Forrest's conspiracy theory & guilt-by-association principle
Previously I didn't give Barbara Forrest's crazy ideas much thought, but those ideas have come into prominence lately as a result of the controversy over Texas science education director Chris Comer's forwarding of an email announcing a lecture by Forrest, so I have lately given Forrest's ideas some more thought. Darwinists are claiming that Forrest's ideas are making a big contribution to the debate over teaching about evolution theory. Forrest's ideas are basically that the intelligent design movement is part of a fundy conspiracy to create a Taliban-type theocracy in the USA and that critics of Darwinism who are not part of this conspiracy are guilty of association with it. However, these same arguments that Forrest is using against ID can also be turned against Darwinism itself. Some Darwinists are using Darwinism to promote religious views, both atheistic and theistic (the courts have ruled that atheism is a religion for purposes of the First Amendment), so it can be charged that Darwinism is part of a conspiracy to promote religion. Then Darwinists whose support for Darwinism does not involve religion can be charged with guilt by association. Voila.
posted by Larry Fafarman | 12/12/2007 08:36:00 PM
12 Comments:
> so I have lately given Forrest's ideas some more thought <
There is no evidence that you have given anything much thought.
> Forrest's ideas are basically that the intelligent design movement is part of a fundy conspiracy to create a Taliban-type theocracy in the USA and that critics of Darwinism who are not part of this conspiracy are guilty of association with it.<
You are incapable of interpreting anything accurately.
> Some Darwinists are using Darwinism to promote religious views <
Where?
> so it can be charged that Darwinism is part of a conspiracy to promote religion. <
Not by anyone who is rational. Your mileage may vary.
> Then Darwinists whose support for Darwinism does not involve religion can be charged with guilt by association. Voila. <
Another great leap, no doubt ending with the usual splash face down in a giant meringue pie.
Larry, your views on Forrest being a conspiracy nutcase are largely mirrored by Discovery Institute, maybe even for the same reasons. The reason that the Discovery Institute despises Forrest is due to the publicity she generated about the Wedge document, which was a document drafted by the Discovery Institute itself that outlines most of the conspiracy points mentioned by Forrest's book, beginning with the whole casting doubt on evolution as an excuse to allow non-scientific and religious theories into the science curriculum and ending with the rallying of political support through putting religiously like-minded players into positions of power, such as politicians, policy and law makers, and so forth. The conspiracy was outlined by the Wedge document itself, and the actions of the Discovery Institute made it real. Forrest just reiterates it, and shows how recent political attacks on evolution and support for intelligent design utilizes the specific strategies outlined in the Wedge document.
The Discovery Institute has no valid reason to despise and discredit Forrest other than revenge for being exposed as the deceptive fundie zealots that they are. Since Larry has a habit of parroting whatever fundie belief/cause du jour that's happening right now, it's no surprise that he would spout the same beliefs.
Larry, your views on Forrest being a conspiracy nutcase are largely mirrored by Discovery Institute, maybe even for the same reasons.
Larry's views on Forrest and those of the Discovery Institute are one and the same. And both display all the signs of psychological projection, a defense mechanism in which one attributes to others one's own unacceptable or unwanted thoughts or/and emotions.
Just another pathology to add to Larry's long list.
Like he had previously admitted before regarding his attacks on other ID critics, Larry doesn't actually bother to read the books written by the these critics but he LOVES to refer to them in his retarded rants, often basing his arguments on the speculated contents of said books from just the book titles alone.
This is totally in character of the typical fundie zealot who proudly proclaims about how he/she hates/wants to kill/condemns to hell this and that about society because the bible said so without actually having read the bible. If this keeps up, the fundies might as well glue all the pages together, attach a chain and stick to the book spine, and start bludgeoning bystanders with it.
Anonymous,
You may be misled because Larry shares so many delusions with the religious fundamentalists. Actually he is not religious at all. He believes that the world is guided by extraterrestrials, such as the little green men whom he belives publish the Los Angeles Times.
