#2624: John Byrd

John Byrd is a fundie creationist village idiot and sometime guest columnist for the Shreveport Times of Shreveport, Louisiana. Byrd does not like science. In particular, Byrd does not like how science doesn’t invoke God to explain natural phenomena. “By limiting scientific inquiry to ‘natural’ explanations for observed phenomena,” says Byrd, “what was considered good science often becomes ‘religion’.” Yeah, science was better before – and notice how he explicitly invokes ‘natural’ phenomena as a presupposition for science rather than (more accurately) the results of employing appropriate means for investigation and confirmation of hypotheses.*

 

Byrd’s primary target is, of course, evolution: the reason creationism isn’t taken seriously as an alternative is not because it contradicts the evidence and offers no explanation for anything but because people who conclude with the Bible rather than evolution are ostracized from the scientific community by fiat (it’s an interestingly post-modern, Edinburgh-school like view of science Byrd is espousing). He does struggle mightily with distinguishing science from religion, though; according to Byrd, “Darwinism is an atheistic theory that attributes all that we see to chance and natural causes,” and “[t]eaching Darwinism in biology class is tantamount to teaching Atheism 101.” (And no, he really doesn’t get evolution – in particular, he doesn’t get the point about evolution being precisely not a matter of random chance – and goes all in on Hoyle’s fallacy). And as for evidence? Not only does Byrd deny that it’s there, he even attempts to claim that the fossil record is evidence against evolution, mostly because he doesn’t bother to actually look.

 

Yes, it is, in particular, a disaster that creationism isn’t taught in public schools, especially when it is adopted by so many people Byrd finds admirable for their intellect; and make no mistake, “[i]f it weren’t taught in science classes, most of us would say it takes a complete fool to believe [evolution].” And then, because he is unable to distinguish a scientific theory supported by empirical investigation from a moral theory, he blames being taught the theory of evolution for kids today ostensibly being engaged in “immoral and directionless” behavior (they “wallow with the lascivious hogs”). Indeed, by not using public schools to evangelicize, “we have become a nation of fools.” (Yes, there is an irony there that Byrd couldn’t possibly appreciate.) Indeed, Byrd thinks that teaching science in science classes not only should be but is illegal.

 

In his letters and columns, Byrd has run more or less the full gamut of intelligent design creationist gambits, including invoking Stephen Meyer as an authority and standard creationist misunderstandings of information. (More or less all of his writings also feel the need to take the effort to point out that “One Nation Under God” is part of the US pledge of allegiance.) Then he quote mines Supreme Court judges.

 

Diagnosis: Yeah, a fairly typical specimen: He does not understand the theory of evolution, and he does not want to try to understand it, but he does have deep opinions about it nonetheless and will use all his efforts to try to flail against the strawman he has constructed. Given that he is, at least, able to formulate grammatical sentences, there is a bit to learn from his flailings for the rest of us.

 

*Yes, it’s that point again: the myth of “methodological naturalism”, the idea that scientific research relies on assuming certain metaphysical ideas (about causation, the nature of phenomena, and so on), and is, as such, prevented from discerning other possibilities. The idea is common among denialists and those who desperately want to shield their ideas from scientific inquiry, and it is utterly silly (how would one get any foray into quantum mechanics, or investigate (and refute) paranormal phenomena – which we do – if that were correct?). In reality, science is committed to basic empiricism, the idea that the source of confirmation of hypotheses (including, of course, hypotheses about unobservable phenomena) comes from the observations and patterns the hypotheses predict. And the current hypotheses about phenomena like the origin of life or the universe are accepted because they yield the most successful predictions and explanations of those observations. If you prefer to entertain a “non-natural” hypothesis – fine: What you have to do, then, is to show that it yields better predictions of observable patterns and data. That’s the bar. “non-natural” hypotheses aren’t barred; it’s just that, at present, none of the “non-natural” hypotheses some people like does a good job – or any job at all – in yielding good predictions of data, and certainly not at a level comparable to, say, evolution or the Big Bang. Science doesn’t need to rule out any type of explanation by fiat.

