Jeffrey Shallit scorches poor Pamela Winnick, an anti-science, pro-creationism writer who came out with a book titled A Jealous God: Science’s Crusade Against Religion. Would you be surprised to learn she’s guilty of sloppy scholarship, misleading quote-mining, and outright lies? Just like the rest of ’em.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
This is the second attorney-turned-science-critic to publish a book full of mistruths on evolution, ironically lambasting scientists for intentional dishonesty, in the past couple of weeks. I’m sure Coulter would be proud. I hope this Winnick turns out to have been as dishonest as Coulter in lifting other peoples’ writing without attribution.
Coulter and Winnick are just following in the footsteps of their most distinguished predecessor, Phillip Johnson, the anti-evolution law professor from Berkeley. Since their work is sloppier and far less original than Johnson’s, Coulter and Winnick are nothing but redundancies. Johnson is merely wrong. His successors are wrong and derivative (where in Coulter’s case, “derivative” is just a nice way of saying “plagiarist”).
Hmmm – I knew a family of Winnicks when I was growing up in Pittsburgh. I wonder if they’re related. They loved to breed pomeranians. Breeders who don’t recognize evolution? Hilarious!
I’d forgotten about this book in all the Coulter hoopla; I picked it up in a bookstore last year, glanced through it, and gagged on the undigested lazy craziness contained therein. Same shit, different day…
I read this and thought…
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-me-endtimes22jun22,1,7619771.story?track=crosspromo&coll=la-headlines-frontpage&ctrack=1&cset=true
Religous people. They’re kooky and funny.
“Breeders who don’t recognize evolution? Hilarious!”
Not necessarily… after all, they are engaging in “intelligent design” of the breeds. Of course, it would have to be a pretty unintelligent designer to create a yappy little furball like a Pomeranian- although not as unintelligent as the one who screwed up bulldogs so badly.
A dream:
I imagine a bandwagon with every nutcase ever mentioned on this blog stuffed onto it. Each nutcase is playing some insane tune that makes no sense to intelligent people. The din is too much to take. Oh look! Now the bandwagon is teetering on the edge of the cliff of irrelevancy (which happens to lead to the graveyard of stupidity). I apply my pinky finger to the teetering wagon. Oooops, there it goes! Atumblin’ down. Splat.
I wake up. I feel much better. I visit Pharyngula. Oh no, the nutcases didn’t die! They rise from the grave to relentlessly pursue their right-wing, god-intoxicated, anti-science agendas. No amount of reasoning will undermine their ignorance. No amount of sarcasm, satire, or laughter will get them off their hobby-horses. The never-ending horror show goes on.
I dunno. I’d rather have a bulldog than a pomeranian.
Might as well get a cat if you like pomeranians.
I’ve really never understood the appeal of advocating for some cause by telling lies and doctoring quotes. It seems to me that, if I did that, I’d be acknowledging to myself that the proof just wasn’t there.
So why do they do it? Just to feel superior? Just for the joy of telling lies? Do they lie because they’re writing it for a publisher who won’t pay them unless they lie? Do they think their god wants them to lie?
Has anyone ever asked them? Have any of them ever had enough intellectual honesty to answer?
Wally: If they are intentionally doctoring quotes, that does exclude ignorance, confirmation bias, and misunderstanding the evidence.
What’s left is the greater good – if we have the Truth, then falsifying evidence to support that truth is acceptable (think cops planting evidence to convict someone they “know” is guilty). Scientology has the concept of “acceptable truth” – a lie excused because the person lied to is not yet ready to handle the truth.
Wally–
I’ve always assumed either 1) it’s for the pay (that is, they’re mercenaries of a sort) or 2) they believe that the cause is so important that anything is justified to advance it.
What’s a pomeranian? Is that like a pomegranate?
I think Catherine Bell would be a Pomeranian, right?
yes but only tastier and higher in protein.
http://www.akc.org/breeds/pomeranian/index.cfm
The question “why do they do it” intrigued me. So a bit of an analysis seemed in order:
1) The rush of taking on “the establishment” even when the establishment is centuries upon centuries of hard scientific work.
2) The “take that egghead” anti-intellectualism that people who are less than intellectual seem to enjoy.
3) Making money and getting publicity. If I wrote a book on defending evolution, it’d have less chance of getting picked up than “Why Evolutinistas will kill your housepets and eat your children.”
4) Theres that human thrill of making connections – even wrong ones.
5) It’s hard to do just one – when you’ve started lying as a career, how do you stop?
6) Insecurity. Frankly, a LOT of these people doing anti-evolution writing seem incredbily insecure.
Steve_C — Pomeranians are the anti-cat. Consider: Cats lie around quietly unless they have something to do. Cats remain silent unless they have something to say. Well?
There ya go. If you write a pro-evolution “popular” book, who is going to buy it? PZ, perhaps, and many of his readers. Write a piece of junk like Coulter’s book or the one reviewed here and everyone bites. The anti-science crowd eats it up like candy, and the pro-science crown buys it just to nitpick it to death. It’s a win-win situation!
I don’t think you need any other explanation for these anti-science books.
Cats taste better than a pommegranate and are high in protein.
;)
I have a 60lb mutt… anything under 20 pounds is closer to a cat than a dog for me.
Perhaps some lawyers gravitate to anti-science positions because in their work the highest truth comes in the form of written precedents, handed down from figures high in a formal hierarchy?
Physical evidence plays a role in some cases, but even that evidence can be ruled inadmissable, again by a higher authority.
I’m probably not the first to think of this, but it’s what comes to mind at the moment…
“If I wrote a book on defending evolution, it’d have less chance of getting picked up than “Why Evolutinistas will kill your housepets and eat your children.”
Perhaps that’s what this is all about. These books sell because of this illusion that they give of “stirring up a hornet’s nest”. Perhaps it’s about time someone wrote “The Christian Right: A Bunch Of Lying Anti-Intellectual Scumbags”. We already get the “all they do is mock and not actually make points” BS at us from various right-wing poop flingers (professionals and that legion of amateurs that always show up on a thread that’s starting to get nasty and shake their fingers from on high and then never bother to come back), so why not get as insulting as they already are?
Perhaps it’s about time someone wrote “The Christian Right: A Bunch Of Lying Anti-Intellectual Scumbags”.
Al Franken keeps trying, but not that many people pay attention to him. Shame, really. We need more people like him.
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&isbn=1401352480&itm=1