#595: Caroline Crocker

Caroline Crocker is another Intelligent Design creationist and another martyr for the cause of religiously motivated pseudoscience. She was prominently featured in the hackjob documentary Expelled (analyzed here, and here), where she was presented as one of the “scientists who are being persecuted for their views.” More precisely, Expelled claimed that Crocker was fired because she mentioned Intelligent Design in a class she was teaching. And Crocker was indeed teaching demonstrably false creationist material (for instance about this), so there would have been good reasons to fire her. As a matter of fact, however, Crocker wasn’t fired. She was teaching on a one-year contract, and was simply not rehired at the end of the year for undisclosed reasons – like so many adjuncts. The whole, true story is here.

Crocker later ended up on wingnut welfare with a gig at the ID creationist IDEA center (which blithely lies about her incompetence). There, she tells us, she helped create “safe houses” and fake identities so students could secretly come “out of the closet.” It is interesting, once again, to notice the depth of the persecution complex among the denialists, and Crocker – despite the complete groundlessness of the accusations – has frequently been used as an example by Intelligent Design creationists in their dishonest outcries about oppression and calls for“Academic Freedom”.

Diagnosis: Crocker is in other words indeed a fine example of the alleged persecution faced by fundamentalist pseudoscientists, but not in the way they see it. She also splendidly illustrates Intelligent Design Creationist tactics: the abject failure of science to support any of their claims with evidence is not an interesting detail, as long as there are other routes to victory, such as screaming “persecution”.

#509: Ray Bohlin

Raymond Bohlin is a Research Fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture, and thus deeply involved in pushing intelligent design creationism as a scientifically valid alternative to evolution for America’s school children (not as a scientifically valid alternative to evolution for scientists, since that would require, you know, science and evidence and research and stuff, and these guys aren’t into that). That ID is a scientific rather than religious alternative can be seen from the illuminating quote young-earth-creationism-sympathetic Bohlin offered on Grand Canyon here.

Bohlin is also head of Probe Ministries, which deals with thorough scientific treatments of a variety of issues, such as “Is masturbation a sin?” (the answer is “yes”). The connection between the blatantly fundamentalist Probe ministries and the Discovery Institute is actually telling; they also got Heather Zeiger from that one; though they never inform anyone of the connection, of course. Both Zeiger and Bohlin were called to testify before the Texas Board of Education in their capacity of religious fundamentalists that the deranged members of the Board could pass off as expert witnesses on science.

Ray’s wife Sue has also done some research on such profound scientific questions as whether pole dancing is OK for believers (answer: only within the confines of marriage).

Bohlin does admittedly have scientific credentials. Before becoming a fanatic church leader he was a molecular biologist, and had a few real science publications. That, of course, is what has made him one of the leaders of the ID movement. He is known for his claims that gene duplication cannot increase biological complexity, as well as the standard creationist canards – one of his books (written with one Sharon Sebastian) is called “Darwin’s Racists” – you probably see where it’s going (three steps: first attempt to blame Darwin for Hitler; then confuse the consequences of believing a claim with the truth of that claim to infer, by the powerful inference rule “wishful thinking” that Darwinism is unsupportable (and evolutionists are evil)). Bohlin is also a global warming denialist who likes to cite people like Fred Singer. Because of his global warming denialism he likes to play himself as a huge fan of environmentalism in order to convince people that his global warming denialism “really” is based on science and concern for the environment.

Diagnosis: It has become rather hard to come up with new characterizations of these people by now, since they all trot out the same fallacies and talking points for exactly the same reasons. Bohlin’s influence, however, should not be underestimated.

#506: Edward Blick

Scene: James Inhofe, infamous denialist whose concern for truth and accuracy is legendarily absent, submits a list of ”604 scientists who rejects AGW”. Among the curious assembly of names found on that list – insofar as you didn’t have to sign up for Inhofe’s list, he’d just add you if he interpreted or wished to interpret you as a ”skeptic”, he (probably deliberately) made some, shall we say, controversial choices – in addition to people such as (the Argentinian) Eduardo Ferreyra, orgone ”expert” James DeMeo, certified crackpot Joel Kauffman, and conspiracy theorist Michael R. Fox, who all also appear on a list of ”HIV/AIDS ’rethinkers’”, and in addition to a lot of people with real credentials who deny that they reject AGW, we find people like Chris Allen and this entry’s featured loon: Edward Blick.

