In which I take up P.Z. Myers' challenge on Ann Coulter and Evolution

Traffic must be slow on Pharyngula-- perhaps the latest generation of psych meds have finally calmed the Pharyngula hordes. So P.Z. Myers reissues his challenge from years ago:

Ann Coulter is a horrible, ignorant person who once wrote a whole book accusing liberals of being Godless, as if that were an insult, and advancing arguments against evolution that made the standard noisy creationist look like a veritable scholar. I looked at her arguments, and I made a public challenge back in 2006 for any defenders to pick one paragraph from the book and we'd discuss it in detail — there have been no takers, not one person willing to stand up and support in detail any claim she had made.

Well, nobody insults Ann Coulter without a reply from me. I love Ann Coulter (Platonically, of course). Love, love, love. She's basically right about everything, and the only thing I don't like about her books and T.V. appearances is that when she attacks atheists/Darwinists/liberals she's so clever that my sides ache from laughing. I still can't look at a picture of John Edwards without thinking of her name for him: 'Silky Pony'.

I have all of Coulter's books, paper and electronic (so I can always have her insights close). Coulter has more wisdom in one of her neurons than P.Z. Myers and his Pharyngula inmates have collectively in their telencephalons and diencephalons (I know, I know, that implies a materialist reduction of the mind. It's a metaphor).

So, in reply to Myers' challenge, I'll pick a Godless paragraph. The first paragraph of the first chapter about evolution will do.

Coulter:

Liberals' creation myth is Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, which is about one notch above Scientology in scientific rigor. It's a make-believe story, based on a theory that is a tautology, with no proof in the scientist's laboratory or the fossil record—and that's after 150 years of very determined looking. We wouldn't still be talking about it but for the fact that liberals think evolution disproves God.

So much wisdom. Let's break it down:

Liberals' creation myth is Charles Darwin's theory of evolution,

Coulter is imprecise, but, hey, artistic license. Atheists' creation myth is Darwin's theory. Until the 1860's, it was hard to call yourself an intellectually fulfilled atheist. Atheism is such logical nonsense that no intelligent person believed it. 'Shit happened' is terrible metaphysics.

Most atheist wannabes were deists or some such-- 'God made the world, and then he didn't care, so shit happened'. Biology was particularly hard to explain, because life had such obvious teleology that even atheists had to admit it. 'Atoms and the void' doesn't get you to physiology, anywhere outside of a padded room.

Then the miracle happened. Charles Darwin banished 'shit happened' and with a master-stroke, and atheism of the intellectually fulfilled sort was born (or evolved or something). Darwin replaced 'shit happened' with 'stuff changes and survivors survive'. The best idea anyone ever had.

Within seconds (in geological time), atheists were proclaiming the theory proved. Huxley trounced Wilberforce (although nobody who was at the debate remembered it as a trouncing, but...), Galton invented eugenics, Haeckel faked his embryos, Dawson glued Piltdown man, and Darwinism was off and running.

The most difficult theoretical hurtle Darwinism has had to face is not, as some have asserted, the problem  of building the New Synthesis from Mendelian genetics and Darwin's (Lamarckian) theory. The most difficult theoretical hurtle Darwinists faced is disguising 'stuff changes and survivors survive' so that its utter banality isn't obvious. Neologisms don't just happen by themselves (unlike life). They need to be created. So Darwinists gave us natural selection, sexual selection, kin selection, group selection, reciprocal altruism, disruptive selection, diversifying selection, selective sweeps, background selection, adaptive radiation, punctuated equilibrium. All Darwinian 'selections' reduce to: 'living things vary heritably and survivors survive'. Of course, 'survivors survive' is more precisely: 'relatively more effective replicators relatively more effectively replicate', but succinctness is a virtue. The great challenge for Darwinian theorists since the 1860's has been to make Darwin's banality/tautology (stuff changes and survivors survive) seem like a scientific theory. Slather on the lipstick. You gotta dress up the banality (and the contradictions) with science-sounding stuff.

The most important textbook for Darwinism has always been a thesaurus.

Thanks to Darwin's theory miracle, there is now a whole coven of intellectually fulfilled atheists. Life evolved by natural selection, sexual selection, kin selection, group selection, reciprocal altruism, disruptive selection, diversifying selection, selective sweeps, background selection, adaptive radiation, punctuated equilibrium. Stuff changed and survivors survived.

'Shit happened' was relegated to... atheist cosmologists.

...which is about one notch above Scientology in scientific rigor.

Coulter is imprudent here. The Church of Scientology is litigious, and ranking it below Darwinism could incite a lawsuit.  Careful, Ann. Scientologists have feelings, even after a good dianetic auditing and a Clear State. Being called 'dumber than Darwinism' hurts.

But let's take look at the respective scientific rigor of Scientology and Darwinism.

Scientology is testable.

