#26: Rosalie Bertell

That she has updated her Wikipedia page herself in first person (using capslock) is a nice touch, strongly suggesting at least a degree of kookery. And Rosalie Bertell delivers. Now, Bertell has a background in science and cancer research, but at some point she unhinged and drifted off into uncharted territories. She is currently the leading “expert” on the chemtrail conspiracy – the idea that contrails are actually chemicals or biological agents deliberately sprayed at high altitudes for a purpose undisclosed to the general public. Also discussed here. Bertell thinks “chemtrails” are carriers for all kinds of biological and chemical warfare which the government (military) is, for some undisclosed reason, going to drop on ordinary people (apparently the government is at war with Mother Earth, which, according to Bertell, is a living (sentient?) organism). She doesn’t believe the “official story”, that chemtrails are either combating global warming via spraying populated areas with aerosolized metals or aerial pharmacopeia (pollution modification). The fact that the chemtrail phenomenon is a myth makes one wonder who came up with Bertell’s “official story”.

She also explores possible explanations for recent earthquake anomalies (and again the anomalies are not recognized by anyone who knows anything about the issues, which Bertell does not) with the following suggestions: a gamma ray/gravity wave from space? HAARP-induced deep earth tomography (yes, Bertell is into that conspiracy as well)? Or a direct wave weapon, accident or purposeful? She is also very concerned with radiation, electromagnetic and radioactive, and magnetic fields, relying exclusively on anecdotal correlations, hearsay and intuition, and displaying no understanding of the processes or what counts as evidence.

You can listen to her here.

A library of some of her kookiest contributions can be found here.

Bertrell is also a 9/11 troofer (and in general seems to accept every and any conspiracy theory that pits the evil government against noble ordinary people).

She is also a human rights and environmental activist and has done a lot of good in that respect, but her positive contributions are at present blurred with her crackpottery – at some point her environmental concerns turned into complete paranoia, conspiracy mongering and general crankiness.

Diagnosis: Well-intentioned crackpot who has lost the ability to distinguish the scientific method from personal intuition; has a lot of followers, and at present she probably does more harm than good to important causes that she works on.

#25: Leo Berman

Berman is a State Representative (R-Tyler) of Texas, most famous for ardently fighting for allowing the Institute of Creation Research to grant degrees. Unhappy with the fact that the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board ruled that the “Institute” couldn’t do so, he attempted to pass a law that would allow private, non-profit education institutions to grant degrees without the board's permission or any regulation whatsoever – which must be one of the stupidest ideas ever advocated and would effectively have undermined any degree from any educational institution in Texas. Berman deserves an entry in the Encyclopedia for this reason alone. Also a die-hard creationist (of course).

Diagnosis: Ardent and zealous nutjob; has already proven himself to be a threat to education, science and critical thinking.

#24: David Berlinski

Berlinski is one of the movers and shakers of the contemporary creationist movement, associated with the Discovery Institute and one of their most frequent and famous debaters. A delusional, pompous narcissist with an ego to fit a medieval pope. Also a name-dropper (most of his talks concern important people he has talked to). A comment on one of his lunatic self-aggrandizing rants can be found here (sums up this guy pretty well):

He is apparently really angry at evolution (it is unclear why), and famous for his purely enumerative “cows cannot evolve into whales” argument.

Berlinski was once a moderately respected author of popular-science books on mathematics. He can still add numbers together, but has forgotten the GIGO rule (“garbage in, garbage out") of applied mathematics. Some of his rantings are discussed here.

Likes to play ‘the skeptic’ (which means denialism in this case, and that is not the same thing).

Diagnosis: Boneheaded, pompous and arrogant nitwit; has a lot of influence, and a frequent participator in debates, since apparently the Discovery Institute thinks that’s the way scientific disputes are settled (although he often takes a surprisingly moderate view in debates, leading some to suspect that he is really a cynical fraud rather than a loon).

(for a nice description of the difference between skepticism and paranoid denialism, I recommend these three articles: here, here, and here.)

#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.

