#247: Bill Maher

Never let it be said that we don't pick on liberals here. Maher may have said some clever things in his life, even as a political commentator (he runs the HBO show Politically Incorrect), and he has gained notoriety as a critic of religion (for a focus on Maher’s positive contribution, see this). Then again, David Berlinski wrote an excellent introduction to calculus. Being smart, and being right on certain topics, doesn’t guarantee that you are not a loon. Bill Maher is a first-class loon.

For one, he is associated with PETA, which is at least borderline. After all, PETA has decided that fish should now be known as "sea kittens" (to stop global overfishing) and they have sent demands and cash offers to towns requesting that they change their names, including Hamburg, Fishkill and Rodeo. Their alternative for Hamburg was Veggieburg. The suggestion was serious. They also had a campaign against eating meat called “The Holocaust on your Plate".

In any case, Maher is an anti-vaccinationist and a germ theory denialist, which means that he belongs to the looniest of the kooks of there. He has even made the tired but stupendously idiotic (and false) claim that Pasteur recanted germ theory on his deathbed, which is as idiotic as the strangely parallel, idiotic and false claim about Darwin. Predictably, Maher’s anti-vaccinationist rants are the typical straw man and conspiracy theory mongering. To get an idea of the depth of Maher’s ignorance and idiocy, look at the dialogue reported here.

Some severely mentally ill person at whale.to thinks Maher is a Satanist, but then almost everyone else are apparently Satanists according to the site.

Diagnosis: Sorry, Maher is a total moron, and as cranky and anti-science as they come. He may not primarily be known for his anti-science lunacy, but he has enough followers to be worth paying attention to. A potential threat to reason and truth.

#246: Casey Luskin

a.k.a. the Baghdad Bob of creationism

Casey Luskin is a lawyer (and not a scientist, although he seems to be a little confused about what such credentials do or don't mean) and one of the primary spokespeople for the Discovery Institute. Mr. Luskin obtained a Bachelor of Science and a Masters Degree in Earth Sciences from the University of California, San Diego, and has as a lawyer published “Intelligent Design Will Survive Kitzmiller v. Dover”, and “Alternative Viewpoints about Biological Origins as Taught in Public Schools” (published in the Journal of Church and State). His work illustrates well the actual goal of the Discovery Institute – to get religion, in the form of intelligent design creationism, into public school curricula (not to do any actual scientific research).

Luskin is by far most notorious for his ability to distort scientific evidence to suggest conclusions completely opposite to what the evidence suggests (and curiously always to fit his preconceived notions of what it ought to show), such as here. An even better example of the distortions and quote mining (to put it mildly) he usually reverts to is perhaps this one (or this one). And if you are feeling particularly sadistic, you can watch Luskin getting completely eviscerated here.

The problem with Luskin and his ilk is that they're ignorant of a topic about which they believe they're experts (see The Dunning-Kruger Effect). Luskin appears to believe he’s an expert with absolute confidence and pride, but to anyone with even a cursory understanding of the fields in question his failings are miserably obvious (see also this). In fact, his misunderstandings of science – and his lack of awareness of his own lack of understanding – often reach epic proportions.

Luskin is also interestingly paranoid, going so far as to claim that published articles on evolution contain “veiled threats” against the creationists and that Nature, for instance, has launched a propaganda war on creationism. Of course, science itself is a threat to creationism; what Luskin fails to grasp is the fact that science is concerned with evidence, not argument and polemics. By failing to see the difference (and furthermore failing to distinguish criticism from personal attacks) he comes to equate scientific evidence against his dogmatic beliefs with personal attacks from the scientists who have discovered the evidence (for more on Luskin’s lack of understanding of how science works, see this).

A good assignment in an introductory critical thinking class is to identify some of the mistakes Luskin makes here (I have used it myself).

Diagnosis: Staggeringly cranky illustration of where Dunning-Kruger, confirmation bias and complete lack of understanding of science can lead you. He is very productive and vociferous, and must be considered rather dangerous to a rationality-based, modern civilization.

