#142: Pam Geller

Blogger (her blog is called “Atlas Shrugs”, you do the math), political activist, and co-founder of Stop Islamization of America, Geller has been cited as one of the most virulent opponents of the Park51 community center and mosque in Lower Manhattan – and even as one of the leaders of the anti-mosque movement. She has, understandably, been denounced for hate speech from several critics, and not only for her anti-Islam stance; she has been a staunch defender of Slobodan Milošević, denied the existence of Serbian concentration camps in the 1990s, and claims that black South Africans are launching a "genocide" against whites (she has also expressed support for the far right English Defence League).

Herself of Jewish background, the general tenor of her screeds can be summed up by the following quote: “It galls me that the Jews I fight for are self-destructive, suicidal even. Here in America (and the world over), Israel's real friends are in the Republican party and yet over 80% of American Jews are Democrats. I don't get it. The conventional wisdom on the Left is that Israel is an oppressor and her actions are worse than the world's most depraved and dangerous regimes. Chomsky, Finkelstein, Soros – these men are the killers. [… Israel should] stand loud and proud. Give up nothing. Turn over not a pebble. For every rocket fired, drop a MOAB. Take back Gaza. Secure Judea and Samaria. Stop buying Haaretz. Throw leftists bums out.”

Regarding Park51, she claims that it is a “Mega Mosque at Ground Zero” (truth and accuracy have never been cherished by this kind of people), viewed by Muslims as a "triumphal" monument built on "conquered land". She has also opposed other mosques and claims that the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem should be removed.

Geller says Ayn Rand is "the greatest philosopher in human history," (which alone would qualify her for an entry in this Encyclopedia), and claims that her “blog is, and its purpose is, clearly defined by Rand's philosophy.” (despite my distaste for Rand, I suspect that Geller’s religious right viewpoints are actually pretty far removed from anything Rand would have wanted to be associated with). The blog concentrates on what she perceives to be a violent threat to the United States by Islamic extremists and liberal politicians. Her “style of writing is like one long primordial scream”, but the main focus is anti-Islam.

Among the tasteful and accurate posts on her blog are the following:
- Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan (who is Jewish) supports Nazi ideology (the post was accompanied by a fake picture of her in a Nazi uniform) (on a related note)
- A video suggesting that Muslims have sex with goats
- A doctored photo showing President Obama urinating on an American flag, with claims that Obama's mother was involved in pornography and that Obama "was involved with a crack whore in his youth".
- Accusations to the effect that Obama is an anti-Semite doing the bidding of "Islamic overlords," (posting an essay suggesting, without any evidence, that the President is the "love child" of Malcolm X).
- Democrats are Nazis (repeatedly)

So of course she had to be picked up by the WorldNetDaily.

A longer list of her greatest hits can be found here.

(a few of them are discussed here)

She is of course an ardent birther. That should surprise no one.

Some think this is the peak of her bloglife, however.

Diagnosis: Epically insane. There is no one quite like her. She makes Glenn Beck seem like Noam Chomsky in comparison. Her impact is unclear, but she is given a lot of attention by Fox News.

(Actually, this blog might be even one (small) step farther out there: - though it might be a spoof. You never know.)

#141: David & Mark Geier

A.k.a The Batman and Robin of autism woo

The Geier father and son tag-team is a horror-filled legend among those who have gazed into the abyss of woo and altmeds. The Geiers are the creators of the dangerous and heinous Lupron therapy, a scientifically thoroughly discredited treatment for autism based on the thoroughly discredited assumption that autism is related to vaccination, mercury, hormones, and gut integrity. In some more detail, lupron is a very potent anti-androgen used as a form of "chemical castration" for men with prostate cancer, for women with uterine fibroid tumors, and a few other rare medical conditions. The Geiers speculate that the thimerosal in vaccines causes autism, that androgens such as testosterone potentiate mercury toxicity, that chelation therapy can help, and that Lupron is a useful adjunct to chelation. Complete bullshit, of course, even though the Geiers have managed to get some papers into low-tier journals.

