#666: Robert W. Felix

Robert W. Felix is an übercrank who, as cranks by definition do, has his own set of homebrewed ideas about Earth changes (yes, Edgar Cayce stuff). In fact, his Earth Changes stuff is a framework, a grand, unified scheme that allows him to incorporate as much crankery and pseudo-science as one could possibly dream of. The pillars of it all are the idea of pole shifts and some confused drivel about cosmic rays. It’s all combined with a delicious sense of delusional self-grandeur: on publishing his chapter “Fatal Flaw”, a critic commented “With the publication of his chapter ‘Fatal Flaw,’ author Robert W. Felix joins such luminaries as Charles Darwin, Alice Walker, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Maya Angelou, Aldous Huxley and Walt Whitman,” which sounds impressive until you notice that said critic was Felix himself.

Earth Changes

The gist of his crackpottery is that the Earth's magnetic poles will soon be reversed, causing environmental cataclysms and then ice ages. His webiste Ice Age Now is devoted to this idea, and has – predictably – achieved a status amount to something like the Words of Comfort of global warming denialism (complete with survivalist paranoia and conspiracy theories to the effect that the government is trying to keep the coming ice age secret for unclear reasons), primarily devoted to PRATTs. There’s plenty of abiotic oil and abiotic oil lunacy as well; the idea of abiotic oil, of course, is among the most desperately lunatic denialist ideas in circulation and puts Felix in the company of luminaries like Jerome Corsi.

His other website, Evolutionary Leaps, is devoted to a crackpot version of evolution, developed (without much evidence of, well, evidence, or understanding) to support his Earth changes ideas. Jerome Corsi (indeed!) sometimes makes guest appearances to promote e.g. abiotic oil shit silliness, and the thing is a treasure trove of Velikovsky crankery, made-up evidence, quote-mining, and cherry picking.

Climate Change

Nevertheless, climate change deniers, who are generally known for the systematically complete lack of critical assessment of what sources they use, have indeed used Felix, and whatever he pulls out of his ass (mostly shit), as an authority (also here; some ramifications here). Cleve Blakemore’s Vault-Co also recommends reading Felix, but that is admittedly little more than expected.

As for contributor Alan Caruba, you can read about him here.

(Yes, I’ve pinched most of this entry from here - hat tip granted)

Diagnosis: Despite his valiant (though unintentional) efforts to portray himself as a spoof, people continue to take Felix seriously – especially climate change denialists who haven’t seen a claim supporting their favored position they wouldn’t endorse.