#594: Daniel C. Criswell

Keep ‘em coming. Daniel C. Criswell is yet another creationist associated with the Institute for Creation Research, and just like the recently covered Charles Creager, he qualifies for an entry primarily through his contribution to the Answers Research Journal, the house journal of Answers in Genesis. To Vol. 2 Criswell contributed the bizarre article “A Review of Mitoribosome Structure and Function Does not Support the Serial Endosymbiotic Theory”, a review of the literature on the serial endosymbiotic theory (SET) (one that creationists have tried to criticize before), before suddenly pulling out irreducible complexity, therefore God, at the end. The justification for the latter move seems to be: see, I know the literature; therefore what I pull out of my ass must be taken seriously as well.

He has also written vol.3 of Science Education Essentials, a creationist curriculum supplement series that “covers” vital topics in the various science disciplines from a thoroughly biblical viewpoint (vol.3 is “Human heredity: teacher supplement”), which is directed at the homeschooling market, and which again illustrates the fact that creationists are most concerned with getting Jesus to children, not to engage in scientific research.

Diagnosis: Same as always. Really.

#225: Tim LaHaye

Timothy LaHaye is an evangelical Christian minister, author, speaker, a primal force at the most insane fringes of American fundamentalism, and one of the more dangerous loons on our list. He has written more than 50 books, both fiction and non-fiction. He is best known for the apocalyptic series of novels titled “Left Behind”, written with former sportswriter Jerry B. Jenkins (Jenkins seems to have actually written the books, though the story and ideas are LaHaye’s).

The Left Behind series depict the Earth after the pretribulation rapture (LaHaye seems to think of the books as something more than fiction – apparently Obama is about to bring on the Rapture). The series includes 12 titles in the adult series, but also juvenile novels, audio books, devotionals, graphic novels, and even video games. It has been uncannily popular, with total sales surpassing 65 million copies and seven titles in the adult series reaching #1 on the Times bestseller lists (Jerry Falwell said, concerning the first book, something to the effect that it was the most important book for Christianity since the Bible). There are also three movies, promoted by Grace Hill Media starring Kirk Cameron (who else). Also look out for a brief guest appearance by John Hagee.

LaHaye has, apart from his literary antics, promoted (or founded) numerous groups to promote his insanity, such as the Council for National Policy, back when he was the head of Falwell’s Moral Majority. In 1979, he helped to establish the Institute for Creation Research, along with Henry Morris. In the 1980s, LaHaye founded the (radically insane) American Coalition for Traditional Values (Andrea Lafferty’s organization) and the Coalition for Religious Freedom, currently run by James Lafferty, the husband of yesterday’s Andrea Lafferty), and the Pre-Tribulation Research Center along with Thomas Ice (covered earlier) in 1998, dedicated to producing material that supports a dispensationalist, pre-tribulation interpretation of the Bible. Tim is also connected to the John Birch Society, and played a significant role in getting the religious right to support George W. Bush for the presidency in 2000 (he has later cast his vote for Huckabee, an outspoken fan of LaHaye’s Left Behind series). He also co-hosted (with Dave Breese) in the prophecy television program The King Is Coming (partially the foundation of his delightfully paranoid mixture of conspiracy theories and batshit crazy Rapture-porn in his book “The Rapture”). LaHaye has furthermore contributed millions of dollars Liberty University, earmarked for its student center and “LaHaye’s School of Prophecy”, which opened in January 2002. He is, finally and unsurprisingly a historical revisionist of the David Barton school, though more extreme.

Oh, there’s more. LaHaye believes in the Illuminati, a “satanically-inspired, centuries-old conspiracy to use government, education, and media to destroy every vestige of Christianity within our society and establish a new world order”. The Illuminati is, in fact, just one of many groups he believes are working to "turn America into an amoral, humanist country, ripe for merger into a one-world socialist state”, together with secretive, cabalistic, satanic groups such as the ACLU and Planned Parenthood, Harvard and Yale universitites, and the Democratic Party. LaHaye described his views in the book “Mind Siege”, written with David Noebel. In fact, according to LaHaye, if you are not a biblical literalist, you are a tool of the antichrist.

In 1978 LaHaye published “The Unhappy Gays” (a.k.a. “What Everyone Should Know About Homosexuality”), describing homosexuals as "militant, organized" and "vile”, and arguing that gays share 16 pernicious traits, including "incredible promiscuity," "deceit," "selfishness," "vulnerability to sadism-masochism" and "poor health and an early death." LaHaye suggested that Old Testament death penalty for homosexuality would in fact be acts of mercy towards gays, and did as such call his own book “a model of compassion.”

Tim’s wife, Beverly LaHaye, is famous for following up his views on homosexuality. Beverly is the founder of Concerned Women for America, which is devoted to fighting the militant gay agenda and the gays’ attempts to recruit our children. The group has also stated their opposition to publicly funded HIV screening and publicly funded STD treatment (after all, these are effective weapons against homosexuality).

Diagnosis: Absolutely insane, and extremely influential. A real threat to civilization.

