Entry #022: John Benneth

Our 22nd loon, Benneth is a respected and highly influential homeopath – indeed, one of the staunchest and most prominent defenders of homeopathic remedies in the States. Listen to Benneth explain how homeopathy works and its scientific underpinnings here, and hear one of the most ridiculous abuses of scientific language you’ve heard in a long time. It’s all there, from classic phrases like “more and more scientists have taken interest…” to “magnetic radiation” (a term Benneth employs as roughly equivalent to “qi” or “chi” or some similar New Age drivel), and the use of a sciency term that sounds like it’ll serve his purpose - in this case "nanocrystalloids", a phenomenon he thoroughly fails to understand (instead relying on the assumption that his listeners don’t understand it either). Pure nonsense and pseudo-scientific babble, in other words. It is deconstructed here.

Benneth also apparently thinks that homeopathy-skeptics are really Nazis who want to set another Holocaust into motion.

Yup – all there; no understanding of science, conspiracy theories, reductio ad hitlerum-mongering, persecution complex etc. Also an ardent youtube poster.

He takes it one step further here. He is actually really, utterly insane.

This is actually grand. PZ took down this guy in the usual PZ manner. This was Benneth's response. As Rev. BigDumbChimp put it, I don't think John diluted his coffee enough.

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Diagnosis: This guy is located well beyond lunacy; a zealous madman without a trace of critical thinking skills or understanding of science. A pathological liar and smearer with delusions of grandeur. He seems to enjoy some respect among the kookiest of crackpots, but his total impact is unclear.

Entry #021: Fred Bell

According to his own website, “… at age 14 Bell was not only working at the University of Michigan on nuclear energy projects, but was also inducted into the U.S. government's project called M. K. Ultra. This early mind control research covered such topics as past life regression [check], and the popular remote viewing used today by the CIA and other intelligence gathering factions worldwide [check]. ... Dr. Bell worked on a magnetic disintegration project later known as the Philadelphia Experiment [check], a high temperature fusion experiment, a bubble project later known as Cold Fusion [check] ... . In addition, Dr. Bell worked with the University of Michigan's Cyclotron doing experimentation with the bombardment of nuclear particles and their collisions involving reverse time as observed in a Wilson Cloud Chamber [check]. As a result of this, Dr. Bell built the World's first time machine called the T-1 Time Travel Transposer that allows time travel into the future in increments of microseconds [words fail, but check]. On his 17th birthday, he was transferred into the United States Airforce. There he began working on highly classified projects, several involving early warning radar defense systems and the detection and tracking of extraterrestrial craft [check].

He then left the defense sector and began studying with Himalayan Masters [check]. During this time he became internationally known as a contactee to a Pleiadean group of extraterrestrial humanoids whom were here to help the people on earth save themselves from their own destructive tendencies [check, I guess]. This group comes from a star system 500 light-years from earth.

Today Dr. Bell is a practicing naturopath, scientist and environmentalist, and political activist ...”

So what does he do? Well, dr. Bell is kind enough to want to sell you, for a fairly steep price, various healing devices of his own invention, based on for example Ozonic Electro-Magnetic Technology, quantum receptors, bio-plasmic energy (a.k.a. healing pyramids) to block negative energy, or the Amazing Andromedan Holographic Projector, which "when worn on the head accelerates the brain into quantum entanglement focusing mode”. Who wouldn’t want that?

His website is here.

It is discussed here.

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Diagnosis: Words fail. Probably harmless.

Entry #020: Michael Behe

Our next loon, Michael Behe, is a prime example of what can happen when loonery disguises itself as real science. Behe is one of the most ardent and influential creationist out there; covered in more detail here and here.

Behe himself claims to accept (for instance) common descent and an old (13+ Billion years) universe. However evidence shows that he is a straightforward creationist. He consistently argues that his purported evidence that evolutionary theory does not work is automatically evidence for ID. The shifting of goalposts is obvious when he tries to argue that his opponents are inconsistent in arguing that ID is unfalisifiable (e.g. Coyne) and empirically refuted (e.g. Doolittle). In refusing to admit that Doolittle’s experiments - which falsified his specific predictions concerning blood clotting - were a falsification of the testable claims he forwarded with respect to irreducible complexity, Behe spectacularly demonstrates that Coyne is right to deem ID unfalsifiable (insofar as its supporters continuously change the goalposts).

Behe is also a religious apologist in general, serving as an “expert witness” for several religion related court cases.

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Diagnosis: Strongly under the spell of confirmation bias, dishonest and a crackpot. As perhaps the leading creationist today, Behe is very influential and dangerous.

