#646: Michael Ellner

Michael Ellner is an “aids critic”, and his erudite criticisms of contemporary science related to HIV – and its corresponding conspiracies – have earned him his very own page at whale.to. According to Ellner: “Just look at us. Everything is backwards; everything is upside down. Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, governments destroy freedom, the major media destroy information and religions destroy spirituality …,” though more reality-apt people would probably note that when Ellner perceives everything upside-down it says far more about his perception of things than it says about the things he perceive. Ellner is crazy. “As far as ‘AIDS’ goes, we have been subject to the most heinous and genocidal fraud in medical history,” and he suggests that instead of ordinary medicine (which kills people) we must renounce evidence, science and reality and go for holistic treatments without the faintest trace of supporting evidence of efficacy. Accordingly, Ellner can offer nothing but anecdotes and imagination to support his claim, but such limitations hwve never stopped a crank (by definition). Then there is POMO: “AIDS is not a disease. It is a social agreement,” writes Ellner and one Tom DiFerdinando; “[t]here are others who need AIDS also. Do not forget. Medicine is a business.” In other words, people are dying because they accept the conceptual scheme on AIDS and death pushed by the establishment. And fortunately Ellner can offer you safe, affordable treatments.

Ellner considers himself “an internationally prominent Certified Hypnosis Practitioner and Pain Relief Educator,” and claims that there is considerable scientific evidence that hypnosis can help reduce, even eliminate pain (assessed here). He doesn't tell us where this evidence may be found, admittedly, but asserts that the “medical establishment” have been spreading lies about hypnosis. It is unclear whether he thinks that hypnotherapy can cure AIDS, but by the power of POMO it probably can.

Diagnosis: It is noteworthy that on his hypnotherapy homepage Ellner writes nothing about his HIV-“skepticism”, almost as if he dimly realizes that there is something less than convincing about it and that it may contribute to undermining his reputation in the field of hypnotherapy. In any case, Ellner is a woo-meister and denialist, who should definitely not be lent an ear in the most desperate of circumstances.

#222: Stanley Kurtz

Stan Kurtz is a social commentator, adjunct fellow of the Hudson Institute and Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, with a special interest in America's “culture wars” – and a name that seems to pop up frighteningly often. Kurtz is a staunch enemy of political correctness, which permeates his writings on the family, feminism, child rearing, religion, psychology, homosexuality, affirmative action, and similar topics. His screeds are widely published (National Review, Policy Review, The Weekly Standard, The Wall Street Journal, and Commentary). Kurtz holds a Ph.D. in social anthropology from Harvard and is as such brilliantly positioned to exploit that uncanny union of religious conservatism and post-modernistic relativism (that magic combination one often encounters in freshman college students).

He may be most famous for several editorials penned during the 2008 election cycle, bringing to light and discussing relationships between Barack Obama and people such as Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers. Kurtz's book “Radical-in-Chief” states that Obama is (very secretly) a socialist, and Kurtz seems to think that Obama and Ayers are still rather closely connected (the book seems, for instance, to have short-circuited the last remaining operative synapses of Robert Ringer).

He is, predictably, very afraid of ze gays, and is indeed counted as a major mover and shaker by many on the farthest fringes of the anti-gay movement. Kurtz has, for instance, pointed out that “... most gays and lesbians do not want to marry each other. That would entangle them in all sorts of legal constraints. Who needs a lifetime commitment to one person? The intention here is to destroy marriage altogether. With marriage as we know it gone, everyone would enjoy all the legal benefits of marriage (custody rights, tax-free inheritance, joint ownership of property, health care and spousal citizenship, etc.,) without limiting the number of partners or their gender. Nor would ‘couples’ be bound to each other in the eyes of the law. This is clearly where the movement is headed." The occurrence of “clearly” appears without argument, of course, but I am not sure this is the main problem with this piece of reasoning. In his writings on gay marriage Kurtz does not consistently avoid hysteria; discussed here.

The previous president of Generation Rescue, this Stan Kurtz is (most probably) a different person, but an equally looney one who claims to have single-handedly cured children from vaccine-induced autism. That kind of guy.