#245: Nancy Luft

Nancy Luft may lack notability, but makes up for it in unhinged craziness bred of paranoia and complete detachment from reality. They are out to get us, you see. It is a little unclear who and how, but it seems to be the government or the Russians (Luft claims to receive ESP messages from “The Special Sputnik Forces” of the Russian military). It has something to do with Mount St. Helens as well (which the Russians blew up with sputniks), and among her warnings to the general public is this: “Washington DC is trying to copy Russian sputniks with gamma ray, x ray, lasers that already exist which might cause the Russians to annihilate US!” It sounds scary, but I fail to see exactly what Luft thinks the threat is, and I’ve read the warning a couple of times.

At least she gives us some pertinent political analysis:

“Democracy leads to socialism, which lead so communism, fact of life! That is why Rockefellers' Rich Man's Mafia overthrow our democracy, our government, our constitution! Right wing is the dominant male primate ruling the pack (or a tiny group of the ruling the pack). Homo sapiens are primates, so that means royalty, popes, tribal chiefs, tiny group of rich with their political puppets, tyrants, dictators, etc., ruling the pack or masses or The People.”

Again, it sounds scary, but it is hard to see what exactly the threat is supposed to be. Apparently the Sputnik forces killed Michael Jackson, however.

You can find more of her insane rants here.

Among other things, Luft also chimed in on the Elizabeth Smart disappearance. While there were plenty of insane kooks weighing in here (this one is hilarious), Luft’s must have been the most deranged: She claimed to receive an ESP messages (from “The Special Sputnik Forces”) that a “man in a golf hat” had abducted Elizabeth. That’s not worse than many of the others, but Luft, who advocates the poor killing the rich (Smart was from a relatively well-off family), couldn’t help adding that the kidnapper was “my beloved” and that she hoped he tortured the girl before he killed her.

Luft, who claims to be a disciple of Jeane Dixon, came to our attention via this fabulous site. Do check it out.

Diagnosis: In serious need of help to find her way back to a semblance of reality. Her influence may be limited but she has achieved some notoriety on the web (not generally by people sympathetic to her insane rants, however). Here's a link to ratbags' 'where is Nancy Luft' quest.

(ed note: I couldn't locate a photo of Luft, so instead you get a nice photo of Sputnik; rather fitting, I think)

#244: Marvin Lubenow

Lubenow is a young earth creationist most famous for his work on explaining (away) the fossils of early hominids such as homo erectus. In line with the usual creationist approach, the early hominids have to be explained away as either humans (perhaps as races that disappeared in the Flood – or, as according to Kurt Wise, Babel; see here or here) or as apes. It has generated a lot of ridiculous controversy within the creationism movement, and Lubenow disagrees, for instance, with Answers in Genesis’s A.W. Mehlert on the classification of homo habilis as probably human (for more on the various, completely arbitrary creationist positions, see here (dealing with Lubenow in particular) and here).

While he appears (to the uninitiated) to have some grasp of the language of the relevant sciences, Lubenow just doesn’t understand it (he has a master in theology, and an M.S. with a major in anthropology, but no relevant education in the relevant fields – though he has a honorary degree from Christian Heritage College, Tim LaHaye’s institution). The lack of understanding is cruelly laid bare in his confused rantings about Lucy. A main claim seems to be that evilutionists have tampered with the evidence. Lubenow’s claim seems to have made some impact among the most radical kooks, such as one Nick Lally, who is behind this exasperatingly ignorant rant. The conspiracy gambit is of course common when creationists are dealing with the interpretation of fossil finds; see, for instance, the hilariously ignorant quote by one Thomas Kendall here.

The most famous of Lubenov’s amazing claims are provided in his book “Bones of Contention” from 1992. A good discussion of it can be found here; another one is here.

Diagnosis: Utterly ignorant crackpot with an unrevisable premise and enough confirmation bias (and sufficient lack of critical thinking skills) to twist anything into evidence for/against anything. Complete boulderbrain, but he enjoys some respect among his peers.

#243: Sue Lowden (and her opponent during the nominations)

Suzanne Parkinson "Sue" Pluskoski Lowden is the former Chairwoman of the Nevada Republican Party and former State Senator in Nevada. She lost the Republican nomination in the 2010 United States Senate election in Nevada to the incomparably stupid bigot Sharron Angle, who rose to fame after “A” had been dealt with in this Encyclopedia, who subsequently lost to Harry Reid because she was too obtuse, paranoid, incompetent and ignorant even for many rightwingers. (Ok fine you got us - we gave Lowden an entry primarily so we could write about Sharron Angle).