At least Edward Blick does reject AGW. He also has credentials, being Professor Emeritus of the Mewbourne School of Petroleum and Geological Engineering at the University of Oklahoma. Unfortunately for his reputation he has also said: “The predecessors of today's unbelievers replaced the Holy Bible's book of Genesis with Darwin's Origin of the Species. Now with the help of Al Gore and the United Nations they are trying to replace the Holy Bible's book of Revelation with the U.N.'s report Anthropogenic Global Warming,” and that “This whole [AGW] scheme is a ‘Trojan Horse’ for global socialism!” And he has argued that climate scientists fail basic reasoning: “How does God control our warming and cooling? Scientists have discovered it is the Sun! Amazing, even grade school children know this.” Yeah, those dumb scientists and their critical thinking skills (apparently Blick misses the fact that the sun does play a rather crucial role in the AGW “scheme”).

Apart from garbled fundamentalist conspiracy mongering, Blick is also devoted to showing how modern science is already explicitly given in the Bible. For instance, when Isaiah says that the obedient ones “shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint” (Isa. 40:28-31), this is an accurate description of modern, cutting-edge research in aerodynamics. Thing is, Blick and other scientists have actually found that eagles can fly for a long time without getting tired, and obviously such uncanny premonitions are evidence that the Bible is accurate and a source of scientific insight.

It’s also worth mentioning Blick’s colleague David Deming, who also made it to Inhofe’s list and who is, well, let’s say that the University of Oklahoma is not coming off in a particularly favorable light.

Both Blick and Deming are also among the signatories of the Discovery Institute’s meaningless petition “A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism”, by the way (the others who are on both lists, as of 2008, are Guillermo Gonzales, Robert Smith (professor of chemistry at the University of Nebraska), and James Wanliss (Associate Professor of Physics, Embry-Riddle University), though there are surely other creationists on Inhofe’s list), another boon to their credibility. Blick has of course, in various books and pamphlets, come clean as a staunch creationist.

Diagnosis: Total fail, at every possible level.

#155: Guillermo Gonzalez

Gonzalez is associated with (and a pet of) the Discovery Institute, and one of their “clearest” examples of a victim of evil Darwinist conspiracy in academia. Gonzalez is an astronomer who was denied tenure at Iowa State University. He did not receive tenure because, in part, of a lack of publications (and probably failure to bring in grant money) among other things. It was not hard for the Discovery Institute (where Gonzalez is currently a fellow) to construe this as being due to Gonzalez’s creationist beliefs and as evidence for the persecution of crackpots. More here, here, and here. In fact, even if their allegations were right, they would not prove the Discovery Institute’s point, but they would of course never realize that.

He also figured prominently in the cesspit of dishonesty “Expelled”.

Gonzalez has, apart from that, written a book with theologian Jay Richards presenting us – predictably enough – with Paley’s argument, yet again (in its modern fine-tuning argument format).

He is also a climate change denialist.

Diagnosis: Not as flamboyantly stupid as, say, Geoffrey Simmons, but a solid crackpot nonetheless.

#140: Ann Gauger

Gauger has a PhD in zoology and is a signatory of Discovery Institute’s 2005 petition “Scientific Dissent from Darwinism”. She’s currently associated with the Discovery affiliated creationist think-tank the Biologic Institute whose goal is to perform real research on ID and which has yet to produce a single publication supporting ID creationism despite big budgets and numerous employed “scientists”.

A rather infamous incident occurred when Gauger reported on her work at the Wistar Retrospective Symposium, 2007, in Boston, Massachusetts. She discussed “leaky growth” in microbial colonies at high densities, leading to horizontal transfer of genetic information, and announced that under such conditions she had actually found a novel variant that seemed to lead to enhanced colony growth. Gunther Wagner, a real scientist, asked the obvious question: “So, a beneficial mutation happened right in your lab?” at which point the moderator halted questioning - Gauger has earlier argued that any evolutionary change is non-adaptive.

Diagnosis: Surely intelligent, but caught up in a system of self-reassuring but misguided views on how reality hangs together. The Biologic Institute is supposed to provided creationism with a sheen of scientific legitimacy, and although its existence may carry some influence on general perception of creationism (then again, probably not), it has failed to fool scientists or scholars in general (apart from Robin Collins).
(ed. note - I haven't been able to find a pic that I can reliably identify as the Ann Gauger of this entry. If anyone can point me to one, please let me know)

#119: Michael Egnor

Egnor is a neurosurgeon and creationist, and one of the more recent additions to the Discovery Institute’s rooster of loons. He is also an idiot. His main anti-science strategy is attacking materialistic neuroscience and an attempted revival of dualism (taken up also by e.g. O’Leary), completely oblivious to any of the literature on the subject (and to fallacies such as the fallacy of division and denying the antecedent).