#2505: Nancy Banks

Antivaccine conspiracy theorists have, with COVID-19, gotten quite a bit of press, but Nancy Banks is a veteran in the game. Banks is, in fact, an MD (one-time gynaecologist), and therefore frequently appears on vaccine denialist lists of anti-vaccine doctors, such as Ricardo Beas’s 2017 federal class action lawsuit and criminal complaint against ‘mandatory vaccination’. And she is, indeed, an excellent example of the kind of deranged dingbats you will find on such otherwise laughably unimpressive lists. Banks has no background in infectious diseases and has never done research – her self-published book AIDS, Opium, Diamonds, and Empire: The Deadly Virus of International Greed is, needless to say, no substitute. She is, however, also an HIV/AIDS denialist and holocaust denier.

 

As a HIV/AIDS denier, Banks was even recruited as an “expert” witness by Clark Baker’s AIDS denialism legal team, which tells you a bit about Baker’s access to genuine experts who support their views.

 

In her book (she has, as mentioned, done no actual research), Banks claims that AIDS is not caused by HIV but by a global conspiracy in league with a range of secret societies and Western governments conspiring to loot Africa of natural resources, in particular diamonds, and that the AIDS epidemic is manufactured to divert attention (“AIDS is the subterfuge for the economic destruction of a continent and psychological warfare against the African people of the Diaspora”). As Banks imagines it, AIDS symptoms are actually due to antiretroviral AIDS drugs, tuberculosis or other diseases that afflict diamond mine workers – they are all work-related, but the categorization as AIDS ostensibly allows diamond corporations to avoid being sued for their working conditions. To support her case, Banks draws heavily on anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and literature, such as Eustace Mullins, Andrew Carrington Hitchcock, and Salvador Astucia, and explicitly blames Jewish conspiracies for the AIDS situation in Africa, including Israel, the American Jewish Congress, and Maurice Tempelsman (chairman of the Harvard School of Public Health’s AIDS).

 

For good measure, the book also pushes a large and variegated group of assorted conspiracy theories about the Kennedy assassination, fluoridated water, the Matrix, and 9/11. It is all connected, in the grandest and most unified possible way, to her theory of HIV/AIDS. Indeed, according to Banks, almost all world events past WWII can be tied to HIV hysteria: “The AIDS paradigm has created a universal belief system based not on science but on inference, innuendo, and association. Very few people will exercise the capacity to synthesize what on the surface may appear to be unrelated events. The assassination of President Kennedy, the prolongation of the Vietnam War, the War on Drugs, the War on Cancer, the rise of Kissinger and Iran-Contra, the de-industrialization of the United States and the strengthening of China as a world power, the genocide in the Congo and the current financial crisis are different acts of the same psychodrama.” For instance, “The legal and illegal drug trafficking helps to finance the covert operations within the Deep State,” according to Banks.

 

To connect the dots (or, rather, putting the dots in a blender to mix them together) – she once hosted a radio program called Connect the Dots – she relies on the works of John Coleman, who believes that world governments are controlled by a group of 300 families in England that got their power from the Opium Wars with China; The Gemstone File conspiracy that Aristotle Onassis, Joseph Kennedy, Eugene Meyer, and others were involved in a global conspiracy with the mafia, oil and drug cartels, and rogue militaries (and killed off the Kennedys when they became a nuisance); and Sal Astucia’s idea that the World Jewish Congress, in league with Jewish gangster Meyer Lansky and the FBI, hired French heroin traffickers to murder JFK. A central figure in her thought is, of course, the CIA, whose mission “is to have everything people believe to be true, false.” It is unclear what that means, but it sure sounds bad.

 

Banks’s views on medicine are generally unusual. For instance, according to Banks:

 

-       “The Rockefeller Foundation created the Molecule Biology Model for modern medicine that is fatally flawed from it’s [sic] beginnings” It’s hard to find much details about what the fatal flaws actually are supposed to be, but if you listen to Banks in the first place, you’re unlikely to care much about such details.

-       “Medicine today is in place to control the population, weed out the weak and for profit”

-       “The molecules in the cells are 99% water and 1% DNA, proteins etc. and allopathic medicine studies the 1%.” We admit that that is a new one to us.

-       “Disease is a simple combination of too many toxins and not enough nutrients and cause a lack of energy”. This is not true.

-       “Low energy cells will replicate more low energy cells in their built in programming to survive.” Whatever that might mean.

