#281: Edgar Mitchell

A legend among nutjobs, Edgar Mitchell is a former Apollo astronaut who has actually walked on the moon. He is just as famous for being an UFO conspiracy loon, and is of course a hero among the UFO nutters because Mitchell must obviously have some insider info.

To undermine the last shreds of his credibility, Mitchell founded the Institute of Noetic Sciences (current president Marilyn Schlitz should be considered indicted by this entry as well). Noetic science is basically medical woo peppered with postmodernism (i.e. word-salads, reason and evidence are Western tools for oppressing other insights, and so on): “Noetic sciences are explorations into the nature and potentials of consciousness using multiple ways of knowing – including intuition, feeling, reason, and the senses. Noetic sciences explore the ‘inner cosmos’ of the mind (consciousness, soul, spirit) and how it relates to the ‘outer cosmos’ of the physical world.” His institute has unsurprisingly made it to Quackwatch. Among people associated with the Institute, special mention should go to DeanRadin.

Apparently Mitchell tried to conduct private ESP experiments with his friends on Earth during the Apollo flight, and he claims to have had his purported kidney cancer purportedly distance-healed by Adam“Dreamhealer” McLeod. Mitchell is also fond of (and may have been the inventor of) the Quantum Hologram (though the idea is old), the property of all physical things only accessible to psychics (i.e. Mitchell has no clue about quantum mechanics). According to Mitchell, the quantum hologram theory has explanatory power – it can explain RupertSheldrake’s morphic field theory, for instance. Not much else can do that.

Mitchell is sure that UFOs visit Earth and have been the “subject of disinformation in order to deflect attention and to create confusion so the truth doesn't come out” (like UFO-conspiracy nuts, Mitchell has no coherent story about exactly why the truth must be kept hidden). Apparently the evidence for such alien contact is “very strong” and “classified” by governments, who are covering up visitations and the existence of alien beings' bodies in places such as Roswell (i.e. the evidence is very strong, but Mitchell hasn’t actually seen any of it). UFOs have also provided “sonic engineering secrets” that have been helpful to the U.S. government.

Apparently Mitchell’s condition has declined over time (interview here). Currently the tenor is: “I happen to have been privileged enough to be in on the fact that we've been visited on this planet, and the UFO phenomenon is real.” He knows this since he has talked to people who were at Roswell back then, but who are conveniently dead at present. You can watch him call for the government to stop hiding the truth here.

This is an interesting description of Mitchell’s spectacular failure to experimentally prove ESP; it’s worth the read for the staggering methodological problems with the experiment – and Mitchell still didn’t get significant results (though he presented them as such).

Diagnosis: Wackaloon. He has a lot of followers (at least among the UFOers); whether he can really be considered particularly dangerous is a different matter.

#280: Chuck Missler

A.k.a. The Peanut Butter Man

One of the most celebrated confirming instances of the Salem hypothesis, Chuck Missler is also a prominent Christian Zionist with ties to the far right Patriot movement, and an author. He and co-author Hal Lindsey plagiarized and published whole chunks of other people’s books back in the 90s before being called out on it. Some of the books, such as “Alien Encounters: The Secret Behind the UFO Phenomenon” and “Cosmic Codes: Hidden Messages From the Edge of Eternity” look rather enticing given the evidence for Missler’s general reasoning skills (Missler seems to be a William Cooper fan, but I might be mistaken).

He is by far most famous for the peanut butter argument against evolution. Whatever you do, you must see the video (also here). Basically the argument is that since life does not evolve spontaneously in sealed jars of peanut butter, it follows that evolution is wrong, and therefore Jesus. The value of the argument is probably that it is wrong on so many levels that it is almost impossible to pry them apart. It starts by defining evolution as “matter + energy = life” (huh?). Hence, it deductively follows that light shining on a peanut butter jar should spontaneously create life in that jar. Lots of people open jars of peanut butter every day, and this has never happened, therefore Jesus (the way Missler conceives of him) and the Rapture is drawing close. QED. It is closely related to the Banana Argument.

The argument is worthy of this list (enjoy).

Diagnosis: Terminally bewildered bozo vying with Ray Comfort for the title of “dumbest creationist”. Impact unknown.

