The Pianka situation is getting very, very ugly. I’ve been chatting with a member of the Texas Academy of Science, and people there are getting death threats over it. Here’s one example of the kind of email they’re getting:
It’s a marvelous list:
And yay! I’m in there! Thanks to all who voted, and look at all those great links!
I am very disappointed. There is this site called How Stuff Works that I’ve run into a few times, that has nice, short, kid-friendly summaries of, obviously enough, how stuff works. I hadn’t used it much, but it seemed like a cool idea…until a reader suggested I take a look at the section on how evolution works.
It’s terrible.
The author has a very, very poor understanding of basic biology, and it looks like the essay was simply spun off the top of his head, with a few quick glances at some websites. The author, Marshall Brain, is an electrical engineer and computer scientist, and it shows, embarrassingly enough.
The whole general introduction is thin and strange and far from how a biologist would discuss it, but rather than going over everything, I’ll focus on one section as an example, a summary of “Holes in the theory“. While giving far too much emphasis to problems than is appropriate, this section has another serious flaw: his holes ain’t holes. All this section is is an airing of the author’s ignorance.
I’m getting a flood of google searches from Korea, from people looking for images of anencephaly. Anybody know what’s prompting this? I know there was some news on the practice of infanticide in North Korea last week…otherwise, it’s a mystery.
Now William Dembski, that untiring advocate of academic freedom and the open discussion of controversial ideas, has reported Eric Pianka to the Department of Homeland Security.
Could Pianka be charged with terrorism/conspiracy to commit a terrorist act? What happens if a student actually takes his suggestion to heart and kills a bunch of people? Why shouldn’t we think that Dr. Doom himself would commit the act of human destruction he is advocating? How is what he is saying any different from somebody at an airport saying that he plans to plant a bomb there.
Hmmm…anybody ever read any apocalyptic Christian literature? Did you know those guys are looking forward to Armageddon? Maybe the screeners at airports ought to arrest anyone caught carrying a Left Behind book…or a Bible. This is the crazy world to which paranoid kooks would lead us.
Although, actually, I don’t think Dembski is paranoid: I suspect there’s more a kind of vile glee at seeing a way to harass a scientist.
I’m linking to this picture just because I liked it, although I’d rather see less anthropomorphically derived tools in the tentacles of my cephalopods.
Just a few more examples: David P. Wozney, who doesn’t believe dinosaurs ever existed, and Tom Ritter, a Pennsylvania school teacher who wants to have a debate.
I just can’t keep up with them all.
I’m getting some email requests to state my opinion on some claims by Forrest M. Mims. Mims attended a talk by Eric Pianka, in which he claims Pianka advocated the “slow and torturous death of over five billion human beings.” I wasn’t there, and I don’t know exactly what was said, but I will venture a few opinions and suggestions.
That’s Homestar Runner’s head on a silver platter, not Behe’s. Although there is a resemblance, Behe looks squirrelier.
It’s true—there sure are a lot of godless people with weblogs out there.
