Entry #055: Thomas A. Carder

While Christians Against Cartoons, who deemed "Dora the Explorer: Dance to the Rescue" to be potentially the most dangerous and blasphemous cartoon they had yet reviewed, is (probably) a spoof, corollaries of Poe’s Law guarantees that it’s going to be hard to tell. This one, for instance, is not.

Neither is Thomas A. Carder. The ChildCare Action Project is a real organization, and this website – despite the blinking lights and striking design – is dead serious. Officially it is an entertainment media analysis service devoted to reporting on the content of films to parents, grandparents, pastors, youth leaders and more that they might be in a better position to make an informed moral decision on their own whether a film is fit. Carder’s own biography is seriously disturbing as well. So is their Wikipedia page (who wants to bet this one wasn’t written by Carder himself?). Among the factors that make a movie be deemed unsuitable are ”mentioning evolution, using the word God, and slapstick violence” (not to mention such godlessness as the movie featuring scenes in bars and suchlike).

The CAP review of South Park is a good example (Carder emphasizes that children don’t like it, but feel pressured to pretend it’s fun in front of their parents). The one on Natural Born Killers is another representative entry (apparently Carder is as dutybound to view these analogously to how ”Paul didn't ignore the extremes in Corinth”).

The fact that the site needs disclaimers that denies any allegiance both to the Westboro Baptist Church of Fred Phelps and to the hilarious Landover Baptist Church should tell you all you need to know about what kind of project this is. The intensity of the project seems to have abated a little the last couple of years (fewer updates), but it’s still going pretty strong.

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Diagnosis: Completely unhinged, evil madman. Has actually gained some fame and probably some influence. His activities might easily distance potential sympathizers just as much as attract them, however.

Entry #054: Fritjof Capra

The king himself of touchy-feely new age bullshit, Capra is the author of ”The Tao of Physics”, which captured the imaginations of the Dunning-Kruger baseline some decades back by exploring the similarities between quantum theory and Eastern philosophies. Capra is a physicist, systems theorist, and has aslo written ”The Turning Point”, ”Uncommon Wisdom”, ”The Web of Life”, and ”The Hidden Connections”. Dr. Capra is also a founding director of the Center for Ecoliteracy in Berkeley, California, and the sort of guy that would be a demi-good of the clinically moronic David Brooks’s neural Buddhists. ”The Tao of Physics” claims that physics and metaphysics are both inexorably leading to the same knowledge, and proceeds by way of wishy-washy Zen Buddhism peppered with half-baked concepts from quantum theory in a thoroughly confused, pyramids and magnet stone kind of quasi-religious delusional gruel.

Using Thomas Kuhn's ”The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” as a stepping stone, he and the Benedictine monk Steindl-Rast also explored the parallels between new paradigm thinking in science and religion (yes, exactly – poor understanding of Thomas Kuhn is probably the greatest generator of fluffy woo in history) that together offer what the authors consider remarkably compatible view of the universe. Evidence is selectively used if anyone wondered.

His main fight is against reductionism (a concept he doesn’t understand, rest assured) and a mechanistic world-view, in favor of a holistic approach. The wikipedia article is informative, if sympathetic. The penchant such people have to rely on armchair confirmation bias rather than evidence is obvious from their bald assertions (probably they believe it themselves) that their direction is the one in which scientific consensus itself is moving. It isn’t. Capra and his ilk are loons and crackpots.

A soulmate of Deepak Chopra, some representative examples of his rosy-tinted woo is found here, here and here (all sympathetic sources; he explains his disdain for Darwinism and Francis Bacon, among other things).

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Diagnosis: Woo-meister and cranky dingbat. Enormously influential – if you’ve ever heard of ”the similarity between Zen Buddhism or [insert wooey Eastern ”philosophy”, preferably one you know little about, here], Capra is the instigator. One of the most important crackpots alive.

Entry #053: Alan Cantwell

One of the most passionate (and lunatic) defenders of one of the greatest crackpots of the last century, Wilhelm Reich. Among Cantwell’s writings in defense of Reich is this nice article. For those who don’t know Reich’s views, orgone is supposed to be the life force, the material realization of Freud’s libido – pure pseudoscience with strong sexual undertones, and unsurprisingly popular (and taken to the extreme of quackery when combined with new age healing techniques, e.g. in the hands of Reich’s disciple Charles Kelly).