One of his primary arguments against materialism, for instance, concerns altruism, and the argument is that since altruism does not have the properties of matter it cannot derive from matter (no, the fact that this is a silly, often-refuted idea has passed him by completely). More specifically, matter has certain properties like location, temperature, and divisibility while ideas and concepts do not have these properties, therefore ideas and concepts cannot derive from matter (wonder whether he would see the category mistake if he tried “democracy” or “computing 2 + 2” vs. computer programs). He also claims that if altruism derived from the brain than when someone walked around in a room, or changed one’s bodily position, it should “change” your altruism. It also follows, according to Egnor, that if you take a chunk of random brain that chunk should have a proportional amount of altruism inside it. Yes, it is that silly (in fact, it is pure choprawoo. More here.

He doesn’t like evolution (the old canards, see here and here. He doesn’t understand “information” either (nor information theory): here and here and here. The examples are really plentiful. For some horrid quote-mining (-mangling), this one is good. And, of course, Darwinism has nothing to contribute to medicine: here, here, here, here, here, and also here.

As liars for Jeebus are wont to do, he also brazenly attempts to reconstruct history.

The term “egnorance” has been proposed to be defined as “willful ignorance”. Egnor is also a prime example of the notion of “crank magnetism”.

Ok – lets just cut straight to it. Michael Egnor hates science; Darwinism, medicine, climate science, physics, you name it. And as all good kooks, he is convinced that he is being persecuted for it (distinguishing criticism and persecution is obviously tough).

Diagnosis: Blissfully ignorant, total moron and dependable fallacy generator. He is relatively prominent among the Discovery Institute Crackpots, and might actually prove to be dangerous; see more here.

#103: William “Bill” Dembski

Possibly the most influential and cited (though scarcely in peer reviewed publications – though he actually have a couple of those in mathematics) among America’s Intelligent Design creationists – and one of the most tireless, self-aggrandizing and seriously deluded. He is not a stupid guy, but there are things he is just completely unable to grasp, to the extent that it almost suggests some sort of cognitive malfunction (more likely confirmation bias and an inability to realize a mistake). See here, here, here, and here. No, he just doesn’t get it. Perhaps it is because his grasp of information theory is not as solid as it should be, resulting in some completely basic mistakes.

Ok, some background: Dembski has a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Chicago, and in philosophy from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Currently he pretends to teach at the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (yes, pretends; his course requirements are, shall we say, dubious). He is quite clear that ID is science, not religion, as his quite clear from his own summary of ID: “Intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John's Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory.” Too bad Dembski doesn’t quite grasp the latter (some examples: here, and here). See also here.

He is closely associated with the Discovery Institute and is the mastermind behind the blog Uncommon Descent (UD, no link provided!); for more on his background, consult this objective article, or this one. He has gathered quite a substantial number of lackeys, including Denyse O’Leary, Dave Scott, Robert Marks, Barry Arrington (who now officially runs UD), Winston Evert, George Montañez and Bruce Gordon (all loons; some will have separate entries).

Most notable for his book “No Free Lunch” (which pretty much dresses Paley’s old fallacies up in math) and the never defined notion of “specified complexity” (here, here, here, and here, and an awesome post on creationist misuse of information theory in in general).

Dembski isn’t particularly good at handling handling criticism either.

Diagnosis: Seriously deluded kook who, despite being obviously intelligent, lets his own preconceptions completely obstruct his view as to how things actually hang together – even on topics related to his field of expertise. Extremely influential nonetheless, and as such extremely dangerous.

#97: John A. Davison

Internet kook with his own idea on evolution (“Anti-biotic resistance is not evolution because it is reversible. No evolutionary event has ever been reversed. Besides evolution isn't even going on any more”). In fact, his idea is only a regurgitation of an old crackpot idea and his references are usually to papers from the 1940s and earlier. A clear case of delusions of grandeur; his is apparently “the most important battle in the history of mankind”. Conservapedia seems to like him (as does Dembski), though the semi-creationist, bottom-tier journal that actually published his stuff apparently wants nothing more to do with him (he has completely lost it, as can be seen from this interview). He did have a publication, though, and that is the main reason why he deserves an inclusion here, despite the fact that he is, for the most part, an Internet kook.

Davison is actually legendary for his Internet trolling (“you have a John Davison infection” has become a diagnosis for especially newly started, science oriented blogs that draw the attention of Davison or his acolytes) and he is banned from several Science-oriented blogs, including Panda’s Thumb. He is known for setting up multiple blogs himself; each one consisting of a single post, inviting comments. Most of the comments are from himself, however. When he feels like that blog is "full", starts another one.

Also famous for trying to have blogging academics fired from their institutions for being critical of his work, or – since that doesn’t work – trying to spam them.

