Entry #075: Don Colbert

Don Colbert is an Oral Roberts University Alumnus and author of more than 40 books that together have sold more than one million copies. An ardent promoter of WWJD and such things as the Jesus diet (no joke!), his most famous books are the ”The Bible cure for ...”-series. You can get, for instance, The Bible cure for cancer, or The Bible Cure for Depression and Anxiety (”Ancient Truths, Natural Remedies and the Latest Findings for Your Health Today [With Guidebook]”), The Bible Cure for Weight Loss and Muscle Gain ("Jesus wants YOU to be thin" is in fact the slogan, and – just as you suspected – the diet recommendations are baskets of bread and fish, and watered down wine), The Bible Cure for Allergies, The Bible Cure for ADHD, for PMS & Mood Swings, and so on and so forth.

He has also written ”Toxic Relief: Restore Health and Energy Through Fasting and Detoxification” which will give you an idea about where this is heading. And yes, Colbert’s work is a brilliant combination of fundamentalist religion and the most ridiculous New Age alternative treatments (negative feelings as the main cause of disease, apart from mercury in dental fillings and vaccines and so on for some utter lunacy, visit here.

Extensively used by Televangelists to discuss health and nutrition (Benny Hinn, the Copelands). His claims are generally too loony to be caught by Quackwatch, Orac or the like.

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Diagnosis: Complete nutjob (with an admittedly effective marketing idea) and godbotter. Appears to be relatively influential.

Entry #074: Andrew Cohen

Cultmaster, founder of EnlightenNext and professional con artist, Cohen has also been writing for the despicable Huffington Post.

So what is Evolutionary Enlightenment? ”To put it simply, enlightenment is evolving. It is no longer found only in the bliss of timeless Being; it is found also in the ecstatic urgency of evolutionary Becoming.” Exactly how Lacan would have said it if he had attended Ramtha’s School of Enlightenment. If you’re excited about the rest, you can read it here. Pound out word-salad, include references to ancient mystics, collect the money. Well-known recipe for success.

Apparently ”Evolutionary Enlightenment, is unique for placing the traditional realization of enlightenment in the context of cosmic evolution” (whatever that means). By awakening to the timeless "Ground of Being," human beings can liberate themselves from their ego and the "Authentic Self.", a self beyond ego that represents ”humanity at its most wholesome”, : motivated by an evolutionary impulse that is "one with the big bang itself." Right.

More here, partially on the cult-like nature of Cohen’s organization. In fact, the cult is so vile that even Andrew’s mother cannot stand it.

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Diagnosis: Über-crackpot and delusional nutjob with delusions of grandeur. Utterly unhinged from reality. Pretty famous and influential apparently.

Entry #073: Tom Coburn

 

An American politician, medical doctor, and ordained Southern Baptist deacon, Coburn is a Republican who currently serves as the junior U.S. Senator from Oklahoma. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1994 and is, not surprisingly, opposed to deficit spending and gay marriage, pro-life (often recognized as one of the leaders of the pro-life movement) and supporter of gun rights, term limits and the death penalty (famous for his comment: “I favor the death penalty for abortionists and other people who take life”). Standard fare, in other words, coupled with standard hypocrisy and dishonesty (during the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Roberts, Coburn began his opening statement with a critique of Beltway partisan politics while choking back a sob. Coburn had earlier been completing a crossword puzzle during the hearings. Coburn is also one of the most vocal opponents of filibusters and also one of the most frequent users of such measures). He is also affiliated with The Family.

But (apart from the death penalty quote) what qualifies him for inclusion in our Encyclopedia? A plethora of things, in fact. E.g. several small details such as his protesting NBC's plan to air “Schindler's List” during prime time; Coburn stated that, in airing the movie without editing it for television, TV had been taken "to an all-time low, with full-frontal nudity, violence and profanity." He also said the TV broadcast should outrage parents and decent-minded individuals everywhere. Coburn described the airing of “Schindler's List” on television as "irresponsible sexual behavior... I cringe when I realize that there were children all across this nation watching this program." Please read that one again if the full impact of Coburn’s claims failed to hit you.

He also threatened to block the commemoration of Rachel Carson’s 100th birthday, calling her work “junk science” (no reason, apart from the fact that he doesn’t like her results, given). Climate change denier Coburn is a close ally of the ravingly mad James Inhofe and never lets evidence get in his way when advicing on environmental policies. Hates science in all its forms.

