and she has even written a book, Eyeteeth of Goddesses, which we don’t pretend to have bothered to look up.

 

According to Bowles, however, astrology is serious business: “the study of astrology involves a deep learning process with high-order concepts, calculations, history, and beyond.” And astrologers “must check their theories and knowledge of planetary energies and aspects with actual chart data and people data at every step of the way.” Notice that testing the hypotheses against reality is not part of the scheme. “How is this process ever considered non-academic or ‘fluffy’ enough to be excluded from formal education in the United Sates?” wonders Bowles, and cites anti-astrology bias and conspiracies going back to the scientific revolution, when such practices were apparently discarded for being insufficiently objective. Not for Bowles the simpler (and correct) story where modern science has been concerned to check whether the hypotheses actually work, and have found that astrology doesn’t. No: here be oppression. Scientists are afraid. Evidence? Scientists tend to label astrology “bunk”, yet – asks Bowles – isn’t such labeling precisely “how people react when they are afraid of something”? (not for Bowles to consider the possibility that people use the label ‘bunk’ because astrology is, you know, bunk). You see, “astrology poses a threat to knowledge that has been controlled and dominated by the few” and is “a threat to those in power who seek to control and dominate the individual.” Just the fact that some of you might react to her reasoning by asking for evidence shows how deeply mired you are in the oppressive paradigm of science, whose goal is to keep free-spirited ranters like Bowles in their place.

 

As a Holistic Practitioner – who needs med school when you’ve been writing horoscopes for decades – Bowles pushes homeopathic remedies, but can also talk about prayer, gemstones, astral projection and Tarot reading, among other things. Apparently, she believes that “we are all manifestations of Spirit, and our Spiritual Bodies manifest through the development of our relationship with Mind-Body-Soul, or the Divine Trinity”, which is what it is, we suppose. At least it departs significantly from last entry Geoff Botkin’s hard and hatefilled fanaticism.

 

Diagnosis: Good grief.

#2581: Geoff Botkin

Hysterical fundie preachers are a dime a dozen, so anyone wanting to make a name for themselves will have to find something unusually stupid to stand out. Geoff Botkin of the Western Conservatory of the Arts and Sciences, a fundie ministry that promotes Christian homeschooling and Christian Patriarchy, went for Disney’s Frozen – not a particularly original choice, perhaps, but he nonetheless managed to distinguish himself through the sheer insanity and fury of his attack. At the session “a “The Decline of Freedom: From the Bill of Rights to the Ten Planks of Communism, America’s Domestic Enemies and Where They Came From” at the 2015 “Freedom 2015: National Religious Liberties Conference” (attended by three then-presidential candidates), Botkin said that the song “Let It Go” is part of America’s rebellion against God and reminded his audience that the country is already under 50 divine judgments that will only subside once the government and the wider culture begin to abide by biblical law (so it’s unclear what difference the song would make). Likening it to Eve’s temptation by the serpent, Botkin called the song “Satan’s rebellion anthem” for its potential to corrupt children. Were it not for the venue, we would have been pretty convinced the whole screed was a poe. According to Botkin, the “spirit of licentiousness” characterizing the song, and its popularity, shows that people don’t want to follow the totality of the Bible; and God “will chasten our nation” as a result of the movie’s popularity – fans of the song are “rejecting God’s law” and are therefore “enemies of God”, and that means that God “does go to war against you”, which, if you think about it, does not reflect a very reasonable way of being in the world.  

 

But that’s his creed. Botkin is hardcore: Old Testament laws should not only be taken literally; they should be taken as your sole guide to life. As Botkin sees the world, outsiders (non-Christians) are to be hated (he repeatedly warns his audience to avoid friendships with people outside of the church militant), five year-olds can be “false prophets” (one reason why parents must be part of a “family militant” alongside the “church militant” as part of the Great Commission) and rape victims who don’t cry out for help deserve death – and Botkin emphasizes the duty of good Christians not to ignore their duties to carry out God’s justice in such situations (!). And Botkin is apparently a figure of some authority in Christian homeschooling and Christian Patriarchy Movement circles.

