#620: David DeWolf

David DeWolf is a law professor (Gonzaga) and senior fellow at the Discovery Institute. In 1999 DeWolf, together with Stephen Meyer and Mark DeForrest, coauthored the 40-page booklet “Intelligent Design in Public School Science Curricula: A Legal Guidebook,” in which a strategy for legal cases involving teaching Intelligent Design creationism in public schools was laid out, claiming that Edwards v. Aguillard mandated “teaching a variety of scientific theories about the origins of humankind” subject to a “clear secular intent of enhancing ... science instruction.” If only ID had been a scientific theory, it would have been good to go, of course, but it isn’t so DeWolf and his gang needed a backdoor. The strategy they developed did not help particularly much in the Kitzmiller v. Dover case. In response to Kitzmiller v. Dover, DeWolf et al. whined that ID is a “valid scientific theory”, that the court should not have addressed the question of whether it was a scientific theory, and that the decision will have no effect on the development of ID as an alternative to evolutionary theory (the latter of which is of course true, since ID-ists were never in the business of developing a theory anyways but rather to get anti-evolution into schools). Their screeds are discussed here, and absolutely demolished here (note also the discussion of an amicus brief containing some rather astonishingly disingenuous claims authored by DeWolf for the case)

He – and in particular his ardent support of “teach the controversy” (i.e. manufactroversy) –

was cited at length by Santorum in the latter’s Address to Congress regarding the infamous Santorum amendment, and it appears to have been a law article by DeWolf that provided the blueprint for Santorum’s amendment.

Diagnosis: In many ways DeWolf is a fine symbol of the Intelligent Design movement. His efforts are of course all about legal strategies for implementing creationism in public education. And that, of course, is what ID is about – it has never been about doing science.

#611: Percival Davis

A.k.a. Bill Davis

Percival Davis is an author, young earth creationist, and proponent of teaching intelligent design in public education (since young earth creationism, what he really believes, won’t fly). Davis does indeed have a master of arts in zoology from Columbia, and is also a visiting professor of biology at Clearwater Christian College (which strongly suggests that this ain’t a place to go for an education), but is hardly a legitimate authority on biology.

In fact, Davis is – together with Dean Kenyon (to be covered) – responsible for popularizing the term “intelligent design,” particularly through writing the infamous ID creationist textbook Of Pandas and People, which presented intelligent design in a manner the creationists (after McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education) deemed suitable for school kids for legal purposes – in other words, Davis is another prime example of the creationist agenda of trying to convert kids instead of actually doing science to support their silly ideas. “Of Pandas and People” was of course the book that subsequently formed the backdrop for the Dover Trial, for those who are unfamiliar with the details of ID propagation.

The book suggested that Darwinism had outlived its usefulness, primarily because of irreducible complexity, which the authors took as good evidence for the unfalsifiable and hence unverifiable theory that an intelligent designer was behind it all. And yes, it contained all the standard creationist fallacies, PRATTs, quote-mining, and Gish gallops in the book; and yes, it is only about objecting to evolution – no positive case is made for ID, and the authors seem to assume that if evolution fails, creationism must be right, which is quite simply a mistake. It is reviewed here. Concerning the obvious agenda behind the book, Davis commented “Of course my motives were religious. There's no question about it.” Here is a selection from the Dover ruling showing what role Of Pandas and People was really supposed to play. You can read how the ID crowd reacted here.

Davis has also co-written Case for Creation (with Wayne Frair, also to be covered in the relatively near future). 

Diagnosis: One of the stalwarts of the utterly dishonest insanity movement that is the Intelligent Design movement, and a complete fucking moron. Dangerous.

#608: Avi Davis

Donnie Davies is a spoof, but frighteningly similar to a bunch of completely serious loons you’ll encounter on the wingnut phalanx.

Someone like Avi Davis would at least come close. Davis is executive director of the American Freedom Alliance, which – of course – has nothing to do with freedom, but everything to do with reality denial (though Davis calls it “a non-partisan and non-political organization”). It is, for instance, heavy into global warming denialism. The Alliance is even better known, though, for their promotion of Intelligent Design Creationism, and in particular their ongoing legal struggle with the California Science Center after the latter cancelled a vigorously anti-science event to be held at the center in 2009 (if anyone has any updates, let us know). The plan had been to show Lad Allen’s movie “Darwin’s Dilemma”, which supposedly explores the “Mystery of the Cambrian Explosion in Fossil Records,” and about which Davis said that “[n]ew scientific evidence makes it vital that we take a close look at the numerous inherent scientific problems of the Darwinian theory of evolution,” which is undermined by the fact that Davis had absolutely no new scientific evidence and wouldn’t be able to distinguish scientific evidence from bullshit in any case.

In fact, the AFA is probably best known for their stance on Islam (Robert Spencer is a prominent member). Davis combines his stance on Islam with promoting the kind of support of Israel that only end-time American fundamentalists can provide, and you don’t even want to go there.

Diagnosis: Yup, yet another moron whose criminal lack of critical thinking skills has not prevented him from earning a certain amount of recognition in admittedly already severelly reality-challenged circles.

#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”.

#551: John Calvert

John Calvert (not the magician, though he shares the name) may not be the most famous Intelligent Design Creationism advocates in the US, but he has historically been one of the most influential and dangerous. Calvert is (or at least was) a representative for the Kansas Intelligent Design Network, founder of IDNet, and one of the main architects behind the push for including creationism in the public school curriculum in Kansas back in 2006; he wrote the (later removed) amendments with William Harris, and was the de facto legal counsel for the moron side. He was later involved in an attempt to do the same thing in Ohio (and elsewhere). Among other charming, science-related things he distributed pamphlets attempting to ad hominem Kansas Citizens for Science by claiming, in true Orwellian fashion, that they were employing ”Character Assassination and Denigration of Theism.”  His claims wereinaccurate, to put it mildly, but that should come as no surprise.

His argument is generally that is that we are on the verge of both fascism and communism because the courts won't let schools teach creationism (featured in this interesting survey), and he presents his points by way of incoherent screaming (also here). And atheism is a religion as welll, as if that had anything to do with the matter even if it made sense. You can see Randy Olson slam Calvert, Jonathan Wells and the Discovery Institute here, as well as a breathtaking but typical example of Discovery Institute dishonesty (augmented in Wells’s response here).

Calvert is also apparently an amateur playwright (with one Daniel Schwabauer), but should probably not quite his day job quite yet.

The reaction of fundies to the loss in Kansas makes for an … interesting read, by the way. Chuck Colson bemoaned the “censorship” of not mandating the instruction of “Intelligent Design” creationism in public schools. Wichita pastor Terry Fox called evolution a “cult” and “the mother of all liberalism,” which stands in an interesting relation to a point. Board member Connie Morris, who called evolution a “fairytale”, blamed the “lying liberal media” for her defeat, and Calvert himself complained about a “propaganda” campaign of “systematic misinformation.” Phyllis Schlafly weighed in as well.

Diagnosis: Ardent fundie who likes to howl with rage at reason, sanity, and reality, and seems to get confused whenever reality wins. Still got some bite, though, so he shouldn’t be discounted quite yet.