His pro-life stance has taken him to considerable extremes.

Alleged to be “too stupid to be real” after this issue.

Firmly opposed to civil disobedience as long as the target isn’t the health care bill or abortion.

His chief of staff is Michael Schwartz, but that’s another story for another entry.

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Diagnosis: Bigot, zealot, religious fundamentalist, vile - and one of the most lunatic pundits of Washington. Firmly fails to understand science or reason (and hates it as a result). Obviously influential and powerful.

Entry #072: Deepak Chopra

A.k.a. The King of woo woo

The arch-bishop of woo himself, and probably one of the most influential (and flaky and zealous) crackpots chugging along today. A prolific author of New Age/self-help books (and a regular contributor to that absolutely abhorrent cesspool of anti-science, Huffington Post), Chopra is famous for using poorly understood (or not understood at all) vocabulary from physics, particularly quantum physics, mixed with “Eastern knowledge”. His writings are usually centered around woo-y claims along the lines of “recognize your inner beauty and the quantum entanglement will cure you”. Ardent opponent of “materialistic science” which hasn't yet recognized the ancient wisdom of Eastern spirituality, reincarnation, homeopathy and such. Earns a lot of money.

His most common inference rule is The Galileo Gambit (“scientist uniformly reject my ideas, but hey! Remember Galileo; his ideas were also reject by the scientific community [well, the church, in fact] back in the days; therefore I am right and everyone else are close-minded). An antidote is available here.

Some examples of his style: Chopra bashing skepticism (that is, Chopra fighting against logic and scientific inquiry – spot the fallacies): ; Chopra being taken on by Michael Shermer; Chopra on ”only spirituality can save the world” (and as Myers points out, Chopra neglects to tell us how); Chopra failing to deal with criticism; Chopra ”proving” that there is an afterlife; Chopra in general (this is part 3; links to the earlier ones); Chopra failing critical thinking yet again.

Well, I guess you get the point. This is a guy so utterly unable to grasp the foundations for critical thinking, so completely out of touch with reason, rationality and the ability to distinguish evidence from wishful thinking, that he must set some kind of record.

This is a decent, recent example of total Chopra failure. This one is marvelous.

A most hilarious parody of Chopra, the "DBag Chopra" twitter account, is found here.

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Diagnosis: This guy is seriously dangerous; he’s been claimed by Time magazine to be one of the 100 most important people of the 21st century; he has a huge following (Mikhail Gorbachev referred to Chopra as "one of the most lucid and inspired philosophers of our time"). His grasp of reason, critical thinking and reality is more tentative than Jack Chick’s, however, and the lunacy he represents might in the long run be even more dangerous than the Discovery Institute.

In short, he is probably the most influential loon in our Encyclopedia, and among the most dangerous (with Cynthia Dunbar and David Barton and some others).

Entry #071: Gary Chism

Another one of those; Gary Chism is an insurance salesman who works tirelessly to promote creationism in the state of Mississippi. He is also a State Representative - guess which party. Notable for wanting to put a disclaimer on all school textbooks touching on the topic of evolution to point out that evolution is just a theory. The debacle is reported on here, here, and here.

Chism claims – of course – that creationism is just as scientifically respectable as evolution (and not just a religious dogma), as illustrated by the following brilliant argument by cases: "Either you believe in the Genesis story, or you believe that a fish walked on the ground".

Also famous for his campaign to cover up an anatomically correct statue of a stallion outside a strip club in rural Mississippi.

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Diagnosis: Scientifically illiterate moron, Taliban-style religious fundamentalist with absolutely no grasp of critical thinking, reason or sanity. Impact unknown, but he hasn’t had much success with his creationism bills (more so with the strippers).

Entry #070: Jack Chick

Among the more notable loons in our encyclopedia, this amiable fellow is a firmly entrenched acolyte of the abominable William Branham. Jack Chick is of course the guy behind Chick Publications. His tracts deal with various aspects of the Christian faith, including the principles of tolerance and love as well as the Catholics' satanist conspiracy to overthrow God's reign on earth (the Jesuits, in particular, created the Qu’ran, were responsible for the Holocaust, communism and the current conspiracy that controls American media). He doesn’t like evolution either. A representative example is here. The most popular tract is, apparently, this one. I also have a soft spot for this one.

