Anne Coulter' book Godless

JHAQ · August 19, 2006

This is a long post & offered for discussion & debate . I agree with the author Jerry Coyne -- an excellent review---- & have read Coulters book -- Coultergeist

A review by Jerry Coyne

H. L. Mencken once responded to a question asked by many of his

readers: "If you find so much that is unworthy of reverence in

the United States, then why do you live here?" His answer was,

"Why do men go to zoos?" Sadly, Mencken is not here to ogle the

newest creature in the American Zoo: the Bleached Flamingo, otherwise

known as Ann Coulter. This beast draws crowds by its frequent,

raucous calls, eerily resembling a human voice, and its unearthly

appearance, scrawny and pallid. (Wikipedia notes that "a white

or pale flamingo ... is usually unhealthy or suffering from a

lack of food.") The etiolated Coulter issued a piercing squawk

this spring with her now-notorious book, Godless: The Church of

Liberalism. Its thesis, harebrained even by her standards, is

that liberals are an atheistic lot who have devised a substitute

religion, replete with the sacraments of abortion, feminism, coddling

of criminals, and -- you guessed it -- bestiality. Liberals also

have their god, who, like Coulter's, is bearded and imposing.

He is none other than Charles Darwin. But the left-wing god is

malevolent, for Coulter sees Darwin as the root cause of every

ill afflicting our society, not to mention being responsible for

the historical atrocities of Hitler and Stalin.

The furor caused by her vicious remarks about the 9/11 widows

("I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much.")

has distracted people from the main topic of her book: evolutionary

biology, or rather the pathetic pseudoscientific arguments of

its modern fundamentalist challenger, Intelligent Design (ID).

This occupies four of Coulter's eleven chapters. Enamored of ID,

and unable to fathom a scientific reason why biologists don't

buy it, Coulter suggests that scientists are an evil sub-cabal

of atheist liberals, a group so addicted to godlessness that they

must hide at all costs the awful "truth" that evolution didn't

happen. She accuses evolutionists of brainwashing children with

phony fossils and made-up "evidence," turning the kids into "Darwiniacs"

stripped of all moral (i.e., biblical) grounding and prone to

become beasts and genocidal lunatics. To Coulter, biologists are

folks who, when not playing with test tubes or warping children's

minds, encourage people to have sex with dogs. (I am not making

this up.)

Any sane person who starts reading Godless will soon ask, Does

Coulter really believe this stuff? The answer is that it doesn't

much matter. What's far more disturbing than Coulter herself (and

she's plenty disturbing: On the cover photo she has the scariest

eyes since Rasputin) is the fact that Americans are lapping up

her latest prose like a pack of starved cats. The buyers cannot

be political opponents who just want to enjoy her "humor"; like

me, those people wouldn't enrich her by a dime. (I didn't pay

for my copy.) Rather, a lot of folks apparently like her ravings

-- suggesting that, on some level at least, they must agree with

her. And this means that the hundreds of thousands of Americans

who put Coulter at the top of the best-seller lists see evolution

as a national menace.

Well, that's hardly news. We've known for years that nearly half

of all Americans believe in the Genesis account of creation, and

only about 10 percent want evolution taught in public schools

without mentioning ID or other forms of creationism. But it's

worth taking up the cudgels once again, if only to show that,

contrary to Coulter's claim, accepting Darwinism is not tantamount

to endorsing immorality and genocide.

First, one has to ask whether Coulter (who, by the way, attacks

me in her book) really understands the Darwinism she rejects.

The answer is a resounding No. According to the book's acknowledgments,

Coulter was tutored in the "complex ideas" of evolution by David

Berlinski, a science writer; Michael Behe, a third-rate biologist

at Lehigh University (whose own department's website disowns his

bizarre ideas); and William Dembski, a fairly bright theologian

who went off the intellectual rails and now peddles creationism

at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. These are the "giants"

of the ID movement, which shows how retarded it really is. Learning

biology from this lot is like learning elocution from George W.

Bush.