Lowden’s fifteen minutes of national fame arose as a consequence of her response to the healthcare reform. While discussing her preference for consumer-focused reforms and her support of Health savings accounts paired with a High-deductible health plan, Lowden (who had made some pretty stupid comments before) suggested that patients could pay cash and barter with their doctors for payment in order to reduce costs: “[B]efore we all started having health care, in the olden days, our grandparents, they would bring a chicken to the doctor, they would say I’ll paint your house, they would do... that’s the old days of what people would do to get health care with their doctors. Doctors are very sympathetic people. I’m not backing down from that system.” In spite of the apparent brilliance of the idea, she did receive some flak for what become known as the “bring a chicken to the doctor” suggestion.

Diagnosis: First and foremostly, Lowden is perfectly incompetent, to the extent that she (as opposed to blathering idiots like Bachmann) actually would manage to accidentally run over herself with a truck. As such, her presence has at least thus far unintentionally benefited rationality and sanity (as opposed to Angle, she might actually have beaten Reid if she hadn’t run herself over).

#242: Eddie L. Long

Bishop Eddie Long is the senior clergyman at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, Georgia (approximately 25 000 members) and a successful proponent of the Prosperity Gospel. Unsurprisingly he has joined a very long list of ministers and televangelists by (September 2010) facing accusations of coercing young men into sexual activity. Long has responded by vowing to fight his accusers, describing his problem as “spiritual warfare” and comparing himself to David in David vs. Goliath (“I'm not a perfect man but this thing I'm going to fight. I feel like David against Goliath but I've got five rocks and I haven't thrown one of them yet”). “Gospel Today” has taken up the fight (Long is on the board of directors, but the publisher denies that Long has influenced their presentation).

Diagnosis: Bigotry, charlatanery and pure evil alone do not grant you an entry in the encyclopedia, but being a proponent of the prosperity gospel does, at least insofar as you actually believe what you preach (I have no evidence that Long does not). And Long’s responses to the allegations made against him are utterly bizarre. Hopefully this episode will undermine his status among his relatively significant number of fans.

#241: John Lofton

Lofton is a paleoconservative political commentator, columnist and editor of The American View radio program (run by Michael Peroutka), after a long career associated with the GOP (and as an advisor to Pat Buchanan).

He has made numerous appearances on various political talk shows (for instance) and written columns for a wide variety of outlets but is perhaps most famous for his 1986 appearance on Crossfire in which he debated musician Frank Zappa about the Parents Music Resource Center's campaign to identify music albums unsuitable for children (it went viral again in 2006, apparently – I think this is it). Lofton’s arguments are so detached from anything resembling reality it’s rather hilarious (it's okay to censor music because "words mean something"; America has suddenly acquired an "incest problem" in the last 20 years (before 1986) because it was mentioned in songs (Lofton is unable to identify any); pop music encourages children to have sex with animals). His outrage over something in this exchange is also worth seeing.

Lofton is a genuine theocrat who literally believes that Biblical law should be the civil and criminal law of the US. That includes stoning for premarital sex (women, not men) and adultery. He is thus among the conservatives who “wish Ann Coulter would shut up”. He wishes that Ann Coulter would shut up because of the way she dresses (like a harlot); she is “[u]tterly lacking in discretion and thus standing out as a jewel of gold in a swine’s snout – and always wearing the attire of a harlot – this disgusting female, who says she is a Christian …” Yup, that’s John Lofton for you. He dislikes Sarah Palin as well; her claim that “the issue of whether moms with small children should or should not work outside the home is a "petty, little, superficial, meaningless thing" and “reveals, with a vengeance, that she is a hard-core feminist, with no Christian/Biblical view whatsoever of what a wife/mom ought to be.” Palin is, in other words, too liberal and not sufficiently Christian.

He is also an ardent fan of Ken Ham. The website Christian Worldview, run – it seems – by one Randy Pope, calls Lofton a “modern philosopher”, and as an illustration gives us this quote: “ALL of us have a "bias." The question is: "Is your bias TRUE?" If your "bias" is in accord with Scripture, the Bible, the Christ, it is true. If it is not, it is false.” The website is apparently not a poe.

Diagnosis: Lofton is pretty explicit that the Taliban is his ideal for how a society should be run. He is, in other words, clinically insane. His influence is probably somewhat limited, but he seems to be idolized by a not completely unsubstantial subset of the religious right’s religious right’s most fanatic wingnuts.