Back in the day, Chick used to draw the tracts himself. Today, they’re mostly drawn by Fred Carter, who is considered covered for the purposes of this Encyclopedia.

Endless hours of indulgence and fascination can be spent rummaging through his backlog. Do visit it.

I am not going to go through in detail the omniprescent homoeroticism in the tracts. Check it out yourself. A longer biography of Chick can be found here. Chick's tract on global warming is discussed here.

The topics vary, but many of them are concerned with God-fearing murderers and rapists ending up in Paradise because they accept the Holy Spirit, whereas the good guys go to hell. Other common targets are rock music, witchcraft, Dungeons & Dragons, astrology, Ouija boards, Evolution, Jews, Muslims,Teenagers, Science (including gravity, which Chick apparently thinks is an atheist myth), the Easter Bunny, North Koreans, the Tooth Fairy, Santa (the message is a little muddled), the Washington Monument, Native Americans, Freemasons, the UN and Satanic books (Tolkien and C.S. Lewis) - among other things. This guy’s got a whole lot of hate and fear to share. There is a documentary available as well.

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Diagnosis: Possibly the most deranged loon in the Western hemisphere. His tracts are widely read, but probably not by the intended audience. Life would have been much duller without people like Jack Chick.

Entry #069: Liz Cheney

It might be a little unclear whether Dick Cheney, whatever else one might say about him, counts as a loon. Being vile, for instance (not explicitly saying that Dick is), isn’t enough. But he still manages to enter our encyclopedia through his daughter Liz. Liz founded, with Billy Kristol, the organization Keep America Stupid and Afraid (a.k.a. “Keep America Safe”), whose purpose is organizing vehement attacks on anyone who could conceivably be construed as questioning America’s war efforts – such as Amnesty.

Cheney is most famous for attacking the lawyers for the Gitmo detainees as being complicit in terrorism and allies of Al Qaeda. The way she did it resembles a Colbert parody in startling ways (guess Cheney is among the frighteningly large number of people who likes Colbert because they take his parodies as representing his true views). She’s been slammed pretty thoroughly for the whole affair, though - not that it has deterred her.

To their credit both Cheneys have come out supporting repealing the DADT.

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Diagnosis: Mad and malevolent wingnut; zealous. Her actions should, in any reasonable world, be sufficient to halt her political career permanently, but this might not be a reasonable world.

Entry #068: Betsy Chasse

Producer, director and screenwriter for “What the bleep do we know” (together with, among others, the irretrievably lunatic William Arntz), Betsy Chasse is also an escapee from Ramtha’s school of enlightenment. She also runs Eloramedia, ”which offers spiritually oriented, motivational books, videos and music for children of all ages – adults included! She is a highly sought after speaker on such subjects as spirituality, the blending of science and spirituality, and marketing to the cultural creative demographic.”

A sympathetic interview can be found here. Among other things, it reveals that Chasse is ”infamous For: Driving scientists up the wall by claiming water's atomic structure can be changed by bad thoughts - and heavy metal music”. Indeed.

Chasse admits that before she started the film she didn't know anything about quantum physics. She learned from this film is that it's up to her, however: ”I am the creator of my own reality. I am responsible for my own self. By taking on that responsibility it's really empowered me to do great things in my life.” In other words, everything she knows about quantum physics she’s learned from the film she made about it without knowing anything in advance. A potent recipe for creative belief formation. A fair and succinct review of the movie is found here.

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Diagnosis: Chasse lives and breathes on confirmation bias in its most purified form – indeed, the whole message of What the bleep can be summed up as a defense of confirmation bias as a method of inquiry. The impact of the movie was big, but Chasse is probably soon forgotten. All the better.

Entry #067: Bruce Chapman

I know you are tired of these tired, old YECs, but this series is supposed to something of a reference work, so we will cover them. Chapman is one of the most over-the-top lunatic anti-evolutionists (blithering idiots) at the Discovery Institute. In fact, Chapman is the president of the Discovery Institute, and seems to believe that this position confers on him the power to pass judgment on science in a manner slightly reminiscent on the infallibility conferred on the pope when he’s helped up on the pope-throne the first time.