And of course Cantwell takes it a step further. In this article he combines Reich’s orgone theory, rantings about microbiology, Blavatsky and cosmic energy to stunning heights. Against this background, a grand theory of everything emerges. Why don’t we know about the stuff Cantwell has uncovered? Well, I won’t reveal it here, just direct you to his paper ”The cancer conspiracy”, ”SARS, bioterrorism and the media” and his book on man-made AIDS, ”Queer Blood: The Secret AIDS Genocide Plot”, which is available through the New Dawn Book Service.

Cantwell, in other words, is in at the deep end. A selection of his articles can be found here - according to the website, ”no links to these articles is allowed by the Wikipedia medical editors”. You do the math.

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Diagnosis: Utter loon and megalomaniac whose approach to medicine is not science, but Cantwell’s law ”most physicians are wrong in their understanding of most diseases, most of the time” (and, tacitly understood, that Cantwell himself is correct). Influence is unknown – the orgonites are pretty common, but Cantwell is probably of the fringes of this fringe.

Entry #052: Harold Camping

Harold Camping is a radio evangelist who runs the Family Radio network. Camping believes that the popular notion that the world will end in 2012 (in alleged accordance with the Mayan calendar) is ridiculous. Sounds reasonable, right?

The reason it is ridiculous, according to Camping, is that this date ”has not one stitch of biblical authority, it's like a fairy tale." No, the real date for the end of the world, according to Harold Camping, is May 21, 2011. Why? Well the reasoning is soundproof numerology.

The number 5, Camping concluded, equals "atonement." Ten is "completeness." Seventeen means "heaven." Camping patiently explained how he reached his conclusion for May 21, 2011.

"Christ hung on the cross April 1, 33 A.D.," he began. "Now go to April 1 of 2011 A.D., and that's 1,978 years." Camping then multiplied 1,978 by 365.2422 days - the number of days in each solar year, not to be confused with a calendar year. Next, Camping noted that April 1 to May 21 encompasses 51 days. Add 51 to the sum of previous multiplication total, and it equals 722,500. Camping realized that (5 x 10 x 17) x (5 x 10 x 17) = 722,500. Or put into words: (Atonement x Completeness x Heaven), squared.

It isn’t his first stab. He won notoriety for predicting the return of Christ on September 6. 1994 as well. When reality failed to accommodate the map, he modified his "prophecy" to claim that that September 6 was the day that God removed his Holy Spirit from the earth and that nobody could be saved after this date and that God was calling all those already saved to exit the organized churches. Mentioned here. And here.

Even though May 21 has come and passed with few traces of rapture, one shouldn’t forget that Camping’s idiotic numerology is not just hilarious. In fact, he has admitted that he was wrong. But he is still delusional.

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Diagnosis: A total whacko, Camping has taken confirmation bias and category mistakes to a level of clinical insanity. Should be non-influential, but this guy does own quite a lot of radio stations spewing forth his nonsense. Astonishing.

Entry #051: John Angus Campbell

Campbell is a retired American Professor of Rhetoric and is a Fellow of the Center for Science and Culture (a branch of the Discovery Institute) and of the International Society for Complexity, Information and Design, a professional society dedicated to – you guessed it – the promotion of intelligent design (yes, its the Dembski rubbish, discussed here, here, here and in general here).

Together with Stephen C. Meyer (who is also a Fellow of the Center for Science and Culture) he edited “Darwinism, Design and Public Education”, a collection of articles from the journal Rhetoric and Public Affair (not science; click here to download Barbara Forrest’s criticism).

Campbell is also on the school board in North Mason County, Washington. How he got there splendidly illustrates the tactics of contemporary creationists (as laid down in the Wedge document, for that matter). He ran as ”John Campbell”, and during his campaign did not disclose his links to intelligent design. In an interview he stated that he would not be dealing with curricula, and that he is a "Darwinist" who considers that debating Darwin can engage the interest of students and improve their skills in critical thinking. He was quoted as saying "Rather than demonizing people that believe in ID, I think there are ways people could use their ideas to study Darwinism more closely.” He was subsequently elected. The story is discussed here, and here.

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Diagnosis: Wormtongued weasel and crackpot. Dangerous.