Diagnosis: Shrill and tiresome wingnut maniac who specializes in incoherently inferring idiocy from insane premises. Relatively famous and as such moderately dangerous (as is his name brother at Generation Rescue).

#136: Steve Fuller

Fuller is a sociologist and best known as a post-modernist alibi for intelligent design creationism. He works and lives in the UK (Warwick, but Fuller is still American), where he is actually a celebrated sociologist who has won prizes and awards. Tells you something about the field. He is mostly associated with social epistemology as an interdisciplinary research program. Social epistemology is a normative discipline that addresses philosophical problems of knowledge using the tools of history and the social sciences. It is utter bullshit, in other words (skepticism is a white male European construct).

For the purposes of our encyclopedia, Fuller is most notable for his extensive support of creationism, publishing books and papers and even participating at the Dover trial (for the defense, though his argument may have hurt them more than helped them), claiming that the theory of evolution and intelligent design creationism should be accorded equal status as scientific theories. He also claims that ID needs and should receive “affirmative action” among the sciences. He has also claimed that Darwinism leads to abortion and euthanasia, showing where his ideas really come from. (Steven Poole called his book “Dissent over Descent” “an epoch-hopping parade of straw men, incompetent reasoning and outright gibberish, as when evolution is argued to share with astrology a commitment to "action at a distance", except that the distance is in time rather than space. It's intellectual quackery like this that gives philosophy of science a bad name”; Michael Ruse judged it to be “completely wrong and […] backed by no sound scholarship whatsoever”)

He has also argued that science is basically a religion, and that modern science has its basis in an attempt by humanity to transcend itself and reach God – and that science itself “does not make sense without the Abrahamic backdrop”. More muddleheaded POMO idiocy is discussed here, here, and here.)

Norman Levitt responded to Fuller’s bullshittery, in particular his book Science Vs. Religion with eloquence and insight (here, here, here, and here (Sahotra Sarkar also had an eloquent response; also here)). After Levitt passed away, Fuller wrote one of the more bizarre eulogies in history, calling him “"a minor science fascist” and accusing him (rather than Fuller himself and his POMO followers) of being a “pioneer of cyber-fascism, whereby a certain well-educated but (for whatever reason) academically disenfranchised group of people have managed to create their own parallel universe of what is right and wrong in matters of science”. The “eulogy” is discussed here.

Fuller is currently associated with Dembski’s blog Uncommon Descent (no link provided). Also made an appearance in Expelled.

Diagnosis: Total idiot; not only impervious to critical thinking, but using POMO to justify not engaging in it. Blathering crackpot. May have some influence, but probably not among the usual fundamentalist creationists. His ilk is a threat to civilization nonetheless, and Fuller should be taken as an example of the ridiculousness of POMO and where it might actually lead.

#110: Larry Dossey

A staunch opponent of the scientific method, Larry Dossey argues that the scientific method leads to Hitler and that indoctrinating children with the scientific method is a form of child abuse.

It is unclear what he wants to replace it with; presumably intuition, anecdotal evidence and “different ways of knowing” (i.e. “facts are just opinions and claims that are true for you may not be true for me”); perhaps something like this. You see, Larry is completely out there – he’s a virulent defender of all kinds of woo - Deepak Chopra, Gary Null, Joe Mercola, Gary Zukav and those kinds of people. He is, in fact, reckoned as one of the “Three musketeers of Woo”. Dossey is the author of (among other books) “Healing words: the power of prayer and the practice of medicine”, “The power of premonitions” (uh-oh) and, with Lewis Mehl-Madrona (who must be considered equally insane on this evidence alone) “Coyote healing” about the power of Native American healers to produce "miracles". Betcha there was a lot of controlled studies behind that one. He is also the former co-chairman of the Panel on Mind/Body Interventions, National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, National Institutes of Health. And he is the executive editor of the “peer-reviewed” journal “Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing” (the journal known for this one, and this one). He seems to accept any conclusion as long as it is not science-based, since science is a conspiracy of the pharmaceutical companies and therefore a sham (which, you know, does not follow even if the premise is true – it’s called “ad hominem”, and is, in this case, a fallacy). Kinda like Alex Jones.