This one, an attack on Expelled Exposed (a project committed to exposing the dishonesty and stupidity of the Expelled movie) is a good example of his idiocy. It must be read to be believed (no, I am not going to generate traffic to DI, so I’m linking to a level-headed discussion of the article in question). Like most ID’ers, Chapman knows virtually nothing about evolutionary biology, and even less about the scientific method (not understanding, for instance, that science is done by experiment and evidence, not arguments, and that truth is discovered through careful, controlled research, not through attempts to sway public opinion; the article discussed here is astoundingly ironic).

Has among other things, argued at length that the Pope himself is the true victim in the recent, well, scandals involving the Catholic Church, and has argued (“ranted delusionally” is more appropriate) at length that the health care reform is unconstitutional. Apparently, his talents range wide; here is some financial advice, and here is his discovery that the earth is cooling rather than warming - yes, global warming is a leftist conspiracy carried aloft by the promise of … an endless flow of grant money, apparently. All of it is written with the sharp wit and overwhelming flashes of genius we’ve come to expect from Chapman. And here is some plain old dishonesty and stupidity.



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Diagnosis: Blathering idiot whose misapprehensions of what science is and how it works are simply to deep to be reversible in a lifetime. Has some power, and must be considered dangerous, despite the clownish appearance with respect to intellect.

Entry #066: Joseph Chambers

”The children and youth of America are living in a crisis-type existence. The basic character traits of a healthy, Christian culture have been lost [...] It was not that many years ago when pre-marital sex was utterly taboo because of a simple respect for our sacred bodies.”

Thus begins Chambers’s essay ”Unclean Children Troubled By Evil Spirits”, which you can find here (and the depravity concerns mainly women – Chambers doesn’t seem to be very well-versed in modern views on gender equality). What is the reason for this downfall? Well, it’s the demons. Literally: Out to create a new Sodom and Gomorrah by possessing the children. The gateways are, according to Chambers, occult books such as Harry Potter, cartoons, ”Rock music and other aberrant forms of entertainment [that] are running rampant in Satanism.” (and of course ”Homosexuality and lesbianism is Satan’s ultimate slap in God’s face”).

So who is this guy? Joseph Chambers is the head of Paw Creek Ministries, is proud to describe himself as being a "classical Pentecostal preacher" and operates a two-hour radio program called "Open Bible Dialogue." The website for his ministry is here - a classic study in fire and brimstone, and lots of clever advice for dealing with the immanent end of times.

You can find a total of 78 essays of his here. Among the more appealing looking ones are ”#12 Tattoos & Body Mutilation”, ’#18 Hell is Rehearsing for Armageddon’, ’#29 Do Muslims Believe Obama is "Islamic Messiah?”’, ”#45 Warfare Praying”, ”#65. Signs in the Sun and Moon; 2010” and ”#71. Horrors of Hell! – but there are literally days of good reading material there.

Lots of attacks on other rapturists there (such as this), and even more on Catholics and Muslims (Islam is a blasphemous cult that will be utterly destroyed). See the essay titled ”Islamic radicals and God’s solution”, which sounds uncannily like something that could’ve been a joint-piece by Heydrich & Streicher anno 1942, although not with ”Islamic” in the title.

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Diagnosis: Clinically insane; his influence is probably limited, but Chambers should really be kept locked up and far away from people. This guy needs serious, professional help.

Entry #065: Paul Chaffey

 

Chaffey runs some ministry in Wisconsin (Midwest Apologetics), and teaches (his version of) science at Tri-State Christian School in Galena, Illinois. Chaffey is most notable, however, as a writer/administrator for Ken Ham's Answers in Genesis.

He has also co-authored "Old-Earth Creationism on Trial" with Jason Lisle (to be covered later), a young earth creationist book attacking not biology but - indeed - the "other" strand of creationism, old earth creationism. It is covered here.