#22: John Benneth

Our 22nd loon, Benneth is a respected and highly influential homeopath – indeed, one of the staunchest and most prominent defenders of homeopathic remedies in the States. Listen to Benneth explain how homeopathy works and its scientific underpinnings here, and hear one of the most ridiculous abuses of scientific language you’ve heard in a long time. It’s all there, from classic phrases like “more and more scientists have taken interest…” to “magnetic radiation” (a term Benneth employs as roughly equivalent to “qi” or “chi” or some similar New Age drivel), and the use of a sciency term that sounds like it’ll serve his purpose - in this case "nanocrystalloids", a phenomenon he thoroughly fails to understand (instead relying on the assumption that his listeners don’t understand it either). Pure nonsense and pseudo-scientific babble, in other words. It is deconstructed here.

Benneth also apparently thinks that homeopathy-skeptics are really Nazis who want to set another Holocaust into motion.

Yup – all there; no understanding of science, conspiracy theories, reductio ad hitlerum-mongering, persecution complex etc. Also an ardent youtube poster.

He takes it one step further here.

Diagnosis: this guy is located well beyond lunacy; a zealous madman without a trace of critical thinking skills or understanding of science. A pathological liar and smearer with delusions of grandeur. He seems to enjoy some respect among the kookiest of crackpots, but his total impact is unclear.

#21: Fred Bell

According to his own website, “… at age 14 Bell was not only working at the University of Michigan on nuclear energy projects, but was also inducted into the U.S. government's project called M. K. Ultra. This early mind control research covered such topics as past life regression [check], and the popular remote viewing used today by the CIA and other intelligence gathering factions worldwide [check]. ... Dr. Bell worked on a magnetic disintegration project later known as the Philadelphia Experiment [check], a high temperature fusion experiment, a bubble project later known as Cold Fusion [check] ... . In addition, Dr. Bell worked with the University of Michigan's Cyclotron doing experimentation with the bombardment of nuclear particles and their collisions involving reverse time as observed in a Wilson Cloud Chamber [check]. As a result of this, Dr. Bell built the World's first time machine called the T-1 Time Travel Transposer that allows time travel into the future in increments of microseconds [words fail, but check]. On his 17th birthday, he was transferred into the United States Airforce. There he began working on highly classified projects, several involving early warning radar defense systems and the detection and tracking of extraterrestrial craft [check].

He then left the defense sector and began studying with Himalayan Masters [check]. During this time he became internationally known as a contactee to a Pleiadean group of extraterrestrial humanoids whom were here to help the people on earth save themselves from their own destructive tendencies [check, I guess]. This group comes from a star system 500 light-years from earth.

Today Dr. Bell is a practicing naturopath, scientist and environmentalist, and political activist ...”

So what does he do? Well, dr. Bell is kind enough to want to sell you, for a fairly steep price, various healing devices of his own invention, based on for example Ozonic Electro-Magnetic Technology, quantum receptors, bio-plasmic energy (a.k.a. healing pyramids) to block negative energy, or the Amazing Andromedan Holographic Projector, which "when worn on the head accelerates the brain into quantum entanglement focusing mode”. Who wouldn’t want that?

His website is here.

It is discussed here.

A somewhat more moderate version of his background.
Diagnosis: Words fail. Probably harmless.

#20: Michael Behe

Our next loon, Michael Behe, is a prime example of what can happen when loonery disguises itself as real science. Behe is one of the most ardent and influential creationist out there; covered in more detail here.

Behe himself claims to accept (for instance) common descent and an old (13+ Billion years) universe. However evidence shows that he is a straightforward creationist. He consistently argues that his purported evidence that evolutionary theory does not work is automatically evidence for ID. The shifting of goalposts is obvious when he tries to argue that his opponents are inconsistent in arguing that ID is unfalisifiable (e.g. Coyne) and empirically refuted (e.g. Doolittle). In refusing to admit that Doolittle’s experiments - which falsified his specific predictions concerning blood clotting - were a falsification of the testable claims he forwarded with respect to irreducible complexity, Behe spectacularly demonstrates that Coyne is right to deem ID unfalsifiable (insofar as its supporters continuously change the goalposts).

Behe is also a religious apologist in general, serving as an “expert witness” for several religion related court cases.

Diagnosis: Strongly under the spell of confirmation bias, dishonest and a crackpot. As perhaps the leading creationist today, Behe is very influential and dangerous.