-       “negative emotions and thoughts we accept as real deplete the cells of energy and a significant factor of ‘disease’ ”

-       “Liver stagnation and toxicity can be a useful place for most to start the cleansing process.” Yes, it’s all about detoxing; of course it is.

-       “The entire vaccine theory is essentially bad science, going after viruses that don’t exist.”

 

And yes, there you go: Nancy Banks is also a germ theory denialist. No, really. She also promotes Bill Gates depopulation conspiracy theories: “The Gates Foundation’s vision of vaccinating third World countries is ostensibly genocide.”

 

Keep in mind that this character once, apparently, received a professional degree. 

 

Diagnosis: And there you have it: an example of the kind of person who passes as an expert in anti-vaccine circles and figures on their lists of doctors to consult. It’s illuminating.

 

Hat-tip: Denyingaids.blogspot

#2492: Alexis Baden-Mayer

Alexis Baden-Mayer is an anti-GMO activist and Political Director fo the Organic Consumers Association, an anti-GMO organization. Baden-Meyer is sufficiently influential in the movement to be considered a person to interview about policy suggestions and measures related to organic food and GMOs by mainstream media, i.e. as someone to be taken seriously. Alexis Baden-Mayer is not a person to take seriously, however. Alexis Baden-Mayer is a loon.

 

In addition to promoting anti-GMO conspiracy theories, Baden-Mayer promotes anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, and has in fact become a rather influential figure in the anti-vaccine movement – she was a speaker at the 2017 Washington anti-vaccine rally “Revolution for Truth”, for instance (and yes: that would be Badger’s Law at work).

 

Now, it’s hardly surprising that someone from the Organic Consumers Association is an anti-vaccine activist – after all, the OCA is a pseudoscience and conspiracy-theory group through and through, and frequently promotes everything from NaturalNews, Joseph Mercola and Alex Jones articles to anti-fluoridation nonsense, food irradiation conspiracies, homeopathy and even 9/11-truther nonsense (as well as antivaccine misinformation). They also tend to label their opponents as paid shills (Baden-Mayer is particularly fond of the popular Argumentum ad Monsantum gambit); they are at least open about their role being to represent and protect the interests of “several thousand businesses in the natural foods and organic marketplace” and that they themselves are funded by Big Organic corporations. 

 

Baden-Mayer’s blog (no link) consists mostly of posts accusing people of being paid shills for Monsanto and conspiracy theories about COVID-19 and – in particular – Bill Gates; in fact, Baden-Mayer even suggests that Gates may be behind the pandemic, and in cahoots with Anthony Fauci, in order to profiteer on vaccines. It’s precisely as breathless, incoherent and paranoid as you’d imagine.

 

Diagnosis: Wild-eyed, intense and paranoid conspiracy theorist who seems hell-bent on trying to believe more or less every conspiracy theory she comes across. And she does have followers. Frightening stuff.

 

Addendum: The recipe for Baden-Mayer’s rants – and, indeed, most of the stuff coming out of OCA – is actually rather instructive, and illustrates the central position of ad hominem fallacies in much conspiracy reasoning. If there is a claim they don’t like, there is little engagement with the claim; rather, the go-to gambit is to try to question the integrity of the person or group presenting the claim. If Anthony Fauci says something about the coronavirus? Let’s dig up all the stuff we can about him, and see if we can find, however tenuous, some connection that, if you squint a lot, could be used to question whether his position is entirely and completely neutral and with no possible connection, at any degree of removal, to some industry. Then reject the claim in question without even bothering to address it.

 

Of course, in reality, most people wouldn’t dismiss, say, claims about whether a computer program works as intended made by someone who is employed by the developers of the program. And most people would presumably agree that in order to dismiss a mathematical result, you sort of have to find an error – that the person publishing the proof has a stake in the proof being correct isn’t really a good reason to reject it on its own. In order to legitimately dismiss a claim, you have to engage with in and find an error; it’s not enough to find some flaw with the person making it.