For a sample of the level of acumen at work, notice first Chaffey & Lisle define "open-mindedness": "All ideas and theories should be subjected to rigorous self-examination, yet a similar self-critique is long overdue from the old-Earth creationists." (pp.14)

Then notice their main charge against Old Earth Creationism: "Since the Bible undisputedly teaches a young earth, when someone claims that scientific evidence proves otherwise, we can be certain they are mistaken." (pp.153)

They also argue that science presupposes the infallibility of the Bible, for without the Bible there would be no such thing as truth and verification (shades of Troy Brooks here). And on the annoying detail that radiometric dating kinda goes against the idea of a 6000 years old earth: "Additionally, God cursed the earth when Adam sinned (Gen 3:17-18). The Bible provides only a few details of how the world was changed, such as thorns and thistles. Can we be certain that radioactive decay rates were not affected?" And that's pretty much their argument (Ignoratio elenchi is an inference rule for these guys). And in fact, according to Chaffey, he doesn't need to bother with the problem of evil since "only biblical Christianity can make sense of evil and suffering. Every other worldview, philosophy, and belief system fall woefully short." The details are a little unclear.

From his bio page. The website for Midwest Apologetics is here. It's a marvel.


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Diagnosis: As kooky as they come. His influence might not be very wide-ranging, but he does spend a lot of effort ”teaching children biblical truth”.

Entry #064: Gerald Celente

 

Celente is a “professional” trend forecaster and founder of the Trends Institute. He predicts future trends – in particular economic ones – with all the accuracy and razorsharp precision of a tabloid newspaper horoscope. He claims to have predicted more or less every major economic event in the last 30 years, establishing himself as a modern counterpart to Nostradamus. For example, Celente predicted on February 14, 1999, about the approaching millennial New Year, that, "Employers should anticipate several weeks of low productivity” and that children graduating in 2000 will "shape the new millenium." He has also predicted that America is going broke. A true wizard.

His method seems to be an Other Way of Knowing (intuition, mostly).

Curiously (or rather, unsurprisingly), he has received a lot of press, particularly from conservative sources – especially his assertions that American President Barack Obama's policies (described as “fascism light”) will lead to food riots and tax revolts. Indeed, Celente plays a major role in Conservapædia’s article on Barack Obama.

He seems to be the instigator of the term “Obamageddon”, which is predicted to occur in 2012. Made on November 13, 2008: “[B]y 2012 America will become an undeveloped nation, that there will be a revolution marked by food riots, squatter rebellions, tax revolts and job marches, and that holidays will be more about obtaining food, not gifts.”

The basis for the prediction has, of course, all the rigorous underpinnings of the ordinary, “Mayan calendar” 2012 Armageddon. If nothing else, however, Celente and his reception among pundits provide a fascinating glimpse of the mechanisms of confirmation bias, goalpost moving and wishful thinking at work.

His website, interestingly, does not keep track of his previous predictions (apart from the ones that could be interpreted as having been fulfilled by some stretch). He does provide “trend summaries” – his summaries of events occurring the previous year.

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Diagnosis: Probably a fraud, but his confirmation bias and wingnuttery is real enough. Very influential, something that provides more evidence (if any more was needed) for the ubiquity and danger of confirmation bias.

Entry #063: Kristia Cavere

 

Kristia Cavere was the Tea Party and a Republican candidate for New York's 19th Congressional District seat held by John Hall (currently withdrawn). She firmly believes that the Democrats have co-opted Republican values and claims, and might in the end compete with Michele Bachmann for unadulterated lunacy. Among her claims you find this one:

"The Republicans are the ones who liberated Europe in World War II."

Apparently, she is convinced that the Republicans are the initiators of "every" advancement of freedom in our history, although:

"Unfortunately, today there are many Republicans in office who are cowards and who are bad communicators. […] We have the right ideas, the right principles, the right philosophy and history on our side. […]. We have to unify and become Americans together and not just identify with a political party. America and principles must come before our party. There is common ground that can be found."

She might be young, but her grasp of reality is apparently already missing beyond recall. Discussed here and here. Fortunately she quickly played herself out of the electorial campaign, citing “family reasons” for her withdrawal, although this suggests otherwise. She’s also a religious fundamentalist.

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Diagnosis: Moron; presumably neutralized for now, but she was found sufficiently appealing to the Sarah Palin crowd that the danger of reemergence somewhere else is rather large.

