The Coulter Hoax: How Ann Coulter Exposed the Intelligent D

[Killfile]

I seeded this to Newsvine, but Psi mentioned that yall might get a kick out of it too. Dawkins has recently reposted a fabulous satire of Coulter's "Godless" under the title "The Coulter Hoax"

In the summer of 2006, I heard that a new book called Godless presented an insightful and devastating criticism of the theory of evolution. Although I learned that its author, Ann Coulter, is not a scientist but a lawyer turned author and TV pundit, she nevertheless appeared to be an intelligent and well-educated person, so I started reading.

At first I was puzzled. There did not seem to be anything new; only tired and outdated antievolution arguments involving moths, finches, and fruit flies. But it wasn't until Coulter dusted off the old Piltdown man story that I suddenly realized: it was a hoax! And it was brilliant.

Coulter has very cleverly written a fake criticism of evolution, much like the way NYU physicist Alan Sokal in 1996 published a fake physics article in a literary journal, an affair that has become known as the "Sokal hoax." A self-proclaimed "old unabashed leftist," Sokal was disturbed by the sloppily antiscientific, postmodernistic mentality that had started to replace reason and rationality within the academic left and ingeniously made his point by managing to get his nonsense article published by the very people he wished to expose.

Coulter's aim at antiscience is at the other end of the political spectrum. An equally unabashed rightist, she is apparently disturbed by how factions within the political right abandon their normally rational standards when it comes to the issue of evolution. However, whereas Sokal revealed his hoax in a separate article, Coulter challenges her readers to find out the truth for themselves. Without claiming to do justice to Coulter's multifaceted and sometimes subtle satire, I will attempt to outline some of her most amusing and salient points.

You can find my seed of the story (plus any additional commentary) here at Newsvine or just go directly to Dawkins site.

[psi29a]

Oh the hilarity...

A gigantic conspiracy?

If evolutionary theory is not a legitimate science, it must be the biggest scam the world has ever seen.

By referring to "pseudoscience" and biology teachers "lying to your children," Coulter makes fun of the conspiracy theorists in the antievolution crowd. It's all a gigantic worldwide cover-up (probably orchestrated by the same people who blew up the World Trade Center and the levees in New Orleans, and tried to blame "terrorists" and a "hurricane"). It includes not only university professors and researchers but high-school teachers, science reporters, and Alex Trebek. And not only in America; the conspiracy is worldwide. It is nothing short of a miracle how well organized it is.

Coulter also has some fun with the common debating trick "reductio ad Hitlerum," the idea that any argument is invalidated if it can be somehow linked to Hitler. In the case of evolution, the argument comes in handy in claiming that Nazism is a logical consequence of belief in evolution and that the latter must therefore be flawed science.

This argument is silly in many ways. First, the validity of a scientific theory does not hinge upon how it has been interpreted by German dictators. And second, a scientific theory is not an ideology; it aims at explaining nature, not telling us what to do. Evolutionary biology did not oblige Hitler to kill Jews any more than nuclear physics mandates Kim Jong-Il to acquire the atomic bomb. And the theory of gravity does not require that you go jump off a bridge.

Only Anne can link evolution's "logical end" to Nazism.

I'll quote Anne from MSNBC 2/8/97:

My libertarian friends are probably getting a little upset now but I think that's because they never appreciate the benefits of local fascism.

So this has to be satire, because according to her, fascism like Nazism is the logical end of evolution, so she must 'believe' in evolution else she is a liar in a tongue in cheek fashion.

[War Machine]

Penn Gillete from the show "Penn & Teller: Bullshit!" (though you might know him better from his shows in Las Vegas) explained very well how it doesn't matter that you don't believe in science (in relation to evolution) because science is not democratic. To explain it he takes out a bunny and shows how voting on the sex of the bunny doesn't change the actual sex of the bunny.

It might not be as impressive in writting as it was watching it on TV, but it goes to show how deeply wrong it is to completely throw out the theory of evolution over a few disparities in spite of all the proof that has been found already.

I think this next quote can make anyone who finds evolution as blasphemy agree with it:

Coulter offers these encouraging words: "Of course it's possible to believe in God and in evolution" and "If evolution is true, then God created evolution."

[arke]

It might not be as impressive in writting as it was watching it on TV, but it goes to show deeply wrong it is to completely throw out the theory of evolution over a few disparities in spite of all the proof that has been found already.

What disparities?

[War Machine]

Well, let me rephrase that, the theory of evolution is not yet bullet-proof (but close to), and most people who are against it like to exagerate any small incongruency they can find to supposedly disprove it.

[arke]

Well, let me rephrase that, the theory of evolution is not yet bullet-proof (but close to), and most people who are against it like to exagerate any small incongruency they can find to supposedly disprove it.

Again, where does it fail? (Hint: it's still around for reason).

[psi29a]

Science doesn't deal in absolutes because they also evolve in terms of accuracy and precision. That was also covered in Penn & Teller's bullshit.

We are not here to pick on you, no worries about that, but we do make sure we try to accurately describe what science is and is not and that includes hot topics like evolution.

Evolution as a process does happen, it is fact. However, how it happens is still being studied, researched, and tested.

For example, we have the 300+ years of study going in on Gravitational Theory, we know there is such a thing as gravity, it exists and is fact.

However, how it happens is also not yet bullet proof.

If we applied the same ID logic to the rest of our 'theories' then we would be in a world of hurt and what science is will be turned on it's collective head.

ID presupposes a supernatural cause, which flies in the face of anything have to do with science which pursues a natural explanation. Pretty much all you need to know to separate science from ID.

[Eldo]

Completely off topic, I remember as a child in a religious class in school, the teacher was just explaining genesis to us, the whole Adam and Eve crap. As kids, all of us wanted to know what kind of animals lived with Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. Many asked if monkeys lived with them, others asked if birds did. I asked if dinosaurs did. He said yes to all of them. I further followed up with my question with 'if dinosaurs were all killed by a big meteor, weren't humans be killed as well?' He paused for a moment, and told me that humans were protected by God, the rest weren't. I wanted to follow up with another question on why God wouldn't protect dinosaurs, but the teacher ignored me. They were already subtly talking about ID, and I think my questions with the dinosaurs was questioning the content of the bible, as no meteoric event was documented in the bible. From this, I think I could understand why people didn't want to acknowledge the concept of evolution, as some events could not be integrated in the bible. Which is why hard core Christians who take the bible literally tend to disapprove of it. There is no meteor crashing on the Earth, there is no ice age, etc in the bible.

If fossil evidence is an indicator of evolution, it should also be an indicator of ID. Find a human skeleton lying beside a dinosaur's fossil's, and dated at around the same era. Call me when you're done, I'll be over there pissing in the holy water.