#923: Joseph Mastropaolo

A.k.a. JoMo (affectionately)

Joseph Mastropaolo is a kinesiologist with the Institute for Creation Research. He’s also known to be one of the most frustrating human beings you could ever encounter. Mastropaolo is a proponent of the mock-challenge-to-debate strategy of scientific inquiry. He does not care about research or data, but takes evolution to be refuted primarily by the fact that scientists won’t debate him under conditions determined by him. He has for instance issued challenges for trips to China and blasting anyone who failed to take him up on it because they had better things to do as cowards and fools, then – when no one takes up his offer – he follows it with screeds such as “The Evolutionist: Liar, Believer in Miracles, King of Criminal”.

Among the more notable challenges was the Life Science Prize Challenge (issued with one Karl Priest). It is described here. The fact that scientists have long managed to prove everything he asks for, even in the venues he asks them to prove it matters less, for they haven’t proven it by debating him under his ridiculous conditions (yes, there were some significant catches to rig things in Mastropaolo’s favor). When no one stepped up to debate, he created a list of debate dodgers (the list is reproduced here) that even his own home network, True.Origins, decided to take it down due, according to Tim Wallace, who runs True.Origins (a site that attempts to mirror the godless evolutionism at Talk.Origins), to “questions about the potential legitimacy of the debate challenge itself”. Dawkins, characterized as a Debate Dodger by Mastropaolo and Priest, suggested to them that since the challenge was going to based upon scientific evidence perhaps it would be better to have it judged by scientists rather than by a judge (as Mastropaolo & Priest suggested). Dawkins was, promptly and predictably, accused of trying to rig the results in his favor.

Karl Priest thinks evolution is refuted because i) evolution has been exposed as pagan Cebelese religion as practiced in Greece 2,500 years ago; ii) evolution is completely absent in the universe today, always has been, always will be; iii) every item associated with humans, animals and plants are creations, always have been, always will be; iv) creation is science because it is observable by billions of people trillions of times, always has been, always will be; and v) You [in this case Wilfrid Elders] refuse to defend your ideas in a debate for $10,000.00.

Mastropaolo is also known to argue that defenders of evolution mistakes evolution with devolution, since “[c]hange over time, ‘definition one’ of evolution, actually describes devolution to extinction, the exact opposite of evolution … actual epidemiological data from human genetic disorders and fatal birth defects, identify ‘natural selection,’ the alleged ‘primary mechanism’ for evolution, as actually a mechanism for devolution to extinction, the exact opposite of evolution.” He doesn’t quite understand evolution, does he? Note that his primary evidence for “devolution” is that the Biblical patriarchs lived very long lives, and current humans live much shorter lives; clearly, our genes must be poorer. The superiority of the patriarchs was apparently the reason they were able to hunt and domesticate the T. Rex.

A nice summary of Mastropaolo’s abysmal lack of understanding of evolution, science, evidence or reasoning can be found here.

Diagnosis: Does not have the faintest clue how science works or scientific issues are settled, nor any clear idea about what scientific theories actually say. A hysterical, rabid, fundamentalist fanatic.