Entry #062: Jack Cashill

Cashill is another one of Worldnetdaily’s columnists and resident conspiracy theorists. A brave journalist and author of several books (e.g. ”What is wrong with California”, a response to the famous ”What is wrong with Kansas”), never afraid to judiciously select which evidence he’ll focus on or for that matter lie through his teeth about. Cashill is reliably moving between the most ridiculous claims and examples of conspiracy mongering of the wingnuts on the far right. His coverage of the Richard Sternberg case is a telling example; this one also gives an excellent illustration of how the minds of creationist believers in the Grand Darwinian Conspiracy work. Cashill also famously reviewed Expelled, but I refuse to link to his review. It’s – predictably – hysterical, extremely sloppy, dishonest and incoherent; even the Kansas Board of Education has had to take Cashill to task for misrepresenting their views (in his ardently sympathetic defense of them). That says quite a lot. His staunch creationist credentials (and dishonesty) is documented here as well.

That he is a climate change denier is hardly a surprise. His linking of this to the ”Darwinist conspiracy” might contain some novelties; again, I refuse to link to the original. But of course this is expected (standard crank magnetism – all the creationist think tanks are also climate change deniers; it’s easy when you already believe that science is a liberal conspiracy).

But Cashill is actually most famous for series of essays concerning his theory that Barack Obama's autobiography ”Dreams From My Father” was ghostwritten by former Weather Underground leader Bill Ayers. Again, I’m providing no links.

This is rather priceless. Cashill comes out of the closet as an ... anti-birther - apparently he found himself a conspiracy theory even more arbitrary and insane than the standard birther ones - one according to which Obama comes out as a covert American. Hah, even Joseph Farah himself has admitted that the garbled insanity of Cashill may have contained some misinformation after Cashill procured solid evidence of his birther claims by very incompetent photoshopping.

Cashill's newest conspiracy is here.

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Diagnosis: Utterly unhinged wingnut, delusional and angry and mentally crippled by confirmation bias. His impact is uncertain, but he is, in fact, a modestly popular writer.

Entry #061: Willis Allison Carto

Willis Carto has for almost a lifetime been among America’s most prominent promoters of antisemitic conspiracy theories and Holocaust denial (that’s not how he describes himself, but that’s another matter). He founded Liberty Lobby in 1955, and Institute for Historical Review (IHR) in 1979, as an organization dedicated to publicly challenging the "myth of the Holocaust." The IHR sought from the beginning to attempt to establish itself within the broad tradition of historical revisionism, by soliciting token supporters who were not from a neo-Nazi background such as James J. Martin and Samuel Edward Konkin III, and by promoting the writings of French socialist Paul Rassinier and American anti-war historian Harry Elmer Barnes to attempt to show that Holocaust denial had a broader base of support besides just neo-Nazis. The IHR brought most of Barnes' writings, which had been out of print since his death, back into print. However, most of IHR's supporters were neo-Nazis and anti-Semites, and while IHR included token articles on other topics and sold some token books by mainstream historians in its book catalog, the vast majority of material published and distributed by IHR was devoted to questioning the facts surrounding the Holocaust.

In 1984, Carto was also involved in starting the Populist Party, which was (not to be confused with the Populist Party of 1889 and) little more than an electoral vehicle for current and former Ku Klux Klan and Christian Identity members.

His wikipedia page is here. I am not going to link to his homepage or any homepage associated with his organizations.

To get a full picture of Carto’s insane conspiracy mongering, have a look at his earlier Liberty Lobby. Apart from standard conspiracy theories, such as New World Order related ones and John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracies, Carto and his gang has always been taken by the Bilderberg conspiracy, going so far as to send reporters every year to "infiltrate" the Bilderberg conferences and report on their nefarious activities.

This already sets the stage for crank magnetism, and Carto has been an ardent promoter of alternative health remedies, including colloidal silver, Laetrile, shark cartilage and chelation therapy. He is also a numerologist.

Perhaps most interesting in that respect is Carto’s involvement with Scientology. Back in the beginning, the Church of Scientology representatives viewed Carto's organizations as useful media for gaining popularity and respectability. Carto, with his critical view of "establishment" press (i.e. conspiracy theories), had reached quite a number of people, and scientologists flocked to the IHR and subscribed to Carto's publications. Many Scientologists, including the current International Public Affairs Officer Alex Jones, praised Carto and his magazine "The Spotlight" (the percurson to IHR) as "a defender of individual liberties." A scientologist was also the director of IHR (the scientology church has subsequently withdrawn its official support, notably after the tax exemption rules from 1993).

Despite his claims to the contrary, Carto and his group are ardent neo-Nazis (follow the link for recent activities).

