I’m watching this documentary right now, and I have to tell you…every time Don McLeroy or Terri Leo or Cynthia Dunbar come on, I’m snarling obscenities at the screen. What wretched ignorant people.
If you can’t watch it yourself, the creators are doing an IAmA on Reddit right now. And, oh, boy — McLeroy has shown up to make an ass of himself. Go chew him out.
The video is temporarily available for streaming on the PBS website.
After you’ve finished telling McLeroy what a work of feedlot scrapings he is, check out this editorial on al Jazeera. They’d run an interview with Dawkins and now this guy has put in his two pence.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/01/2013122111010987332.html
PZ, I was in the room to hear Terri Leo use, unironically, the term “militant Darwinists.”
These people are beneath contempt.
It’s interesting that they show Don McLeroy in his role as dentist. The juxtaposition of what he says, and what he does for a living, is jarring.
Looks like McLeroy doesn’t only have a problem with understanding evolution, he also missed the point of an AMA! He’s not addressing anyone else’s comments, just standing on his soapbox, preaching to the reddits.
Did someone say dentist?
I’m uncomfortable with how McLeroy behaves as a dentist. When someone is sitting in a chair with someone poking a metal hook around, they don’t need to be lectured and/or ridiculed and/or preached to. I certainly wouldn’t feel comfortable disagreeing with him. It really feels like an ethical violation of the power he as a dentist has.
That being said, I thought the documentary was well made and seemed to cover the issues in an informative manner.
I just watched it. I almost cried. What a circus. What clowns.
Marcelo – that’s to be expected. He referred (or at least alluded to and didn’t object to the referring) to his patients as a captive audience, whether they want to hear his bile or not.
Amazingly I had a twinge of sympathy for him when he lost reelection, mixed with schadenfreude, because it was a very human moment of disappointment. If only he felt as weakly about campaigning for reelection as he had for election in the first place…
McLeroy is unethical and contemptible. Seeing him proselytized to his patients when they’re helpless and brag about his captive audience? HE OUGHT TO BE STRIPPED OF HIS RIGHT TO PRACTICE. Despicable.
I wonder if a bit of Demerol and some nitrous oxide makes it easier to convince people god is real? It’d work for me, I bet. ‘Till it wore off.
It is amazing that McLeroy was once tasked with deciding our education standards including science, and he still hasn’t learned a anything.
^edit strike “a”
The Majestrix of the Shi’ar Empire is allowed a typo.
I write math textbooks, and for every lesson I write, I also have to write an “opener,” which can be about just about anything–although related to the topic at hand. In honor of this program airing tonight, I wrote an opener today about radiometric dating as a strong line of evidence establishing the age of the Earth at billions of years (topic was exponents).
It’s going out for the Texas math adoption next year. Take that, Donnie boy!
I’ve been in and out of the filmmaker’s Reddit AmA, and McLeroy used the AMA to barge in and show that he’s a dishonest jackass.
#11 lilandra, you’re absolutely right – he hasn’t learned a goddamned thing, and is probably incapable of learning. He was never taught to think for himself.
I didn’t get to see the film, but I did get to take part in the discussion. What Marcelo said. The guy didn’t respond to any of the questions, even when asked specifically to be kind enough to do so. He had absolutely no defenders and almost everyone was out for his scalp, being bald, it wasn’t much of a trophy.
texasaggie @ 16
That’s OK, I’ll settle for the whole head!
Don McLeroy and his embarassing Ned Flanders mustache. Jesus Christ. What is with people following these goddamn characters sent out of Central Casting with their Patented Folksy Ways™? Can’t you see they’re fucking DUMB?
donmcleroy on reddit:
That’s like saying that a bachelor is not free to get married.
Texas math
1 + 1 = whatever god wills.
the fucking prayers, the god damn fucking self-righteous self serving fucking prayers.
uncle frogy
The only person who’s a possible contender for “dumber than McLeroy” is that Cynthia Dunbar lady. Seriously, is her IQ a negative number?
“Somebody’s got to stand up to experts!”
I agree, and I urge science teachers across Texas to go to McLeroy’s dental clinic and second guess every single dental recommendation he makes to his patients.
This doc almost gave me a stroke. The giant dump it took on History lessons alone had me swearing up a storm.
The galling idiocy of these Godbots, with their absolute insistence that they are not doing anything religious, coupled with their opening up every session with explicit Christian wishing was nothing short of depressing.
Is there any way people outside the states can watch this thing?
The beginning of each session with a prayer had me wondering about any Texans watching the documentary. Does it strike them as out of place, or obsessive, considering the whole separation of church and state thing as it does me?
McLeroy seemed to be like someone, loudly and confidently preaching flat out lies, while trying to hide how insecure they are because they know they don’t know what they are talking about.
I only made it about ten minutes before turning the channel. It made me feel like I was insane and I wasn’t comfortable with that.
Even when it was pointed out Thomas Aquinas didn’t (in that context) offer anything that wasn’t first offered by Plato (gasp! a pagan! gasp), the discussion went right over the majority’s heads. And a mild audience reaction to a point not to McLeroy’s liking was labelled an “outburst.” I got the feeling the editing of that documentary was doe with a delicate hand and tongue-in-cheek. Better to let the morons show themselves for the morons they are – and they did.
Though disappointing that all of McLeroy’s comments were downvoted into obscurity. Not that it’s hard to search and expand via Reddit. I agree with you completely, and the IMaA thread was not well-served by obscuring such idiocy
Actually, it was easier for me to find Don’s comments -because- they were all downvoted. They were the only ones that didn’t automatically expand, so they were all in a bunch at the bottom of the page! It may not have worked that way for everyone, but it worked for me.
I agree that he shouldn’t have been downvoted though. His comments should have been UP-voted, so it was all the more clear that he didn’t answer a single question put to him. We all know that he’s not going to accept any of the cogent rebuttals that were immediately put up after each of his bloviations, but it’d be good if we can easily point back at the answers the next time he says something stupid. “We know you were reading that thread, since you posted in it, yet here you are, once again spouting lies that have clearly been refuted in your presence. That’s not skepticism, that’s dogmatism, you git!”
Too many people don’t follow the rules on up/downvoting. I don’t know what we can do about that.
from the AMA:
for suggestions on how to view outside the US, try starting here:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/singham/2012/01/25/watching-the-daily-show-and-the-colbert-report-clips-in-other-countries/