Entry #019: Nick Begich

Spend enough time trawling through the recesses of crackpot county and you will eventually come across this sort. They are the ur-tinfoil-hatters – the HAARP conspiracy theorists. You know what the real cause of global warming is? And what caused the Yellowstone earthquakes? Or the earthquake in Sichuan, China? Recent volcanic eruptions? You guessed it - HAARP! HAARP is short for the ‘high-frequency active auroral research program’. It is a real program, but the source of what Sharon Weinberger calls ‘the Moby Dick of conspiracy theories’. Not only does the US government apparently use it to disrupt the stability of other countries, shake up terrorists, and cause major power outages, the Gulf War syndrome and the Columbine shootings – they also use it to control the minds of Americans. Proponents trace it back to Tesla. And that should be red flag enough (Tesla-crackpottery is a distinctive subgroup of crackpottery).

Dr. Nick Begich comes from a family of Alaskan politicians (Democrats – Nick Begich sr. was an Alaskan Representative who disappeared mysteriously in the seventies). He is the coauthor of ‘Angels don’t play this HAARP’, and one of the main activists behind the HAARP conspiracy movement. Their website is here. Begich is also featured in several paranormal talks (not for the faint-hearted). This guy is, in short, into whatever lunatic conspiracy theory and quackery you could possibly imagine.

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Diagnosis: Utterly unhinged kook, imbecile madman; the HAARP conspiracy itself is surprisingly widespread but remains a fringe phenomenon (except in certain countries). That Nick Begich is considered an authority tells you all you need to know about it.

Entry #018: Michael Bernard Beckwith

Beckwith is a New Thought minister and founder of the Agape International Spiritual Center in Culver City, California, a New Thought church with 8000 members. Beckwith was one of the featured teachers in The Secret movie (hence an automatic consideration for inclusion in our encyclopedia); teaches meditation and “scientific prayer”, speaks at conferences and seminars and is the author of numerous books. Beckwith is a prophet of the infamous Law of Attraction, a crackpot idea in pseudo-scientific dressing about how positive thinking metaphysically attracts success. When Beckwith says "There's enough for everyone. If you believe it, if you can see it, if you act from it, it will show up for you. That's the truth", it is not meant metaphorically. The same goes for "There are laws of the universe and if you practice them they will respond to you." No, Beckwith, that’s not how it works.

Beckwith’s main project is to combine the most fluffy ideas from the world’s religions with New Age thought – and then proceed to declare it “science”; the epitome of New Age flakiness, in other words.

It should be mentioned that Beckwith is a serious contributor to various charities and environmental issues; unfortunately his ridiculous metaphysical rantings might overall have more adverse consequences than his contributions to social issues have positive consequences.

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Diagnosis: Professional snowflake with delusions of grandeur and a serious shortage of critical thinking skills; quite an impact, but it is unclear to what degree his metaphysical gibberish contributes to his influence.

Entry #017: Glenn Beck

This guy needs no introduction. A non-comprehensive list of his travesties can be found here. Beck has, among other things, written the book “Arguing with Idiots” - an apt title. Also suffers from Nazi Tourette's.

I like the diagnosis offered here. MediaMatters has put together a Glenn Beck's fifty greatest hits. It's rather amusing, or whatever you wish to call it.

Task for today: Make sense of this claim (in fairness, I don't think Beck intends people to make sense of it, just nod in agreement). This video displays the empty idiocy of Glenn Beck rather well.

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Diagnosis: Idiot. Has a lot of fans, but the hope is that his influence might in the end be self-undermining.

Entry #016: Henry Bauer

It's our 16th Loon, Henry Bauer! Bauer is a former hobby-cryptozoologist who has jumped on-board Peter Duesberg's HIV-denialist bandwagon. He's a harmless loon (but still a loon) when writing about Nessie, UFOs and ESP (yes, he is afflicted with a bad case of crank magnetism). However Bauer has escalated to red alert level with his dangerous and misleading advice to HIV-positive people (‘HIV does not cause AIDS’), based on literature he simply does not comprehend, claiming that it is the treatments and medicines that actually kill them. Probably partially guilty of some horrible deaths already. Described here.



Here's (a takedown of) Henry Bauer attempting to reject science (by assertion and ad hominem) because it doesn't suppose his decidedly scientifically completely unsupported and unsupportably conspiracy theories. It's pretty breathtaking. Bauer's work is also extensively discussed here.

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Diagnosis: Crank magnet; delusional loon; dangerous.