 

There is some apparent complexity to be added to this obvious point, however: We generally should dismiss claims made by non-experts about a field if the claim is in disagreement with what the experts on that field say, and the fact that the person is a non-expert is, on its own, relevant. Doing so may superficially look like the kind of ad hominem-fallacy mongering Baden-Mayer tends to engage in. But it isn’t – there is a crucial difference: In the case where you dismiss the non-expert’s claim, you aren’t dismissing it because the person is a non-expert: You are dismissing it because you do have independent reason to think the claim is wrong, namely that the people who know a lot about it says that it is wrong. You may not be able to spell out what the mistake is, but the fact that experts say that it is mistaken means that you have good, independent, reason for thinking that there is one.

 

In general, a good rule of good thinking is the following (we do not know from where we have it – if anyone has a reference, please tell us):

 

You are not allowed to try to explain why someone is wrong before you have shown that they are, in fact, wrong.

 

You are (rationally) allowed to speculate about why someone is wrong. You are even allowed to wonder whether there is foul play at work. But you can’t start with those speculations: first you have to do the work of determining whether there is actually anything there that merits an explanation. Starting by looking for foul play, however, before addressing any relevant claim, is one of the hallmark of conspiracy thinking.

#1995: Eric Metaxas

Eric Metaxas is a fundie apologist, pseudo-philosopher, author, radio host (The Eric Metaxas Show) and a regular on various TV shows, such as Glenn Beck’s, Mike Huckabee’s and Laura Ingraham’s shows. He has also received various honorary doctorates from places like Liberty University.

Creationist

Metaxas is a creationist. According to Metaxas, the discovery of really old stromatolites that suggest that the origin of life occurred some 3.7 billion years ago, suggests to Metaxas that “evolution just got harder to defend” since it leaves only a few hundred million years for life to have first occurred after Earth got sufficiently habitable for it to exist. Nevermind that abiogenesis has nothing to do with evolution (indeed, Metaxas’s article is an illustrative example of creationist confusion over this basic distinction) or that the discovery doesn’t even pose any actual problem for an explanation of abiogenesis without appealing to goddidit. Metaxas has no time for details like the absence of a genuine problem in his objections; neither do David Klinghoffer and Stephen Meyer, who seem to be Metaxas’s primary sources for this particular creationist take on the discovery. Apparently evolution is just full of assumptions. 

Indeed, Metaxas often claims that science is “increasingly” giving us evidence for God – and therefore, apparently, for creationism – and systematically does so in a manner that is willfully ignorant of the scientific findings he is interpreting. A good example is discussed here (more details here and here). Of course, being utterly ignorant of science, Metaxas relies on third- or fourth-hand sources for his claims, and tend to choose systematically unrealiable ones (like Meyer). So, for instance, arguing that the octopus genome is evidence against evolution and for design, Metaxas writes that the researchers who sequenced the genome found that “Compared with other invertebrates, the DNA of the octopus was ‘alien’: nothing like the genetic codes of what they thought were similar animals, like clams and sea snails,” which is directly contradicted by … the paper in which the results were published. Yup: Metaxas didn’t read the paper, didn’t understand the science, and then made things up from whole cloth to conclude that all scientists are wrong and evolution is bunk. Another example of the same is here. It’s a useful reminder if you ever end up reading anything else he’s written.

Metaxas does have a large array of creationist PRATTs at his disposal, though, and is not afraid to use them. Here, for instance, is the creationist argument against evolution from misunderstanding genetics (the “DNA is a code” claim) and the “odds are against evolution” canard, irreducible complexity and the “evolution cannot add information” gambit, which at least is decisive evidence that the person raising the gambit doesn’t understand the basics of evolution, genetics or information.

Hack

Among Metaxas’s books are If You Can Keep It: The Forgotten Promise of American Libertyand Miracles: What They Are, Why They Happen, and How They Can Change Your Lif, as well as various biographie, including an infamous biography on Bonhoeffer that was widely panned by historians and theologians. He has also written children’s books and Veggie Tales scripts.