193: Nathaniel Jeanson

Jeanson is a relatively central figure in the Creation Science movement, since he has (in fact) a Medical PhD from Harvard. The fact that he apparently painstakingly obtained the degree in order to disregard every piece of knowledge obtained in the process soley for the purpose of lending an air of authority to anti-science makes his degree meaningless, of course, but the Creationist movement still tout it as evidence for their claims. This is, of course, further showcased by his young earth Creationist arguments, which are the same as the ones Gish used in the 60s and which reveal no grasp of the science. And it is, of course, showcased by the fact that Jeanson himself admits to obtaining the degree for window-dressing.

Diagnosis: This guy seems to virtually worship confirmation bias, and he seems pathologically unable to recognize the problem (though with sufficient zeal and confirmation bias the difference between dishonesty and ignorance does admittedly become murky). He is shown off as a circus freak by the Creationist movement, but seems to have made little impact beyond that.

#185: Russell Humphreys

Russell Humphreys may look a little like Santa, but he is in reality a hardcore young earth creationist affiliated with the Institute for Creation Research, and their scientific alibi – Russell is a physicist, and a genuinie one, with a decent CV. But nothing on the CV is at all related to his main area of study at the ICR, which is reconciling reality with young earth creationism (not hard to guess which of them (according to Russell) has to go when tensions arise).

His main topic is reconciling the distance of the stars (the distance they have to travel), the speed of light and a young earth. You may sense some serious crackpottery coming up, and sure enough – Russell delivers: “White hole cosmology”. Short story: the Earth was created within a black hole, with the associated gravity induced time dilation effects, thus Earth's time runs at a different rate than the rest of the universe. It is generally not considered scientifically viable. More fascinatingly desperate reconciliationism here.

At least it is slightly more sophisticated than the Omphalos hypothesis. You can explore the topic of creationist geophysics further here. But maybe Russell and other physicists just started with different and equally valid presuppositions?

Diagnosis: A virtually unblemished illustration of the very idea of crackpottery, Humphreys is another good example of the compartmentalizing abilities that follow in the wake of rabid religious fundamentalism. His impact is unknown, though he is cited a lot by Answers in Genesis.

#149: Duane Gish

The ur-creationist (together with Henry Morris), and co-founder of the Institute for Creation Research, Gish was in the 50s, 60s and 70s the king himself of the creationist debate circus (a throne he left to Kent Hovind who – when you thought it could not deteriorate further into stupidity – yielded it to Ken Ham; at least the creationist talking points aren’t evolving towards intelligence or sanity, but then they were hardly particularly intelligently designed either). The rhetorical technique known as the Gish gallop is the namesake of Duane Gish. It's really a form of snowing, enthusiastically adopted by global warming denialists (the desperate ignorance behind this one is as telling as it is depressing), crackpots and conspiracy theories everywhere.

Duane Gish was indeed a professional debater, and does indeed have a PhD in biochemistry from Berkeley. He has written several books, most famously “Evolution: The Fossils Say No!” from 1978, which has been widely accepted by anti-evolutionists as an authoritative reference for creationist concepts – tells you something about them, doesn’t it? More details can be found here.

Gish has been the peddler of most known creationist arguments (short of Comfort’s banana; that one is in a class of its own), and was the inventor of several of them. Especially famous was his bombardier beetle argument, which Behe later redressed as “irreducible complexity”. In fact, Gish and Morris must be considered something like the inventors of debate-style creationism in the US and the standard set of creationist arguments.

Massimo Pigliucci, who has debated Gish five times, noted that Gish ignores evidence contrary to his religious beliefs – a heartwarmingly tactful statement. A rather creationism-friendly assessment of his work can be found here.

It may be a little less than tactful, but remember that Gish is a guy who claims there is no evidence for evolution. Then this novel came out. It is hard to avoid noticing that cover picture.

Diagnosis: Perhaps the Supreme Crackpot; impervious to evidence, reason and science. Admittedly a good orator, and must be counted as one of the main people behind recent times’ surge of creationism (by moving the debate from scientific evidence to rhetoric). Has done possibly irreparable harm to civilization, although he seems to be retired by now.

Remember this piece of advice, and note what happens when creationist researchers actually start considering evidence rather than talking points. Currently Glenn Morton is writing stuff like this.

#23: Jerry Bergman

Our next loon is a young earth creationist at the Institute for Creation Research.

Another staunch and thoroughly confused front fighter whose main argument is how persecuted the dissidents to the tyranny of evolution are – in short, your standard ‘I cannot discuss the evidence, so I’ll try to frame my opponents instead’. Admits that ID doesn’t really have a strong theory, but that it doesn’t need it since it’s got all the facts (whatever that means). Discussed here.

Bergman is a dishonest whiner, snower and conspiracy theorist who fabricates stories about persecution of religious scientists. His most nauseating feature is his tendency to snow debates and avoid dealing with devastating objections. Bergman is utterly crazy and ignorant, and his version of the irreducible complexity argument is bizarre even for that mess of an argument.

A summary of a debate Bergman was involved in, which well describes his tactics, is here.

Diagnosis: typical village idiot; despicably dishonest, crazy, paranoid wingnut and kook, and another extreme case of confirmation bias and persecution complex. His ardent efforts seem to have gained him some level of influence among his peers, and he is a medium threat to school curricula everywhere.