Sunday, May 4, 2014

#1024: Douglas Peterson


Douglas Peterson is a radically insane Christian fundamentalist who appears to run a number of websites. The names alone should give you a clue. “America’s Christian Heritage” seems primarily devoted to complaining that the Bible isn’t “read and taught as a divine revelation in the school?” Apparently that’s what Peterson thinks the Constitution says it should be; he doesn’t seem to have read it, but he has read David Barton’s writings. His website “The American Holocaust Memorial” argues that the legality of abortion is a deliberate genocide of African Americans (the link is to a discussion of Gregg Cunningham’s pamphlet). His website “Evolution Sucks!” is devoted to his arguments against evolution. And ok, he’s got some novel ones. Try this: According to Peterson evolutionists claim that whales evolved from land-dwelling creatures and also that land animals evolved from fish. Apparently those two claims cannot be true together according to Peterson, so his challenge is: “Can you show the transitional fossils that prove ANY of this?” (No, he hasn’t bothered to look.) Then you can try to make sense of this challenge. He has a few others, generally suggesting that he has had a look at a variety of creationist materials but not quite succeeded in grasping even the standard canards; the results are rather fascinating.

Diagnosis: Insignificant internet kook with some websites. Not very influential, but Peterson can nevertheless serve as a representative for that particular species of loon.

No comments:

Post a Comment