As for the Bonhoeffer biography, Metaxas responded to critics – historians and theologians who actually have some expertise on the issue – by asserting that “there’s not a syllable in my Bonhoeffer book that isn’t true” before dismissing those critics as “liberals” who are “very vicious” because they can’t handle the truth. This is demonstrably false. In any case, the biography seems primarily to have been an excuse for going full Godwin over his political opponents. (Indeed, many of the most delusional members of the religious right appears to view themselves as modern-day Bonhoeffers insofar as there are critics who don’t think they should be free to force others to conform to their views on social issues, and have therefore understandably been positive to Metaxas’s mischaracterizations). In 2014, for instance, Metaxas argued that “[j]ust as Bonhoeffer tried to get churches in Germany to link arms and fight Hitler, so too must churches in America rally together to push back against the government’s increasing tyranny.” Apparently “[t]he parallel today is simply that you have a government, a state, which is getting larger and larger and more and more powerful.” In a moment of dim self-awareness, Metaxas conceded that “people think that’s incendiary or I’m being hyperbolic,” which he countered by asserting that “I’m not.” 

In his 2012 speech at the National Prayer Breakfast Metaxas compared legalized abortion to the Holocaust. And in 2014, he argued that the existence of gay-inclusive churches was proof that America is turning into Nazi Germany (“We see that obviously happening in issues of sexuality, but how can you say that most mainline denominations in America today are profoundly Christian when they have given up the ghost on all of these fundamentals of the faith? You had the exact same thing happening in Germany. It’s just setting things up so that when evil comes, where do people turn?”)

His book If You Can Keep Itis reviewed here, here, here, and here. As you’d expect, the book is the work of a true hack, straight out of David Barton’s playbook (indeed, Metaxas admitted to using Barton’s pseudohistory as a source), portraying Founding Fathers as religious extremists, the Puritan settlers as defenders of religious freedom (utter lunacy), and whitewashing slavery, all in attempt to support the familiar but mythical portrayal of The US as a Christian Nation. There’s a good discussion of Metaxas’s attempt to distort history in the service of his political agenda here.

Here is a fine example of Metaxas’s blatantly lying.

Wingnut

For the 2016 election Metaxas supported Trump. This election, said Metaxas, represents as critical a turning point as the Civil War or the American Revolution, since Clinton would nominate judges who “legislate from the bench” – activist judges, in other words, where “activist judge” means any judges who comes to a different conclusion than Metaxas (who, needless to say, is rather far from being a legal scholar).

Diagnosis: It’s still a little baffling to us that people who consider themselves so pious and faithful show such blatant disregard for truth and accuracy. Eric Metaxas is a systematic liar and a hack, and the respect and influence he has gained accordingly both a damning indictment of his fans’ claims to value honesty, truth and accountability, and deeply frightening.

#1987: Michael Medved

Michael Medved is a right-wing radio host (the fundie Christian Salem Radio Network), movie critic (some of his earlier writings on film are actually pretty decent: Medved also helped launch the popularity of Plan Nine from Outer Space) and senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute, a creationist think tank that occasionally tries to pretend to be thinking about science but usually forgets that they’re supposed to, such as when they hired Medved, who doesn’t have any background remotely related to science. Medved claims to be a “moderate” and is, indeed, moderate on a number of issues, having even critized the extremists on the far right; but he is also a supporter of the Tea Party, as well as various fringe conspiracy theories and a broad range of denialist positions, including global warming denialism (“a complete scam”) and creationism. His recent work includes such claptrap as Hollywood vs. America: Popular Culture and the War on Traditional Values.

Creationism

Medved is a firm supporter of Intelligent Design Creationism (it is worth noting that Medved’s father, David Medved, who was a physicist and emphatically not a biologist, was a signatory to the Discovery Institute’s laughable petition A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism). It has therefore been natural for Medved to invite non-scientist ID-creationists like Stephen Meyer on his show to discuss their pseudoscience without having to engage with the damning criticisms of that pseudoscience. After being appointed Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute Medved promptly spilled the beans and admitted, somewhat inadvertently, that Intelligent Design is not a scientific theory but a fundie PR campaign against the scientific theory of evolution. Medved is otherwise apparently familiar with some of the more ridiculous PRATTs creationists use to fuel their Gish gallops, but doesn’t even begin to grasp the basics of biology and science.

In 2018 we should apparently be looking forward to his Great Minds, an audio and video podcast that will feature interviews with various “key scholars” at the Discovery Institute, bringing their ideas to a wider audience – in line with the institute’s mandate, which was never about doing science anyways, but about promotion of silly ideas.

Medved is apparently also a firm believer in the Bigfoot myth.