 

He’s got a website, too, where he publishes mostly materials advicing people on how to lead, interspersed with unhinged fundie rants and calls for donations.

 

Diagnosis: Geoff Botkin’s feeble attempts at reasoning tells you all you need to know to conclude that it’s best not to have anything to do with this deranged boogeyman in any context. His is a world built solely on hatred, anger and unforgiving coldness.

 

Hat-tip: lovejoyfeminism

#2580: David Bossie

David Norman Bossie is a political activist, chairman of Citizens United, member of the Council for National Policy and the 2016 deputy campaign manager to the Donald Trump presidential campaign. In 2020, Bossie became a central, early promoter of Trump’s conspiracies surrounding the integrity of the election. That December, for instance, Bossie was a signatory to a letter falsely declaring Trump to be “the lawful winner of the presidential election” and urging state legislators to ignore certified election results and appoint pro-Trump electors. During Trump’s tenure, Bossie was a central promoter of deep state conspiracy theories, e.g. in his book (with Corey Lewandowski) Trump’s Enemies, which “reads in part like Trump’s Twitter grievances in book form”, and which was a deliberate attempt to demonize law enforcement and intelligence officials and dismiss all checks and balances to the president’s power as “a vast left-wing conspiracy”. 

 

Under Bossie, Citizens United has produced a number of movies that blur the line between documentary and feverish fiction to attack political opponents. The 2008 film Hillary: the Movie, would happily report the weirdest conspiracy theories, including the allegation that Hillary Clinton had the cat of a woman who made claims of sexual harassment against Bill Clinton killed. It was, of course, also the movie that gave us the 2010 Citizens United ruling that weakened campaign finance laws and ushered a flood of dark money into U.S. elections.

 

In 2010, Bossie produced the film Generation Zero for Citizens United Productions, written and directed by Steve Bannon. According to the film, the financial crisis of 2007–2008 is partially to blaim on the moral failings of the Baby Boom generation – perhaps not an unreasonable claim in itself, but these people are silly, so by “moral failing” Bossie and Bannon were referring to the loss of “parental values” among zeh hippies and Vietnam protestors. Bossie and Bannon also released the bizarre “Christian war film” Torchlight.

 

Diagnosis: Mostly a spineless, power-hungry and unscrupulous political navigator, but we think we have to assume that he actually believes at least some of the nonsense he produces, in copious amounts, deliberately to poison public debate. Since he is also one of the most powerful figures in the US, he definitely needs an entry.

#2579: Joan Borysenko

Well, DNA isn’t a “fractal antenna” that is being physically changed by NFL broadcaststo create violence and wars, but we have still decided to give former quarterback Mike Boryla a pass. We don’t know precisely what he’s up to these days, and we are not completely convinced he does either. Joan Borysenko, on the other hand, should definitely know better.

 

Borysenko has managed to establish herself as something of an authority in the New Age “mind/body” wellness segment of the population, and she’s nothing if not market savvy. Borysenko is, apparently, a “Harvard Medical School trained cell biologist” and “licensed psychologist”, credentials she effectively uses to promote a range of fluffy pseudoscience – often peppered with vaguely sciency-sounding terms and turns of the phrase and references to other pseudoscience practitioners like Raymond Moody. She is mostly a “distinguished pioneer in integrative medicine is a world-renowned expert in themind/body connection”. Admittedly, much of her advice (summed up in her books Pocketful of Miracles and Pocketful of Blessings and a slew of other pastel-color-covered books) is harmless, but that doesn’t make it less nonsensical – she promotes the Hoffman process, for instance. In general, Borysenko offers “practical information ranging from mindfulness to neuroscience; from epigenetics to nutrition; and from ancient wisdom to modern psychology”. Yes, epigenetics. Needless to say, Borysenko offers no insights or practical advice on epigenetics. Her website has a prominently displayed Store section.