#279: Scott Minnich

Minnich is an associate professor of microbiology at the University of Idaho, and a fellow at the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture. Together with Behe (and Ralph Seelke) he must count as creationism’s biological alibi. In fact, Minnich is the biologist who wholeheartedly swallowed Behe’s idea of “irreducible complexity” in bacterial flagella, which supposedly is evidence of intelligent design (although since ID remains unfalsifiable (partially because Behe and his accomplices counter all counterevidence by moving the goal posts), it couldn’t have been, but that’s another story). Minnich was thus an obvious choice for the defense in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District. Part of his contribution to the defense was the fact that the previous year, Minnich and Stephen Meyer had presented a paper to an engineering conference entitled “Genetic Analysis of Coordinate Flagellar and Type III Regulatory Circuits” and the Discovery Institute lists this as one of its “Peer-Reviewed & Peer-Edited Scientific Publications Supporting the Theory of Intelligent Design”. The paper was, however, only reviewed for a conference presentation in engineering. I don’t think that counts insofar as scientific rigor is hardly the only (or even main) criterion for a conference presentation (more on the significance of Minnich’s testimony here). His actual publication record doesn’t show much sign of any support for creationism.

Minnich is also the co-author or “Explore Evolution” with Stephen Meyer (discussed under Meyer).

Diagnosis: Minnich tends to shy away from public debates and it’s hard to say how hard he rides his creationist hobbyhorse (most of his actual work seems to have nothing to do with it). Still, he does lend his credibility to the crazies, and must be denounced for that.

#278: Kevin Miller

Kevin Miller was the screenwriter for the movie Expelled. He has actively attempted to defend the movie (including creationism and the associated persecution complex/conspiracy theories) in online debates by arguments from post-modernism – many (not all) facts are perspectival and subjectively constructed (such as the fossil record); therefore, the creationist interpretation (dismissal) of the evidence is just bringing in an equally valid point of view. It’s all about the worldviews, you see (scroll down to Elsberry’s list of Miller’s arguments – it’s pretty good). Not that Miller has really brought anything to the fossil data; his positive arguments for creationism are consistently “scientists disagree with creationists; therefore creationists are persecuted; therefore they are right” and “I have evidence; I’ll give it to you later. It will convince you. Therefore you should believe me now.”

And then of course there is the quote-mining.

He may have taken an intro course to Philosophy, for he likes to take the Phil of Science angle and claim that it is all about this. No.

Miller’s next movie is “Creation”, concerning the life of Kent Hovind.

Diagnosis: Typical hack who does not, and does not want to, understand science (he and Walt Ruloff took science out of Expelled because they, in their own words, “found it boring”). But he does want to argue against it, since he disagrees with its conclusion for religious reasons – which means your options are to claim persecution and conspiracy, arguments by word salad, and argument by assertion.

#277: Lionel Milgrom

The Ken Ham of homeopathy, no single person has done more to torture quantum theory into the service of woo than Lionel Milgrom. Not that he has any understanding of quantum mechanics; but since his audience does not either, plastering the vocabulary of quantum theory onto his crackpottery to make it sound like Harry Potter spells seems to provide his readers with warm, fluffy feelings and the impression that Milgrom actually has anything to contribute. He hasn’t, of course.

Look, for instance, at one of his contributions to the “journal” Homeopathy. The article starts out with the Galileo gambit, conspiracies and persecution complexes. It goes downward from there. Can he provide evidence for homeopathy? Not a trace – and he even indirectly admits as much. The reason science cannot show that it works, you see, is that it works as follows: “[i]nstantaneous, acausal correlations are somehow established between various combinations of patient, practitioner, and remedy”. How? Well, by quantum, you see. How? I have no idea. Neither does Milgrom. It has something to do with our “vital force” acting as a “quantum gyroscope” upon which homeopathy can act. To get there, he uses the appeal to postmodernism gambit: “it’s all about the narratives” (scientists are evil and close-minded and in a conspiracy; I am the hero who stands on the outside; hence I am oppressed; hence I am right). Oh, and to top it he appeals to Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle as a proof that there is no “underlying ontological physical reality” and why the observer effect explains that homeopathic remedies don’t work during clinical testing. This combination of confirmation bias, argument by assertion, wishful thinking and handwaving must really be seen to be believed.

He tries to achieve the same conclusions in this insane rant. Then he hit upon something obvious that would provide him with the justification he needed. That’s right. He discovered Dr. Emoto’s Water Memory Woo – truly among the most insane crackpot ideas in existence. View the unholy combination of Milgrom and water memory in all its glory here. Homeopathy is the “semiotic notion that the homeopathic remedy is a ‘sign’ working simultaneously in and for two different but connected meaningful contexts” (and if you nod in agreement with this, meet Dr. Sergio Stagnaro).