Hey, you jackass trolls -- why don't you give me a chance to answer the comment before cluttering up the thread with your insults and ad hominem attacks.
Anonymous,
I think I made my case very well. There is not just the conspiracy theory, but there is also the idea that critics of Darwinism who are not part of the "conspiracy" are guilty of association with it. As I said, her ideas are a two-edged sword that can be turned against Darwinism as well. There are both theistic evolutionists -- e.g., Ken Miller and Michael Collins -- and atheistic evolutionists -- e.g., Richard Dawkins and PZ Myers -- who use Darwinism to promote their religious beliefs (the courts have ruled that atheism is a religion for purposes of the First Amendment).
So what if the Discovery Institute would like to take over the US government? There must be hundreds, maybe thousands of organizations -- many of them very undesirable organizations -- that would just love to take over the US government. I would like to take over the US government myself. I love to ride velodromes, but there are only about 20 in the whole USA. If I were dictator of the USA, I could decree the construction of 10,000 new velodromes.
Albert Alschuler, a law professor emeritus at Northwestern University Law School, wrote of the Kitzmiller v. Dover case,
The court offers convincing evidence that some members the Dover school board would have been delighted to promote their old time religion in the classroom. These board members apparently accepted intelligent design as a compromise, the nearest they could come to their objective within the law. Does that make any mention of intelligent design unconstitutional? It seems odd to characterize the desire to go far as the law allows as an unlawful motive. People who try to stay within the law although they would prefer something else are good citizens. The Dover opinion appears to say that the forbidden preference taints whatever the board may do, and if the public can discern the board’s improper desire, any action it takes also has an unconstitutional effect. If board members would like to teach Genesis as the literal truth, the board may not direct teachers even to mention the anamolies in the theory of natural selection that the court itself recognizes. The court seems to declare, "Because we find that you would like something you can't have, we hold that you can't have anything."
Forrest is trying to shut down the debate on the scientific issues because if Intelligent Design or other criticisms of Darwinism have any scientific merit, then her conspiracy theory would be irrelevant because then those criticisms should be taught and studied in the interests of science, conspiracy or no conspiracy. In contrast, the scientific merits of Darwinism do not mean that the "Darwin-to-Hitler" idea is irrelevant -- Nazism could be viewed as just an unfortunate result of Darwinism in the same way that nuclear bombs could be viewed as an unfortunate result of nuclear physics.
>>>>> The Discovery Institute has no valid reason to despise and discredit Forrest <<<<<<
Forrest is a bigot and a crackpot.
> why don't you give me a chance to answer the comment before cluttering up the thread with your insults and ad hominem attacks. <
Because, you jackass, you never do answer the comments. You just repeat yourself.
Voice in the Urbanness driveled,
>>>>>> why don't you give me a chance to answer the comment before cluttering up the thread with your insults and ad hominem attacks. <
Because, you jackass, you never do answer the comments. You just repeat yourself. <<<<<<
I am still entitled to an opportunity to answer first, dunghill.
And the main reason why I repeat myself is that commenters ignore the points that I have already made. Furthermore, it is obvious that I don't always repeat myself. And often when I do repeat myself, it is to elaborate, clarify, or add supporting quotations or citations.
> I am still entitled to an opportunity to answer first, dunghill. <
You are not "entitled" to anything. Since you never answer, nobody is required to wait for the answers that never come, cretin.
> And the main reason why I repeat myself is that commenters ignore the points that I have already made. <
Shooting down your absurd arguments is in no way "ignoring" them.
> Furthermore, it is obvious that I don't always repeat myself. <
Not always, just in the vast majority of cases.
> And often when I do repeat myself, it is to elaborate, clarify, or add supporting quotations or citations. <
More often it is to repeat the same failed baseless arguments verbatim.