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Diagnosis: Vile and utterly delusional loon. Zealous. Is still extremely dangerous, despite the fact that his impact is probably limited to a relatively small group (his conspiracy theories seem to draw sympathetic attention, by crank magnetism, from other conspiracy theorists and whale.to readers, however).

Entry #060: Robert Carter

“Robert Carter” is a relatively common name, and indeed – behind “Robert Carter” we can find several worthy candidates for our encyclopedia. This guy is one nice example, but this Bob Carter (the rather famous namegiver to what is currently known as ”Cartergate” disqualifies himself by being British .

The intended Robert Carter is much less dangerous, unfortunately, but not quite toothless. He is head speaker/”scientist” for Creation Ministries International. Apparently he must be a great scientist, since Creationwiki (yes, such an entity exists) points out that ”in a [2007] debate with Rick Pierson that 590 people attended to Carter brought up a stumping question to Pierson that left him speechless, stopping him in mid sentence.” (the question isn’t quoted). His status as a serious scientist is surely bolstered by the fact that ”CMI-Canadian and Canadian churches are coming together to find a way to better equip citizens about the lies behind Darwin's theory. Robert Carter as one of the speakers are hoping to give Christians the knowledge and boldness to uphold scripture and use it for Christ's purpose.” I couldn’t find any peer-reviewed publications from him, however.

He specializes in preaching to congregations, however, and I think this calendar of events from the Minot Baptist Church tells you all you need to know. In particular, his talk "Dinosaurs and the Bible" – planned for all Home Schoolers, but ALL ARE WELCOME!, sounds rather ominous and can actually be argued potentially to cause more than a little harm (this seems appropriate here). He doesn’t really give much heed to facts, but neither does his audience – his honesty and integrity can probably be evaluated from this (sympathetic) report.

Oh, and according to his bio, Carter wasn’t always a creationist etc. His gang can be found here (note the welcome appearance of our old friend Gary Bates, the Christian ufologist, here as well).

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Diagnosis: Godbotter and pathological Liar for Jesus. Crazy fundamentalist whose extremism might conceivably move the Overton window with respect to some of the choirs he’s preaching to. I'll count him as moderately dangerous, even if his impact is limited.

Entry #059: Lee Carroll & Kryon

 

After a couple of stock loons from the anti-vaccinationist and creationist movements, it’s time to take another plunge into the more outré and downright weird recesses of the looniverse. This is where we find this gem.

Take some time to savor the delectable whiff of Timecube, the exquisite pastel shadings and the breathtakingly amateurish first-time-powerpoint-user-style animations. This is solid stuff.

So, what are they up to? You’ll get a taste of it here.

Here is their most recent announcement: “When many heard the magic of what happened in Sedona in 2009 when Jan [Tober – a member of the Kryon team] took the stage with bowl master William Jones, they wanted more. Jan is now offering a DNA activation using her voice, channelling and simultaneously playing up to seven crystal bowls... all offered as a custom ten minute CD "reading" of your life essence. She takes personal information, then creates a custom CD in her studio! Very well received, many are lining up to have this DNA activation process done.”

You might ask, so what is a DNA activation process? Well, who knows, really – the explanations are mostly word-salad, asserting things such as “Someday your science is going to show that DNA actually sings!” and “[your DNA] is magnetic, and therefore it responds to the grid! […] Now, suddenly in this new energy, your science begins to understand that there are at least 11 dimensions at the heart of every atom of matter. (We have told you that there are 12.) And suddenly you are beginning to understand that even time is variable”

You can also subscribe to their “Marshmallow messages”, daily e-mail messages of love, positive thought, and light, at no cost, sent by E-mail only to the Kryon family worldwide.

Mostly, however, it is about channeling and our relationship to Gaia; the channelings are apparently published in their monthly journal, the Sedona Journal of Emergence. Apparently Carroll and Tober channeled the “original subject of the Indigo children”. You can also click a button to see the DNA names, sounds, paintings and descriptions of the teachings that Lee has channelled on the Twelve Interdimensional Layers of DNA (I admit that I frankly didn’t dare to click that button).

Lee Carroll is the main character, apparently. A biography can be found here. Apparently he’s held meetings almost next to the UN General Assembly. Impressive.