 

Borysenko was one of the practitioners featured in the pseudoscientific “infomercial” Heal, directed by Kelly Noonan Gores (there is a balanced review here), together with people like Joe Dispenza, Bruce Lipton, Kelly Brogan, Deepak Chopra, Gregg Braden and Marianne Williamson. And the thing is: although Borysenko’s pink fluff and positive thinking can sound harmless, even good, the main theme of that movie is the claim that modern pharmaceuticals and the doctors who rely on them are ineffective at best, harmful at worst, and that diseases can be managed and even cured by positive thinking and the magnificently vague advice of “taking control” of your disease. And those beliefs are harmful. (In fairness, Borysenko has elsewhere e.g. criticized Bernie Siegel as an “extremist”; but she also claims that “80-90% of illness is caused or worsened by stress. You might recall that I’m a medical scientist, with a doctorate from Harvard Medical School”; given that “worsened by stress” is not defined, the claim is not actionable.)

 

Diagnosis: Ultimately, Borysenko seems to be rather careful to avoid the most egregious and harmful pseudoscientific claims – indeed, we are sure that some of her messages might indeed help people in difficult situations. But pointing that out is kind of like pointing to individual Nazis who didn’t personally express any insidious belief or do any harm – they’re still part of a movement that does, and Borysenko, e.g. through her movie appearances, does help promote the genuinely harmful and evil stuff of people like Kelly Brogan and Bruce Lipton.

#2578: Wellington Boone

Wellington Boone is the founder and chief prelate of the Fellowship of International Churches (as well as numerous fundamentalist organizations and networks) and a dominionist fundie’s fundie. He has been a regular feature on the TV networks CBN (Pat Robertson’s propaganda apparatus) and TBN, and a speaker for Promise Keepers, Focus on the Family (Boone has enjoyed quite a bit of a career as a James Dobson sidekick), the American Association of Christian Counselors and the Family Research Council. He has also been a member of the board of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability and the Board of Trustees at Regent University. Not the least, Boone is the author of the book Black Self-Genocide: What Black Lives Matter Won’t Say.

 

The latter topic has been central to Boone’s efforts the last couple of years. According to Boone, Black Americans are suffering from “self-genocide”, insofar as many more Blacks are killed by other Blacks than by policemen (ostensibly what the BLM “won’t say”), especially through abortion and inner-city murders. Part of the reason it is this way, according to Boone, is that Black people in America from the 1960s onward has started depending on sources like the government for support rather than God.

 

Boone has also said that “I believe that slavery, and the understanding of it when you see it God’s way, was redemptive.” Indeed, Boone wants to “boldly affirm Uncle Tom. The black community must stop criticizing Uncle Tom. He is a role model.”

 

That said, Boone has been sharply critical of comparisons between the Gay Rights Movement and the Civil Rights Movement, calling it “Rape of the Civil Rights Movement”. Given his view of slavery (and apparently agreeing with Pat Robertson saying that Martin Luther King Jr. was helping Planned Parenthood commit black genocide and that black families were better off in the 1930s), it’s unclear whether to interpret that as a criticism of the Gay Rights Movement, but Boone certainly hasn’t expressed particularly civilized views of gay people elsewhere: homosexuality unchecked will, according to Boone, “result in the ultimate destruction of society”. He has also defended laws making homosexuality a crime punishable by the death penalty. In fact, Boone has pointed out (this “will absolutely blow the gay community’s mind right now”) that gay people “are eunuchs. You are a eunuch culture;” gay people have “let the devil trick” them into thinking otherwise (for some unexplained and incomprehensible reason). Equality is, in general, something Boone makes no attempts to understand; the goal of Promise Keepers is, after all, women’s submission and instituting a theocratic patriarchy.