Diagnosis: Clinically lacking in critical thinking skills and understanding of the scientific method, and utterly lost to confirmation bias. Impact uncertain, but he does (of course) write for Huffington post on a regular basis. Total moron.

#104: Tom DeRosa

Executive Director of the Creation Studies Institute (an outreach of Coral Ridge Ministries), author of “Evolution’s Fatal Fruit” and self-proclaimed loon (well, he hasn’t literally said that, but he explains the fact that the earth is 4.7 billion years old and that this contradicts the Biblical 6000 years away by claiming that God created a 4.7 billion year old earth 6000 years ago, and that pretty much amounts to the same thing). His institute’s website is worth a visit.

Yes, he is a young earth creationist, trotting out the same old, same old – radiometric dating is unreliable, the Flood occurred 4000 years ago, Tyrannosaurus Rex was really a firebreathing dragon (behemoth of the old testament), evolution is solely responsible for all the ills of the 20th century (including, it seems, the travesties of religious fundamentalism – it is a little unclear). And these pieces of untarnished lunacy are typical creationist talking-points, remember. A typical debate is summed up here.

His notability does in part also stem from his own claim that he used to be an atheist who has since seen the light (See here. See also, well, more or less the rest of them, for example this guy). Apparently, DeRosa was the one who lead Pat Boone to creationism – I mean, Boone used to be an atheist, didn’t he? Apparently, Tom has a blog as well, where you can read about (among other things) his profound insight that creation vs. evolution is really the war between worldviews and neither is better than the other (yet his is, somehow, the best and correct one anyway).

Diagnosis: Total moron; impact is uncertain but he shouldn’t be underestimated.

#54: Fritjof Capra

The king himself of touchy-feely new age bullshit, Capra is the author of ”The Tao of Physics”, which captured the imaginations of the Dunning-Kruger baseline some decades back by exploring the similarities between quantum theory and Eastern philosophies. Capra is a physicist, systems theorist, and has aslo written ”The Turning Point”, ”Uncommon Wisdom”, ”The Web of Life”, and ”The Hidden Connections”. Dr. Capra is also a founding director of the Center for Ecoliteracy in Berkeley, California, and the sort of guy that would be a demi-good of the clinically moronic David Brooks’s neural Buddhists. ”The Tao of Physics” claims that physics and metaphysics are both inexorably leading to the same knowledge, and proceeds by way of wishy-washy Zen Buddhism peppered with half-baked concepts from quantum theory in a thoroughly confused, pyramids and magnet stone kind of quasi-religious delusional gruel.

Using Thomas Kuhn's ”The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” as a stepping stone, he and the Benedictine monk Steindl-Rast also explored the parallels between new paradigm thinking in science and religion (yes, exactly – poor understanding of Thomas Kuhn is probably the greatest generator of fluffy woo in history) that together offer what the authors consider remarkably compatible view of the universe. Evidence is selectively used if anyone wondered.

His main fight is against reductionism (a concept he doesn’t understand, rest assured) and a mechanistic world-view, in favor of a holistic approach. The wikipedia article is informative, if sympathetic. The penchant such people have to rely on armchair confirmation bias rather than evidence is obvious from their bald assertions (probably they believe it themselves) that their direction is the one in which scientific consensus itself is moving. It isn’t. Capra and his ilk are loons and crackpots.

A soulmate of Deepak Chopra, some representative examples of his rosy-tinted woo is found here, here and here
(all sympathetic sources; he exaplains his disdain for Darwinism and Francis Bacon, among other things).

Diagnosis: Woo-meister and cranky dingbat. Enormously influential – if you’ve ever heard of ”the similarity between Zen Buddhism or [insert wooey Eastern ”philosophy”, preferably one you know little about, here], Capra is the instigator. One of the most important crackpots alive.