As expected with such tutors, the Darwinism decried by Coulter

is the usual distorted cardboard cut-out. All she does is parrot

the ID line: There are no transitional fossils; natural selection

can't create true novelty; some features of organisms could not

have evolved and therefore must have been designed by an unspecified

supernatural agent. And her "research" method consists of using

quotes taken out of context, scouring biased secondary sources,

and distorting what appears in the scientific literature. Judging

by the shoddy documentation of the evolution section, I'm not

convinced that the rest of the book isn't based on equally shoddy

research. At any rate, I won't belabor the case that Coulter makes

for ID, as I've already shown in TNR that her arguments are completely

bogus.

What is especially striking is Coulter's failure to tell us what

she really believes about how the earth's species got here. It's

clear that she thinks God had a direct hand in it, but beyond

that we remain unenlightened. IDers believe in limited amounts

of evolution. Does Coulter think that mammals evolved from reptiles?

If not, what are those curious mammal-like reptiles that appear

exactly at the right time in the fossil record? Did humans evolve

from ape-like primates, or did the Designer conjure us into existence

all at once? How did all those annoying fossils get there, in

remarkable evolutionary order?

And, when faced with the real evidence that shows how strongly

evolution trumps ID, she clams up completely. What about the massive

fossil evidence for human evolution -- what exactly were those

creatures 2 million years ago that had human-like skeletons but

ape-like brains? Did a race of Limbaughs walk the earth? And why

did God -- sorry, the Intelligent Designer -- give whales a vestigial

pelvis, and the flightless kiwi bird tiny, nonfunctional wings?

Why do we carry around in our DNA useless genes that are functional

in similar species? Did the Designer decide to make the world

look as though life had evolved? What a joker! And the Designer

doesn't seem all that intelligent, either. He must have been asleep

at the wheel when he designed our appendix, back, and prostate

gland.

There are none so blind as those who will not see, and Coulter

knows that myopia about evolution is a lucrative game. After all,

she is a millionaire, reveling in her status as a celebrity and

stalked by ignorazzis. I have never seen anyone enjoy her own

inanity so much.

But after ranting for nearly a hundred pages about evolution,

Coulter finally gives away the game on page 277: "God exists whether

or not archaeopteryx ever evolved into something better. If evolution

is true, then God created evolution." Gee. Evolution might be

true after all! But she's just spent a hundred pages telling us

it isn't! What gives? As Tennessee Williams's Big Daddy said,

there's a powerful and obnoxious odor of mendacity in this room.

What's annoying about Coulter (note: there's more than one thing!)

is that she insistently demands evidence for evolution (none of

which she'll ever accept), but requires not a shred of evidence

for her "alternative hypothesis." She repeatedly assures us that

God exists (not just any God -- the Christian God), that there

is only one God (she's no Hindu, folks), that we are made in the

image of said God, that the Christian Bible, like Antonin Scalia's

Constitution, "is not a 'living' document" (that is, not susceptible

to changing interpretation; so does she think that Genesis is

literally true?), and that God just might have used evolution

as part of His plan. What makes her so sure about all this? And

how does she know that the Supreme Being, even if It exists, goes

by the name of Yahweh, rather than Allah, Wotan, Zeus, or Mabel?

If Coulter just knows these things by faith alone, she should

say so, and then tell us why she's so sure that what Parsees or

Zunis just know is wrong. I, for one, am not prepared to believe

that Ann Coulter is made in God's image without seeing some proof.

Moreover, if evolution is wrong, why is it the central paradigm

of biology? According to Coulter, it's all a big con game. In

smoky back rooms at annual meetings, evolutionists plot ways to

jam Darwin down America's throat, knowing that even though it

is scientifically incorrect, Darwinism (Coulter says) "lets them

off the hook morally. Do whatever you feel like doing -- screw

your secretary, kill Grandma, abort your defective child -- Darwin

says it will benefit humanity!"

Unfortunately for Coulter (but fortunately for humanity), science

doesn't work this way. Scientists gain fame and high reputation

not for propping up their personal prejudices, but for finding

out facts about nature. And if evolution really were wrong, the

renegade scientist who disproved it -- and showed that generations

of his predecessors were misled -- would reach the top of the

scientific ladder in one leap, gaining fame and riches. All it

would take to trash Darwinism is a simple demonstration that humans

and dinosaurs lived at the same time, or that our closest genetic

relative is the rabbit. There is no cabal, no back-room conspiracy.

