Susan Mazur is a science journalist. She is most famous for credulously swallowing every piece of nonsense (especially concerning biology) she comes across from creationists and ultra-crackpots. It doesn’t really help that real scientists calmly explain things to her. The only thing that seems to stick in her mind is “conspiracy”. For example, see her claims concerning the debate surrounding Fodor & Piattelli-Palmarini’s epically clueless recent book. Part of her problem seems to stem from her obsession with the balloon animal übercrackpot rants of Stuart Pivar. She’s even written a book on the “controversies” among evolutionary scientists (praised by the creationists of Uncommon Descent), and is genuinely concerned with “exposing the evolution industry”.
Her incoherently muddled reports on evolution are gleefully read by creationists as evidence that the theory of evolution is in trouble, and while Mazur cannot probably be correctly classified as a creationist herself, she does lend them some help through her sensationalist misrepresentation.
Diagnosis: The epitome of bad science journalism, Mazur has turned into a sympathetic voice for anti-science crankery everywhere. As such she is probably causing some harm. Complete idiot.
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