I started reading Chris Mooney’s The Republican War on Science last month, and while I haven’t yet finished it, it has made me accutely aware of political misuse and abuse of science.The latest offender is Ann Coulter’s new book, Godless. Villified by some for her characterization of 911 widows, equally disturbing is her flagrant and deliberate twisting of science. She spends two chapters trying to debunk evolution – thanks in part to her coaches:
I couldn’t have written about evolution without the generous tutoring of Michael Behe, David Berlinski, and William Dembski, all of whom are fabulous at translating complex ideas, unlike liberal arts types, who constantly force me to the dictionary to relearn the meaning of quotidian. [emphasis in original]
Unfortunately, none of these guys are actually evolutionists. Behe is the biochemist from Lehigh who has been ostracized by his own department, and Berlinski and Dembski are favorite sons of the Discovery Institute. I guess that makes Behe the sacrifical lamb, as he was the only one to testify in the Kitzmiller trial as well as before the Kansas BOE. Media Matters has done a wonderful job of dissecting each of Coulter’s criticisms of evolution – and there is absolutely nothing new here, just the same old rehash of creationist arguments (Cambrian explosion, gaps in the fossil record, irreducible complexity, ad nauseum).
If you haven’t read The Republican War on Science yet, you should.ÂAnd watch how your political representatives use science. If they are guilty of gross misuse, they shouldn’t be in office. In my opinion, they shouldn’t be allowed to write books, either, but the real force at work in Coulter’s case is most likely money. And loud-mouth quasi-intelligent right-wing women sell, for now.
