#628: Michael J. Dochniak & Denise H. Dunn

Michael J. Dochniak and Denise H. Dunn are antivaxxers. Indeed, they belong to the fluffy murkiness of the fringes of the already rabidly moronic antivaxx movement. In particular, they are the authors of Vaccine Delivery and Autism (The Latex Connection) (do take a look the comments in that link, in which Dochniak himself shows up; continued here), in which they blame “the latex rubber often used in vaccine packaging and delivery systems,” for what they perceive as an increase in autism rates). The guiding idea is that the dismal failure of previous attempts to link autism to vaccines cannot possibly mean that vaccines are off the hook – the antivaxxers have invested too much in that hypothesis, so instead of rejecting it they need to look for a different kind of connection, and Dochniak’s and Dunn’s attempts are among the desperate results (no, they have no independent evidence for the link).

According to the blurb on the book Dochniak and Dunn are leading experts in the etiology of allergy-induced regressive autism. This is apparently granted them in virtue of having written a book together before called Allergies and Autism, not because they have any real expertise in any related field (Dochniak does point out that he has a publication in the pseudojournal Medical Hypotheses, though, as if that should count for anything). Their work is reviewed here, here, and here, and summed up by commenter Lawrence as “a guess, inside an idea, wrapped in a layer of ‘no evidence.’” Apparently the authors cite Schopenhauer’s infamous (though possibly spuriously attributed), idiotic quote “All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” That quote alone should be ample evidence that we are dealing with some serious pseudoscience. And apparently that quote is pretty much all they have to back up their hypothesis.

Diagnosis: Crackpottery, through and through.

#627: Joseph "Joe" Dispenza

Joseph Dispenza is an author of several fluffy New-Age snowflake bullshit self-help books, and is particularly notable for his appearance in the deranged piece of pseudo-science delusion “What the Bleep do we know”. Dispenza, who presents himself as "Dr. Dispenza", is the proud possessor of a “Doctor of Chiropractic degree” from Life University, and currently seems to be in the “miraculous healing” business. He is also a follower of Ramtha’s School of Enlightenment, and has produced several Youtube videos in which he talks about quantum physics the way he sees it, which has nothing to do with quantum physics (Dispenza really doesn’t even have the faintest idea what quantum physics is), but a lot to do with gibberish centered around various ridiculous forms of woo and crackpot spirituality crap.

If you enjoy torturing yourself with fluffy fogbanks of pink-tinged drivel, you may check out his DVD series “Your Immortal Brain,” which allegedly “looks at the ways in which the human brain can be used to create reality through the mastery of thought” – which does not mean anything (alludes to the Secret), but that doesn’t seem to matter much to Dispenza; like quantum physics linguistic meaning appears to be just whatever Dispenza fancies it to be at any given moment.

Diagnosis: Pretentious, delusional puddinghead who is apparently convinced that what he thinks becomes reality in virtue of him thinking it. Otherwise Dispenza doesn’t care too much about reality.

#617: Ken DeMyer

A.k.a. Conservative, Peter Moore, Kdbuffalo, Peter Moore, RuyLopez (?), David Jensen, etc. (more comprehensive list here)

Among other things Kenneth D. DeMyer is probably the most highly profiled sysop at Conservapedia apart from Andy Schlafly himself, and generally in control of Conservapedia’s articles on evolution, atheism, and homosexuality. He used to trawl Wikipedia back in the days but was thrown out for flagrantly violating their sockpuppet rules. His general attitude toward atheism and evolution is that atheism is already dead and evolution is dying, and neither need be taking particularly seriously, although fone cannot help but notice that DeMyer spends a surprising amount of effort trying (flailingly) to flog a horse he desperately and loudly claims is very much dead. Among his more bizarre articles on Conservapedia are “Ponies vs. Atheism” and “Atheism and Obesity” (comments on that one here), this one, and – not the least – his magnum opus (work in progress) Summa homosexualita.

DeMyer’s favored debate and reasoning techniques are sockpuppetry, quote mining and wildly and willfully misunderstanding more or less anything and everything (e.g. here). He considers himself a great debater, but the opinion is not universally shared. At least DeMyer is evidently completely unable to recognize when his “hard” questions are completely satisfactorily answered and his points completely refuted, and will just bring up the same points and questions again and again, such as his lying about and misunderstanding of Haeckel, a form of transcendental, mind-numbing state generally known as the Dunning-Kruger effect (he was eventually banned from Pharyngula for spamming).

You can play the Ken DeMyer game here.

Diagnosis; Abysmally thickskulled, but not completely without notability insofar as his efforts are, ever so slightly, boosting the google rankings of that pile of mental rot that is Conservapedia.

#605: Charlie Daniels

Ted Nugent is not alone. Indeed, Charlie Daniels has in many ways had an even more impressive career as a musician, and he promotes the same kind of inane wingnuttery, bigotry and denialism. Daniels’s views of life and politics, in all their erudition, are detailed for instance in his 2003 Open Letter to the Hollywood Bunch in defense of President George W. Bush’s Iraq policy against many other artists and celebrities, and his book (same year) Ain’t No Rag: Freedom, Family, and the Flag, which espouses more or less precisely the kinds of views, bigotry and fallacious reasoning you would expect from a book of that title. Around the same time, during the 2004 presidential election campaigns, Daniels was also a staunch promoter of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth manufactroversy strategy against John Kerry (the 2004 counterpart to birtherism).