>>>>>> And the main reason why I repeat myself is that commenters ignore the points that I have already made. <
Shooting down your absurd arguments is in no way "ignoring" them. <<<<<<<
I take that back -- it is not the main reason but is one of the main reasons. And "shooting down" my arguments is usually short-lived because I then usually demolish the counterarguments, as I demonstrated here. And the first "Anonymous" comment addressed only the conspiracy theory issue while ignoring the guilt-by-association issue, which IMO is even more important than the conspiracy theory issue. I am not much concerned about whether or not the Discovery Institute is plotting to take over the USA, but I am greatly concerned that all critics of Darwinism are charged with being guilty of association with that alleged plot.
>>>>>>> More often it is to repeat the same failed baseless arguments verbatim. <<<<<<
Like the arguments that Judge Jones copied from the ACLU brief? Many of the ideas I repeat here are my own original ideas -- the ID-as-science section of Jones' Dover opinion contained none of his own original ideas. Zippo. Also, I participate more in the discussions than a lot of bloggers do. Many bloggers don't have to repeat themselves because they don't participate in the discussions.
ViU just doesn't get tired of being made to look like a stupid fool.
The problem is, the Wedge document and the past/current actions of the Discovery Institute essentially prove most of the conspiracy points made by Forrest no matter how you slice it.
Your own charge of Darwinism as an atheist conspiracy is absurd/illogical on several points:
You charge that since atheism is defined as a religion in several federal cases, and that several supporters of Darwinism are in fact self-proclaimed atheists, then promoting Darwinism, in which you claim as supporting aspects of atheism, would be promoting atheism itself and thus, a religion, right?
Wrong!
This is flawed on several levels:
Atheism is the specific rejection of the existence of god(s) and other metaphysical deities. That's the official definition no matter how you want to argue it. If you want to make a religion out of it, that's fine with me. However, your charge that Darwinism is an atheist promoting conspiracy is false when you apply the same standard of reasoning tying intelligent design to creationism. Never anywhere in Darwinism/evolution theory is a reference to the presence or absence of metaphysical entities mentioned. All evolution theory states is that life evolved because of (numerous environmental/genetic factors and mechanisms that we've all heard repeated countless times). It does not explicitly nor implicitly state that because of these environmental and genetic mechanisms, that god/your favorite religious deity does not exist. If it did, than yeah, that's promoting atheist, but it doesn't.
Now by your(Larry's)logic, the law of thermodynamics is an atheist conspiracy because, like evolution, since it attributes a physical phenomenon to something other than the mysterious workings of god/some metaphysical deity, and some of its supporters are no doubt atheists, then it too must support atheism. Same with the law of gravity, because if god didn't pull that apple down to the ground, than it MUST be saying that god doesn't exist right?!?!?!?
You apply this same retarded logic to ID and you get an even bigger fundie religious conspiracy with that whole metaphysical intelligence reference and the fact that there is a paper trial linking the transition of creationism to contemporary intelligent design.
> And "shooting down" my arguments is usually short-lived because I then usually demolish the counterarguments, as I demonstrated here. <
You never demolish the counterarguments. You merely restate your position verbatim, along with a few gratuitous insults, as you demonstrated here.
> And the first "Anonymous" comment addressed only the conspiracy theory issue while ignoring the guilt-by-association issue <
O.K. "Anonymous" shout you down in flames on the first issue and so now you want to go to another instead of responding to him.
> I am greatly concerned that all critics of Darwinism are charged with being guilty of association with that alleged plot. <
Don't be concerned. It is a fantasy of yours, not reality.
>>>>>>> More often it is to repeat the same failed baseless arguments verbatim. <<<<<<
> Like the arguments that Judge Jones copied from the ACLU brief? <
Like your repeating that baseless argument verbaitm. Thanks for proving my case.
> Many of the ideas I repeat here are my own original ideas <
We know that. Only a lunatic would have come up with them.
> the ID-as-science section of Jones' Dover opinion contained none of his own original ideas. <
Nor should it. A judge is supposed to base his decision on the material presented, he is not supposed to invent material not brought up in court.
> Also, I participate more in the discussions than a lot of bloggers do. Many bloggers don't have to repeat themselves because they don't participate in the discussions. <
Another of your mindless repetition.
I don't know of any other post in which you have done so much to prove my position. Don't you get tired of being made to look like a stupid fool?
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