The guilty party has stepped forward and confessed: Carl Zimmer was the inspiration for Coulter’s Giant Flatulent Raccoon.
Of course, he uses that little factlet to drive home another nail in Coulter’s coffin. It seems she completely mangled a Zimmer story in the NY Times, and it was her ignorant misunderstanding that triggered her invention of the Giant Flatulent Raccoon. Are you surprised?
We all know the phrase “Garbage In, Garbage Out”…creationists are instances of “Information In, Garbage Out.”
She is an ubelievable piece of work, isn’t she? I mean does she ever say anything even remotely related to the truth? What is most interesting however – and this has obviously been pointed out by many people – is that she has actually managed to develop an audience for this lunacy. Forget the politics of it. Nothing she says or does could be reasonably defended by any sentient human being of any political stripe and yet here we are, responding to the things she says as if she is not completely insane.
I remember Somerby over on the Dailyhowler did a takedown in his typical style on one single passage of her earlier book. He pointed out the, as PZ does now that it is almost impossible to untangle all of the woman’s lies. She can’t seem to get through single sentence without mangling some piece of information or misrepresenting some cite or just telling an outright lie. Not one single sentence. Its fucking pathological. But as he also pointed out, the real problem is that the people who most matter in this context, the gatekeepers of media talk and news shows don’t seem to notice. They write about her and invite her to share here ideas on tehir talk shows as if she is just a normal individual albeit with strident political opinions but they don’t seem to get that her entire repertoire is to support an unending list of ridiculous opinions with an insurmountable pile of lies. That Time magazine article about a year back would have been truly unbelievable except that it fit with the media’s entire approach to the woman’s madness.
Intelligent Design is a mechanism that uses mutation and artificial selection to yield information loss.
Giant Flatulent Raccoon would make a good name for a rock and roll band.
That would have to be a Canadian rock and roll band.
P.Z., if you still have no preferred quotes from your challenge to Ann Coulter’s supporters. you could use this list from Right Wing
NutsI mean News:http://www.rightwingnews.com/quotes/godless.php
Cheers!
Wow, it’s amazing how she ignores all the qualifications that Zimmer makes, in which he states that it is a speculation, gives a possible explanation, and calls for more study before giving it too much weight.
I thought that *she* was the giant flatulent raccoon. That would explain the pained look on her face every time I see her. Then again, it could just be that the little black dress needs laundering…
For the record, Media Matters has posted a more-or-less comprehensive takedown of Coulter’s evolution chapters.
http://mediamatters.org/items/200607070010
I’ve been thinking of Coulter while re-reading some Gould essays. I think he might’ve been the one she was thinking of while praising the DI authors for not forcing her to look up “quotidian” in the dictionary.
Also, it seems Coulter formulated her response to Gould’s “An Earful of Jaw,” about how gill arch supports in fish became jawbones in reptiles and then ear bones in mammals.
“The jawbone metamorphosis didn’t prove evolution.” Period.