Daniels is of course also a creationist, having predicted – on the basis of his expertise in the field – that “[i]n the future Darwinism will be looked upon as we now look upon the flat earth theory.” To elaborate: “Darwin’s theory is just that, an unproven idea written by a very fallible human being. Now I don’t expect these learned scholars to give any credence to what someone like me says [oh, how humble of you], but now there are imminent [sic] scientists who say that Darwin’s Theory of Evolution is fatally flawed and should not be taught in our schools as fact [no names provided]. This world was created by Almighty God and no amount of theories or college professors can change that fact [damn all you elitists who know stuff]. The truth of the matter is that evolution cannot be proven. It never has and it never will because you can’t prove a lie.” Good to hear it from an ol’ common sense Southern guy whose musicianship has awarded him with great scientific insights. In 2008 Daniels was also nominated for a Creamy Baileys Nobel Peace Prize for Science for his work on global warming, which Daniels dismissed as “a yankee conspiracy.”

The WND, being predictably interested in Daniels’s informed opinions on matters politics and science, could report his characteristic positions on society and politics as “[t]here’s a move afoot to change life in America into a totally European – I’ve heard that so much I’m getting sick of it: ‘European’ – socialist thing; but it’s the dag-blamed truth [sic], and it don’t work, it never has worked, and if America goes that way, America will never be America again.” There is a certain disconnect between the strands in that observation, but Daniels or the WND would of course never notice.

Diagnosis: Stupid and proud of it, and standard denialist, but Daniels does admittedly have a way of rejecting truth that is intermittently fascinating.

#597: Jake Crosby

Groomed as the Wonder Boy of the Age of Autism blog network (yes, Jenny McCarthy, J.B. Handley and the rest), Jake Crosby is, as you’d expect, a hardcore anti-vaccinationist and denialist, as well as a denialist about his own denialism – Crosby denies that he is anti-vaccine. He just thinks vaccines cause autism and that there is a conspiracy to hide this fact, and that vaccines should probably be avoided, which he asserts is not the same thing as denialism.

Crosby’s favorite gambit is the Big Pharma shill by association; everyone who disagrees with him is obviously part of a conspiracy (involving Big Pharma, the CDC or the FDA) – and anyone who knows anyone with a connection to those institutions is automatically wrong, regardless of what evidence, science, data, observation, reason or reality says. They also persecute him (though the most notable part in that last link is Ginger Taylor’s absolutely astonishing comment), so that’s why he is justified in trying to get his critics silenced or fired. Another popular claim of Crosby’s, that Dr. David Lewis (not that David Lewis) exonerated AndrewWakefield and his fraudulent research, is rebutted here.

A third technique popular with Jake Crosby is slaughtering strawmen. When this technique is combined with conspiracy theories and general ignorance, the results can often be rather staggering. Then, of course, Crosby dons his tinfoil hat and connects HIV with the polio vaccine used in Africa 50 years ago (irrevocably refuted); the purpose being of course to avoid engaging with any real science and real ethical concerns in his crusade against vaccines.

Crosby has even reached whale.to, though I won’t link to it (search for it yourself if you need to) for his marvelous conspiracy theories developed in order to discredit the idea that autism rates have not risen the last couple of decades (e.g. here) – primarily, and as expected, through a guilt by association claim. It is really a perfect game – anyone who has done research on the topic is by that very fact biased and their research must therefore be disregarded (unless it agrees with the conclusion Crosby has already convinced himself is correct). After all, given the always existing possible appeals to conspiracies, no amount of science would convince Crosby that vaccines don’t cause autism, something he has pretty much admitted himself (along with – you guessed it – conspiracy theories and ad hominem arguments (real ad hominem fallacies; that is, such as dismissing scientific studies he doesn’t like by name calling without identifying any flaws in them); also discussed here).

The Crosby story has recently taken a fascinating turn, however. Brought up as he was with persecution complexes and pseudoscience, it may come as little surprise that the fledgling conspiracy theorist has turned on his own masters and found a new outlet on the Bolen Report, where he has published various conversations and email exchanges with other luminaries of the antivaxx movement. Why this turn of events? Well, apparently his former masters just aren’t sufficiently conspiracy minded for Crosby anymore, and – having realized where Crosby was going – they didn’t let him testify before Congress during Dan Burton’s last antivaxx hearing (SafeMinds’ Communications Committee Chair, Kate Weisman, even suggested that Crosby “walk the halls”). SafeMinds’ response to Crosby’s allegations is actually pretty hilarious and feeble (as it had to be, given that Crosby was using precisely the types of arguments against SafeMinds that SafeMinds is using to dismiss science). The ensuing war is covered in three parts here; here; and here. The development didn’t prevent him from appearing at the annual quackfest AutismOne 2013 to teach you how to become a more effective advocate for pseudoscience and denialism; there is a report concerning his scheduled session here (though it is said that he subsequently boycotted the event, presumably not because he had a flash of reason).

Diagnosis: As Age of Autism’s resident conspiracy theorist Crosby was actually not without detrimental influence on civilization. Recent developments seem to have blunted his impact a little as he has deteriorated to his true position as a resident of the whale.to segment, but I won’t write him off quite yet.