Mark Geier is a physician but has no expertise in pediatrics, endocrinology, vaccines, or autism. His son only has a bachelor’s degree in biology; yet he assists his father in his “research” and in essence helps him treat patients, despite his lack of medical training. Together they must be ranked among the founding fathers of the mercury militia. A disturbing number of parents has not only fallen for the Geiers disturbing abuse of autistic children, but have even paid big bucks for having their childresn subjected to what is in essence chemical castration using a powerful anti-sex hormone drug. The treatment is apparently so bad it does not even count as junk science, and it took the mainstream media a surprising amount of time to notice (here, and here). The protocol and its ghastly implications are spelled out in some detail here. In their “studies” they fall into virtually every pitfall there is, even such simple things as confusing correlation and causation (here, here, and here).

For a discussion of this and related (autism is poisoning) ideas, see this informative article.

Diagnosis: These deranged pseudoscientists ought seriously to be tried for crimes against humanity. They are extremely dangerous and continue to pose a serious threat to the welfare and well-being of children.

#140: Ann Gauger

Gauger has a PhD in zoology and is a signatory of Discovery Institute’s 2005 petition “Scientific Dissent from Darwinism”. She’s currently associated with the Discovery affiliated creationist think-tank the Biologic Institute whose goal is to perform real research on ID and which has yet to produce a single publication supporting ID creationism despite big budgets and numerous employed “scientists”.

A rather infamous incident occurred when Gauger reported on her work at the Wistar Retrospective Symposium, 2007, in Boston, Massachusetts. She discussed “leaky growth” in microbial colonies at high densities, leading to horizontal transfer of genetic information, and announced that under such conditions she had actually found a novel variant that seemed to lead to enhanced colony growth. Gunther Wagner, a real scientist, asked the obvious question: “So, a beneficial mutation happened right in your lab?” at which point the moderator halted questioning - Gauger has earlier argued that any evolutionary change is non-adaptive.

Diagnosis: Surely intelligent, but caught up in a system of self-reassuring but misguided views on how reality hangs together. The Biologic Institute is supposed to provided creationism with a sheen of scientific legitimacy, and although its existence may carry some influence on general perception of creationism (then again, probably not), it has failed to fool scientists or scholars in general (apart from Robin Collins).
(ed. note - I haven't been able to find a pic that I can reliably identify as the Ann Gauger of this entry. If anyone can point me to one, please let me know)

#139: Maggie Gallagher

A.k.a. Margaret Gallagher Srivastav

Writer and commentator Maggie Gallagher, a syndicate columnist for Universal Press Syndicate and author of five books, is best known as the president of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy. Guess what their stance is on e.g. gay marriage. She is also former president of the National Organization for Marriage (now run by Brian Brown), an organization attempting to organize opposition to recognition of same-sex couples in state legislatures (their ads have garnered some fame; they simply must be seen). She is obviously against abortion and believes that Roe v. Wade should be overturned (believing that most people who support legal abortion do so reluctantly because they think it is a necessary evil), and received some minutes in the spotlight during the Schiavo case (she thinks legalizing euthanasia diminishes the value of life among the sick and elderly, though her reasoning is less than translucent). Similarly, gay marriage, according to Gallagher, diminishes the value of heterosexual marriage (the argument is, well, non-existent. It’s an assertion). A nice portrait is here.

According to Gallagher “once the principle [of same-sex marriage] is in the law, the next step will be to use the law to stigmatize, marginalize, and repress those who disagree with the government’s new views on marriage and sexual orientation”, and as evidence she cites efforts by liberals to revoke the tax-exempt status of churches who oppose same-sex marriage. In other words, religious freedom means protecting religious people’s right to discriminate those who disagree with them. Her arguments against gay marriage are sometimes … slightly paranoid, when they are not simply insane: see here, here, and here.

She also believes that abstinence-only sex education should be the sole curriculum taught, and advocates discontinuing all safer-sex education in public schools.

She was the subject of some controversy after receiving tens of thousands of dollars from the Department of Health and Human Services during 2002 and 2003 for helping the George W. Bush administration promote the President's Healthy Marriage Initiative. During this time, Gallagher testified before Congress in favor of “healthy marriage” programs, but never disclosed the payments. All in all Maggie Gallagher is the kind of person who would actually benefit from an Intro to ethics class, but who would never sign up for one.