Diagnosis: Complete crackpot whose understanding of reality is sufficiently limited to make any claim to reason beyond his purview. Completely divorced from it (reality) and an outspoken critic of reason and sanity. Ardent and dangerous.

#276: Stephen Meyer

Stephen C. Meyer is a philosopher and one of the hotshots of the Discovery Institute. And like some philosophers and all Discovery Institute people, he likes to make grand claims about scientific fields about which he must be counted as an illiterate. Meyer helped found the Center for Science and Culture (CSC) of the Discovery Institute (DI), which is the major hive for the ID creationist movement. Meyer is currently vice president and a senior fellow at CSC, and a director of the Access Research Network. He has been described as “the person who brought ID (intelligent design) to DI (Discovery Institute)”, he contributed to the second edition of Dean Kenyon’s “Of Pandas and People”, wrote (with Ralph Seelke) the ID textbook “Explore Evolution”, was appointed by the Texas Board of Education to be on the committee reviewing Texas’s science curriculum standards, is the primary link to DI sponsor and Taliban theocrat loon Howard Ahmanson, and was partly responsible for the Wedge Strategy, as well as an active speaker and debate panelist.

In 1999, Meyer (with David DeWolf and Mark DeForrest) designed a legal strategy for introducing intelligent design into public schools in the book “Intelligent Design in Public School Science Curriculum.” (I mean, the point of ID is to get creationism and religion into the schools, not to do science). He is perhaps most famous for trying to realize the strategy through helping to introduce ID to the Dover Area School District (more extensively here), and for his ridiculous 2009 book “Signature in the Cell” (which a probably drunk/dementia suffering Thomas Nagel actually praised, flaunting his own ignorance of science). PZ Myers was offered a review copy by Meyer’s assistant Janet Oberembt, but never received it. The book actually makes twelve “predictions” for ID (although they are not predictions in the ordinary scientific sense because they are not derived from any concrete theory, and they all concern testing the theory of evolution, not ID). He also offers a “theory”. The theory is unrelated to the predictions. He derives no predictions from his theory. He offers nothing resembling a coherent justification either, so the book didn’t receive much positive feedback from actual scientists. He has offered some appeals to authority, however (“Thomas Jefferson wasn’t a Darwinist”).

In March 2002 he announced the “teach the controversy” strategy aimed at promoting the false idea that the theory of evolution is controversial within scientific circles, following a presentation to the Ohio State Board of Education. Since Meyer knows this is false, he was lying, but dishonesty isn’t exactly a surprising trait in ID advocates. The presentation included a bibliography of 44 peer-reviewed scientific articles that were said to raise significant challenges to key tenets of what was referred to as "”Darwinian evolution”. When NCSE contacted the authors, none of the authors who responded (the authors of thirty-four of the papers) thought that their research provided evidence against evolution. Meyer also publicly claimed that the “Santorum Amendment” was part of the Education Bill, and therefore that the State of Ohio was required to teach alternative theories to evolution as part of its biology curriculum. Which is demonstrably false, but tells you a lot about the DI creationists.

Of course, he thinks there is active persecution of the purportedly fast-growing number of scientists rejecting evolution in Academia (probably because he cannot find any). He was interviewed about those claims in Expelled.

Diagnosis: One of the staunchest, most influential, most dishonest anti-science advocates in the world. Crackpot and complete hack.

#275: Joyce Meyer

Pauline Joyce Hutchison Meyer is a Charismatic Christian author, speaker, and televangelist whose drivel is extensively distributed – her television and radio programs air in 39 languages in 200 countries. And she has written over 90 books (she’s a seemingly endless source trivialities, fluff, unsupported assertions and HR talk). Her husband Dave is a staunch supporter and helper. She also has a doctorate from Life Christian University. Guess whether that one is accredited (but she also has an honorary degree from Oral Roberts university…). Her deepfelt genuine altruism and care for people in difficult situations have earned her several homes and a private jet (described in detail here). 

She’s an adherent of the prosperity gospel. Meyer’s ministry was one of the six put under investigation by Chuck Grassley’s window-dresser commission: “We laid hands on the check and prayed. I went and got all of our checkbooks and my pocketbook and Dave got his wallet and we laid hands on them and put the blood on them, asking God to protect our money, to cause it to multiply and to see to it that Satan could not steal any of it from us”. To ensure that people use their hard-earned money to make Meyer’s fortune multiply, she also panders a pretty bleak view of what will happen if you don’t follow her teachings (see here (this link has not been carefully controlled for content)).

Diagnosis: Should probably be filed under fraud, but whatever – she must probably believe at least some of the garbage that pours from her mouth. Very dangerous.