According to Medved, God has intervened in human history on several occasions. In his book The American Miracle: Divine Providence in the Rise of the Republic, Medved argues precisely that “there is intelligent design in America’s history”, stating for instance that God hid all the gold in California until “the very moment” that the territory became the property of the United States – as Medved tells the story, the gold was discovered on the very same day the treaty was signed, so the best explanation is that God actually put it there on that very day. In the real world gold was discovered before the treaty was signed, but when the facts don’t fit the premises and Medved needs to infer divine intervention, the facts must go.

Racialism and Civil Rights Issues

Medved has also adopted some notably cranky views on civil rights issues, and has even promoted racialism. In his own words (a 2008 Townhall article, one of the most idiotic in the history of idiotic articles): “The idea of a distinctive, unifying, risk-taking American DNA might also help to explain our most persistent and painful racial divide – between the progeny of every immigrant nationality that chose to come here, and the one significant group that exercised no choice in making their journey to the U.S. Nothing in the horrific ordeal of African slaves, seized from their homes against their will, reflected a genetic predisposition to risk-taking, or any sort of self-selection based on personality traits.” At least Medved doesn’t have the faintest clue how genes work. In any case, Medved goes from these observations to conclude that Obama’s policies were doomed to fail, since they go against the risk-taker genes (Republican ideas are apparently now hardcoded in our DNA). Also, talking about the trans-Atlantic slave trade: “Perhaps the most horrifying aspect of these voyages involves the fact that no slave traders wanted to see this level of deadly suffering: they benefited only from delivering (and selling) live slaves, not from tossing corpses into the ocean.” This is not the most horrifying aspect of these voyages. He has also argued that an American Indian Holocaust was just political correctness gone mad, since the US government never deliberately killed Native Americans. This is incorrect as well.

Zeh gays

As you’d expect, Medved is no fan of the LGBT movement, and used to argue against the repeal of DADT applied to gays but not to lesbians, since gay sex is an act of “aggression” and lesbian sex, by contrast, an act of “affection”. The most interesting detail here is that Medved has apparently thought long and hard about this (but, given that he’s stupid, failed to come up with anything intelligent). Gay marriage, meanwhile, is an existential threat, and “one man and one woman” is “essential for the survival of our civilization”. According to Medved states have never banned gay marriage, though – “that’s a liberal lie”; he’s apparently trying out his own, particularly dishonest, version of a favorite argument among opponents of interracial marriage.

And taking a page from the belligerent lunatic ravings of Scott Lively, Medved has also stated, against all facts, that most Nazi leaders, including Hitler, were gay. This is false.

Donning his movie critic (tinfoil) hat (he once praised the inane conspiracy pseudodocumentary Expelled, too), Medved criticized the movie “Happy Feet” for apparently featuring a subtle pro-gay message, at the same time implying that some gays can make themselves straight when they have “turned their lives around”.

Miscellaneous politics

Medved was not pleased when mainstream media labeled the Wisconsin Sikh temple shooter a “right-wing extremist”, calling such labeling an attack on conservatives, which, if Medved were correct, would not really portray conservatives in a particularly favorable light. There is little chance Medved is right about stuff like this, though.

In 2012 he published The Odds Against Obama: Why History and Logic Make the President a Likely Loser, arguing that Obama was bound to lose according to the “iron rules of history and logic”, which he pushed rather loudly even after it was painfully obvious that Obama would win. (The book is garbage in most other ways, too.) Here is Medved trying to argue why Americans shouldn’t ever vote for an atheist president. Here is Medved claiming that God votes conservative (because Medved does and God always agrees with Medved on politics). And here is Medved complaining about how liberals are given a free pass to talk about their faith, and that conservatives never do.

In 2003, Medved launched his campaign (later picked up by others) against the fictional character Captain America, whom Medved said was being depicted as sympathetic to terrorism because Captain America questioned official U.S. policy with regards to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Diagnosis: Denialist and emphatically as far from scientifically literate as you get, even though the Discovery Institute seems to think otherwise (of course, they wouldn’t have the faintest clue about what the difference between a scientist and a pseudoscientist might be). He is a bit of a C-level celebrity, though, and there are apparently some people who listen to him.

Hat-tip: Rationalwiki