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Diagnosis: Kryon seems to be a prime example of unhinged, new-agey, fluffy woo with a post-modernist twist to it, and Carroll must surely rank among the most purebred crackpots out there. I seriously doubt that they have any extensive or detrimental impact, however.

Entry #058: Jim Carrey

I am sure this will disappoint a lot of people, but the famous actor Jim Carrey is unfortunately a first-class loon, who demands an entry in our Encyclopedia under the densely populated category “celebrities who should have remain modestly ...silent about issues they have absolutely no knowledge of understanding of”. Well, I guess people should be excused for letting blithering idiocy fall out of their mouths on certain occasions. Carrey, however, has swallowed the anti-vaccinationist lunacy hook and sinker (through his relationship with the abysmally ignorant loon Jenny McCarthy), and emerged as an ardent opponent of science, reason and rationality. Sorry, Jim, you’re a crackpot.

What else but crackpottery can get anyone to concoct this string of logical fallacies and poorly disguised conspiracy theories of the worst Roswellian kind from the depths of confirmation bias. It is properly and even-handedly evaluated here and here.

To twist the knife around, have a look at the following.

In other words: A typical example of what happens when people who are already convinced of a certain claim on the basis of intuition or nothing obtain their biology or medical degrees from google and fellow actors. A disgrace. A first-class village conspiracy theorist. Who knew “Dumb & Dumber” was a biographical documentary?

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Diagnosis: Clueless moron with an incoherent cause and lots of ardour. His influence should not be underestimated, however.

On the other hand, he recently broke up with McCarthy and was subsequently thrown out of Generation Rescue – maybe he’ll take a Bailey-Shermer-Easterbrook and come to his senses? In Carrey’s disfavor, however, he doesn’t – unlike B-S-E – come across as particularly bright.

Entry #057: Russell Carlson

 

Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology University of Georgia, signer of the Discovery Institute's A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism. Member of DI research fellow William Dembski's The International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design (ISCID).

I don’t really have anything in particular on this guy. He testified at the Kansas evolution hearings and doubts evolution, predictably enough, for religious reasons. His main claim to deserving inclusion in the lexicon is as a representative of a relatively long row of fundamentalist religious scientists and compartmentalizers who are able to do science in one field but submerge themselves fully in confirmation bias with respects to others they know less about. In other words, he’s here because science and sanity are fed up with these kinds of destructive cranks.

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Diagnosis: Crackpot with non-negligible influence.

Entry #056: Barbara Cargill

Another stock conservative creationist, the (well-documented) threat posed by Barbara Cargill lies in the fact that she’s on the Texas Board of Education – another David Barton acolyte, and a Cynthia Dunbar sycophant, in other words. A fine example of the acumen represented by this group of clowns, with emphasis on Cargill, can be found here.

As expected, Cargill is a happy peruser of scientific articles she hasn’t read and wouldn’t understand if she did, twisting any new modification of any biological theory to support creationism – especially newspaper articles reporting (”reporting”) scientific findings. For example, the famous New Scientist article ”Darwin was wrong” (on the exact taxonomy of the Tree of Life, hardly surprising), was interpreted as a ”significant challenge” to the theory of Evolution.

She also decided, in her role as a Board of Education representative, that the age of the universe and whether it's expanding was up for a vote by the board members. As you would expect from the Texas Board of Education, the proposed amendment passed.

Here is a good resource on Cargill (and the rest of the reality-haters, denialists and anti-science fundies related to the Texas Board of Education). She's currently the chairman of the board - and continuing in exact same manner as before to continue the dismal history of the TBoE. Although her allies from the McLeroy years are generally off the Board, Cargill is still pushing her anti-science agenda, no more informed or rational than before.

As leader of the school board Cargill led the most recent creationist attempt to change the education standards. Instead of turning to people who actually know the relevant fields (since these won't generally support her creationist views), Cargill instead tried to a coupe of creationist dietitians and businessmen as experts on evolution and appointed them to the board reviewing the science education materials. Since expertise means "agreeing with her", of course.

Interestingly, and hearteningly, this time around even publishers of school textbooks were clear on their refusal to dumb down their biology textbooks to meet Texan anti-science standards.

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 Diagnosis: Utterly moronic, dishonest wingnut – and severely dangerous given her position (yes, to an unitiated being a member of the TBoE might sound unassuming – it isn’t).