Scientists could find Xenu, or thetan spacecraft resembling Douglas DC-8 airliners, or hydrogen bomb residue in volcanoes. No Xenu, no scientologic cosmology. No DC-8's with anti-matter propulsion in the precambrian, no scientologic taxonomy. No thermonuclear fallout in volcanoes, no scientologic anthropology. A testable hypothesis.

Darwinism is hard to test.

What exactly could scientists find to disprove 'stuff changes and survivors survive'? Could you find 'stuff that didn't change' or 'survivors that didn't survive'? Not likely.

That's what Darwinists really mean when they say "Darwin's theory is a fact". It's so damn banal that it couldn't not be true. And it proves atheism, which, coincidently, is the religion conclusion of nearly all evolutionary biologists!

Scientologists are moderately obnoxious.


Scientologists sue people who make fun of their religion.


 Darwinists are severely obnoxious. 


Darwinists sue people who ask questions about their religion.


Scientologists don't use public funds to push their religion. 


They get a tax exemption, but that's just keeping their sucker converts' money.


Darwinists take tens of millions of dollars in expropriated Christian taxpayer's money to do research that concludes that the religious views of expropriated Christian taxpayers are evolved delusions.

Oddly, atheists never publish research demonstrating the delusional evolutionary origins of... atheism. Hmmm...

Scientology is honest about its status as a religion.

Registered. Official.

Darwinism denies the obvious fact that it is a religion, instead asserting that it is 'science', although it's less testable than Scientology.

Ironically, late 20th century Darwinists are so obsessed with their faux-science-religion that they would have called themselves 'scientologists', if the name wasn't already taken.

Coulter:

It's a make-believe story,

Darwin's theory is a bit more than banality and tautology. It's just-so stories, predicated on banality and tautology. Think of a trait, make up a story about how it might have helped a survivor survive, and voila, you gotta breakthrough. Front page, Evolution. The toughest part is writing the press release. Best part is that the fundie taxpayers pay you to do this!

Of course for a scientist, a moment's reflection (a moment too long if you want your job) reveals that nothing in the actual evidence excludes intelligent agency. Intelligently designed stuff 'changes and survives', too. Banality and tautology works for anything. So atheists, thesauruses in hand, work feverishly to conceal the fact that every bit of evolutionary data is at least as consistent with theism as it is with atheism. Shhhh....

based on a theory that is a tautology,

'Survivors survive', 'reproducers reproduce', 'more effective reproducers more effectively reproduce'. Natural selection. Kin selection. Punctuated equilibrium. You know the drill. Keep the thesaurus handy.

with no proof in the scientist's laboratory or the fossil record 

Evolutionary biology-- the actual non-ideological study of the fossil record-- reveals that organisms have changed over time. The data are clear.

Darwinism-- the ideological study of the fossil record-- asserts that evolutionary change is non-teleological. The data are non-existent.

—and that's after 150 years of very determined looking.

Every week, in the press, Darwin's theory is finally... proven, even though it's 'already a fact...' The federal judge said so.

We wouldn't still be talking about it but for the fact that liberals think evolution disproves God.

Evolutionary biology, which is a field of science within which Darwinism is a theory, is obviously real science and has contributed substantially to our knowledge of life. The cataloging of fossils and species, the study of changes in anatomy and function, the study of changes in living populations, are all genuine and important scientific endeavors. These tasks have long been a part of biology.

Evolutionary biology was infested by atheists in the mid-19th century. What had been rational non-ideological science became a desperate program to intellectually fill the godless' empty intellects, and Darwin's theory provided the gruel. Thin gruel, but gruel. For atheism Darwin's theory was the best idea anyone ever had.

Until Darwin, atheists had 'shit happened'. After Darwin, atheists had 'stuff changed and survivors survived'. A new dawn.

A new dawn for atheism, but not for science. Real scientific theories propose extraordinarily specific descriptions of nature, usually expressed mathematically. The best theories propose natural laws that are logically unlikely, but empirically true.

Newton's theory of gravitation specifies an inverse square law with a precise constant of proportionality. Newtonian mechanics required the invention of calculus. Einstein's general relativity specifies 20 tensor equations that are so difficult that Einstein needed help to specify them. Quantum mechanics involves matrix equations and complex differential equations. String theory has required novel mathematical research to describe it.

'Temperature changes and heat is hot' isn't a scientific theory.

'Light changes and brightness is bright' isn't a scientific theory.

'Stuff changes and survivors survive' isn't a scientific theory.

Darwinism is a ruse for a metaphysical assertion-- "There is no God". Darwinists say it's proven. A fact in fact. The ruse 'theory' is little more than a tautology, so how could it not be true?

But it intellectually fulfills atheists, up to the brim (it's a small cup), and lives on in science classes and biology departments.

Your kids are forced to learn it, and you pay for it. And if you have questions about the theory, atheists will... see you in court.

OK P.Z., the ball's in your court (figurative, I mean).