Probably not related to the sad, pathetic once-comedian Leo Gallagher, but could have been.

Antidote.

Diagnosis: Paranoid fanatic, who likes collecting arguments – no matter how bad (since she is unable to discern good from bad arguments) and machine-gunning them forth whenever she has the opportunity. Virulently blathering idiot, in other words. Her direct impact is uncertain, but she seems to wield some political power.

#138: Richard Gage

Richard Gage is one of the main people behind the 911 troofer movement and the founder of AE911truth.org (note: visits not recommended) and Architects and Enginers for 9/11 truth. Architect (not engineer or explosives expert, contrary to widely held belief) Gage is currently touring the US and Canada and making a lot of noise with unsubstantiated claims and misleading “evidence”. As expected he believes that a mysterious conspiracy was behind the 9/11 attacks and that it was secret operatives who planted the “explosives.” He is careful not to explicitly implicate the government and CIA, but conversational implicature abound. For a general debunking of various claims, see here. His basic point, however, is an argument from ignorance: how could people living in cages in Afghanistan possibly have brought down the pillars of freedom in the civilized world (kinda the way people in the 5th century failed to believe that Alaric sacked Rome)? (tip: no one claims Afghan cavemen brought down WTC).

If engaged in debate, Gage is a frequent user of the Gish gallop and snowing (very effective – since his opponent cannot possibly be an expert on everything, it is relatively easy to find a question he or she will be unable to answer then and there).

How do you end up as Richard Gage? Well, one point he repeatedly makes is pretty revealing. He claims that he loves the scientific method, but doesn’t understand it. According to Gage we must collect data before we decide on a hypothesis to test. Which is, of course, the very recipe for confirmation bias (if you collect data you are already collecting data with respect to some hypothesis, in Gage’s case he collects data in favor of his conspiracy theory before he officially puts forward his hypothesis).

Diagnosis: The king himself of confirmation bias, snowing, double standards of evidence and selective use of evidence. He seems to have a pretty wide influence, being one of the main people behind a relatively significant, though delusional, conspiracy movement.

#137: John Funk

Not to be confused with the (tongue-in-cheek) ghost hunter of the same name, this fellow is mostly a Sunday school teacher, and a member of various boards in New Mexico. He is rather non-descript, in other words, and his influence is presumably limited.

Which is, I surmise, a good thing. You see, Funk is rather strongly religious. In fact, he is fundamentalist enough to be endorsed by RaptureReady; in other words, he is as far into tinfoil hat territory as you can get. Funk believes that the rapture is imminent, and has written an eloquent hypothetical news report on what happens the day after the rapture. Here you can also discern how Funk thinks of the political battle between liberals and conservatives as a religious battle, and what he thinks about Europe or the rest of the world.

He is clearly not very happy about the separation of church and state, and takes it to be a sign of the upcoming Apocalypse.

His views seem to conform to Jack Chick’s, although Funk’s screeds are better articulated. His screed against tolerance doesn’t quite fit the rigid “salvation through belief alone” professed elsewhere, however (one thing is his argument against tolerating other religions, the other is his arguments against tolerating gays and liberals). The agenda is, of course, summed up in this quote: “Tolerance is alive and well unless you profess the Christian faith.” Ah, the persecution complex – Funk is angry because modern day tolerance doesn’t fit with what he views as his God-given right to suppress and discriminate people who disagree with him.

Those interested can enjoy Funk trying to prove the accuracy of the Bible (and the confirmation bias involved) here; or that his evidence for an imminent rapture is good enough to stand up in court. Or what about his probabilistic proof the Jesus Christ is the Son of God? And if you want to make a difference when it comes to pain and suffering, you can actually make a difference – pray!

Diagnosis: This is the kind of person you use to scare children with, or who makes an excellent Halloween topic. Completely insane, despite his efforts to dress up the fire and brimstone in woolly sugar spin considerate language. Probably of minor importance, though.

#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.