Diagnosis: Extraordinarily attention-seeking kook who seems to have gone completely insane. I almost feel sorry for the guy.

#77: William B. Collier

William B. Collier is a professor of chemistry at Oral Roberts University, which is of course not an academic institution or research institution but a fundamentalist boot camp. Accordingly, Collier is not a scientist and does no serious research. He has, however, an education in science, which is qualification enough to be a signatory to Discovery Institute’s petition A Scientific Dissent of Darwinism. Collier’s acceptance of creationism appears to be based on the claim that religion and science is the same, and since they are the same they must be of equal epistemic merit. That is, it matters not that science is based on reality and evidence. It’s all about beliefs.
Diagnosis: Collier is a minor figure but is included as a rather typical representative of the quality found among many of the signatories to Discovery’s list – and to represent the ghastly pseudo-university that is the Oral Roberts institute.

#57: Russell Carlson

Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology University of Georgia, signer of the Discovery Institute's A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism. Member of DI research fellow William Dembski's The International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design (ISCID).

I don’t really have anything in particular on this guy. He testified at the Kansas evolution hearings and doubts evolution, predictably enough, for religious reasons. His main claim to deserving inclusion in the lexicon is as a representative of a relatively long row of fundamentalist religious scientists and compartmentalizers who are able to do science in one field but submerge themselves fully in confirmation bias with respects to others they know less about. In other words, he’s here because science and sanity are fed up with these kinds of destructive cranks.

Diagnosis: Crackpot with non-negligible influence.

#41: Nancy Bryson

Bryson holds a Ph.D. in physical chemistry and was for a while a teacher at Mississippi University for Women.

Creationist (intelligent design) and witness for the minority at the Kansas evolution hearings (a general discussion of the hearings can be found here). Claims that she used to accept evolution, but that critical studies turned her around (yes, that canard). Currently a “creationist icon”.

Notorious for giving a presentation on creationism (mostly the argument from design and the unlikelihood of evolution since if there is no designer then evolution must be just random chance) at the university, “very warmly received by the students.” Afterwards, however, she was severely criticized by biologist professors and subsequently left the university (circumstances are unclear – her faculty evaluations were bad, and she claimed that she was harassed and realized she would never get tenure). Her story was picked up and publicized by the American Family Association and resulted in some outcry from fellow creationists. Bryson has subsequently achieved status as one of ID’s Expelled Martyrs. Currently she is used as one of the most notable examples of the discriminations (“hate crimes” against the religious, according to Jerry Bergman) against dissidents by “evolutionists”, and proof of the major “atheist and materialist conspiracy” that currently infests science.

During the Hearings, her story was by her supporters taken as evidence for the lack of academic freedom in that science curricula systematically exclude evidence for theism. By scientists her story was taken as evidence for incompetence and mixing religion with science. Bryson admits that her views on evolution is based on religion rather than science.

A discussion of Bryson’s role in the Hearings is here.

A sympathetic website, with links, is here.

This entry also indicts other witnesses for the minority, such as James Barham, an MD in classics and “independent scholar” who used to believe in evolution and materialism but who reasoned his way to Jesus and ID (surely a pattern of argumentation here). Christiancinema.com calls him a “Scholar and author specializing in evolutionary epistemology”. His basic argument is: “evolution leads to materialism and no meaning or purpose with life; God exists, and thus there is purpose; hence materialism is false, hence evolution is false” (yes, with the fallacy).

#24: David Berlinski

Berlinski is one of the movers and shakers of the contemporary creationist movement, associated with the Discovery Institute and one of their most frequent and famous debaters. A delusional, pompous narcissist with an ego to fit a medieval pope. Also a name-dropper (most of his talks concern important people he has talked to). A comment on one of his lunatic self-aggrandizing rants can be found here (sums up this guy pretty well):

He is apparently really angry at evolution (it is unclear why), and famous for his purely enumerative “cows cannot evolve into whales” argument.

Berlinski was once a moderately respected author of popular-science books on mathematics. He can still add numbers together, but has forgotten the GIGO rule (“garbage in, garbage out") of applied mathematics. Some of his rantings are discussed here.

Likes to play ‘the skeptic’ (which means denialism in this case, and that is not the same thing).

Diagnosis: Boneheaded, pompous and arrogant nitwit; has a lot of influence, and a frequent participator in debates, since apparently the Discovery Institute thinks that’s the way scientific disputes are settled (although he often takes a surprisingly moderate view in debates, leading some to suspect that he is really a cynical fraud rather than a loon).

(for a nice description of the difference between skepticism and paranoid denialism, I recommend these three articles: here, here, and here.)