 

Indeed, Boone doesn’t usually try very hard to hide his theocratic intentions – he is, after all, member of the dominionist Coalition on Revival, which campaigns for replacing Constitutional democracy with Biblical law.

 

George Barna and Harry Jackson Jr. ranked Boone as the #1 Black American leader in racial reconciliation of the 20th Century, and Ben Carson described Black Self-Genocide as “riveting” and “sage advice for how to empower the black community in America”. Guilt by association, we know, but what association!

 

Diagnosis: Yeah, another one of those: Boone’s bigotry and hatred toward certain groups of people are strong enough to make him willing to sacrifice quite a bit just to see those groups suffer, and he’s been aptly characterized as a “minister of minstrelry”. A thoroughly unsavory fellow.

#2577: Dan Bongino

Daniel John Bongino is a wingnut political commentator, radio show host, conspiracy theorist, former Secret Service agent, unsuccessful candidate for Congress, and author. Currently, Bongino hosts talk radio show The Dan Bongino Show and Unfiltered with Dan Bongino on Fox News, but he has made numerous appearances on a variety of conspiracy outlets, including Infowars, the relatively shortlived NRATV, and the shows of Sean Hannity and Mark Levin. In 2019, Bongino also launched the website Bongino Report as an alternative to the Drudge Report website, criticizing Matt Drudge for having “abandoned” Trump supporters – because that’s apparently a duty websites trying to be news sites ought to take seriously.

 

In November 2020, The New York Times listed Dan Bongino as one of the top 5 election “misinformation superspreaders” – according to Facebook data, his page attracted more engagement than those of the Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal combined in 2022, and he had the No. 1 podcast on iTunes after the 2020 election. He’s been banned from Twitter and Youtube for spreading COVID-19 misinformation. Bongino is, however, a central investor in Parler and Rumble.

 

Conspiracy theories

Bongino is a central proponent of the Spygate conspiracy theory, according to which illegal spying on Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign was perpetrated by Barack Obama’s administration. His name even appears as author of a book on the subject, Spygate: The Attempted Sabotage of Donald J. Trump, which claimed, predictably, that “deep state” plotters and foreign entities sought to sabotage Trump in 2016, infiltrating his campaign and leaking allegations about his dealings with Russia – the book was endorsed by Trump himself. Indeed, Bongino rose to power primarily as a promoter of conspiracy theories about the Robert Mueller investigations.

 

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Bongino was a consistent critic of face mask mandates, falsely claiming that face masks are “largely ineffective” – he hastily added that he wasn’t gloating, unlike the libruls who are “crazy satanic demon people” who “wish death on me and everyone else from covid”. Bongino is a real victim here, just so you know.

 

Stop the steal

During the 2020 election, Bongino promoted the usual false and baseless claims of voter fraud, more or less parroting any baseless election fraud allegation Trump himself would come up with. According to Bongino, “the F.B.I. and the C.I.A., members of it, unquestionably tried to rig both the 2016 and 2020 election.” It doesn’t matter that he has no evidence, and that the claims have been dismissed by Trump’s own top appointees at the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, in addition to federal and state judges: the lack of evidence is just evidence for how pervasive and well-done the rigging was – and the fact that the claims are dismissed as conspiracy theories is apparently a smoking gun. Facts never mattered to Bongino or the platforms promoting him. Bongino was early onto the 2022 elections, too, warning his listeners months in advance about how Silicon Valley was “hiding information from you now about what happened in Arizona and Georgia”.

 

Indeed, as of 2022, Bongino has become something like an unofficial leader in the promotion of stop the steal myths, and is often a source for claims by conspiracy-mongering celebrities like Ginni Thomas (though when pressed, he tries to make it very clear that he’s JAQing off).

 

Diagnosis: It’s a pretty scary realization that Dan Bongino’s position among wingnuts might be partially due to how reasonable he sounds compared to most of the pundits sharing his views. Bongino’s views are in no conceivable way reasonable. One of the most dangerous loons in the US at present.