Instead, the empirical evidence for evolution just keeps piling

up, year after year.

As for biologists' supposed agenda of godlessness -- how ridiculous!

Yes, a lot of scientists are atheists, but most have better things

to do than deliberately destroy people's faith. This goes doubly

for the many scientists -- roughly a third of them -- who are

religious. After all, one of the most vocal (and effective) opponents

of ID is Ken Miller of Brown University, a devout Catholic.

The real reason Coulter goes after evolution is not because it's

wrong, but because she doesn't like it -- it doesn't accord with

how she thinks the world should be. That's because she feels,

along with many Americans, that "Darwin's theory overturned every

aspect of Biblical morality." What's so sad -- not so much for

Coulter as for Americans as a whole -- is that this idea is simply

wrong. Darwinism, after all, is just a body of thought about the

origin and change of biological diversity, not a handbook of ethics.

(I just consulted my copy of The Origin of Species, and I swear

that there's nothing in there about abortion or eugenics, much

less about shtupping one's secretary.)

If Coulter were right, evolutionists would be the most beastly

people on earth, not to be trusted in the vicinity of a goat.

But I've been around biologists all of my adult life, and I can

tell you that they're a lot more civil than, say, Coulter. It's

a simple fact that you don't need the Bible -- or even religion

-- to be moral. Buddhists, Hindus, and Jews, who don't follow

the New Testament, usually behave responsibly despite this problem;

and atheists and agnostics derive morality from non-biblical philosophy.

In fact, one of the most ethical people I know is Coulter's version

of the Antichrist: the atheistic biologist Richard Dawkins (more

about that below). Dawkins would never say -- as Coulter does

-- that Cindy Sheehan doesn't look good in shorts, that Al Franken

resembles a monkey, or that 9/11 widows enjoyed the deaths of

their husbands. Isn't there something in the Bible about doing

unto others?

The mistake of equating Darwinism with a code of behavior leads

Coulter into her most idiotic accusation: that the Holocaust and

numberless murders of Stalin can be laid at Darwin's door. "From

Marx to Hitler, the men responsible for the greatest mass murders

of the twentieth century were avid Darwinists." Anyone who is

religious should be very careful about saying something like this,

because, throughout history, more killings have been done in the

name of religion than of anything else. What's going on in the

Middle East, and what happened in Serbia and Northern Ireland?

What was the Inquisition about, and the Crusades, and the slaughter

following the partition of India? Religion, of course -- or rather,

religiously inspired killing. (Come to think of it, the reason

Hitler singled out the Jews is that Christians regarded them for

centuries as the killers of Christ. And I don't remember any mention

of Darwinism in the Moscow Doctors' Trial.) If Darwin is guilty

of genocide, then so are God, Jesus, Brahma, Martin Luther, and

countless popes.

As Coulter well knows, the misuse of an idea for evil purposes

does not mean that idea is wrong. In fact, she accuses liberals

of making this very error: She attacks them for worrying that

the message of racial inequality conveyed by the book The Bell

Curve could promote genocide: "Only liberals could interpret a

statement that people have varying IQs as a call to start killing

people." Back at you, Ann: Only conservatives could interpret

a statement that species evolved as a call to start killing people.

Coulter clearly knows better. I conclude that the trash-talking

blonde bit is just a shtick (admittedly, a clever one) calculated

to make her rich and famous. (Look at her website, where she whines

regularly that she is not getting enough notice.) Her hyper-conservativism

seems no more grounded than her faith. She has claimed that the

Bible is her favorite book, she is rumored to go to church, and

on the cover of Godless you see a cross dangling tantalizingly

in her décolletage. But could anybody who absorbed the Sermon

on the Mount write, as she does of Richard Dawkins, "I defy any

of my coreligionists to tell me they do not laugh at the idea

of Dawkins burning in hell"? Well, I wouldn't want Coulter to

roast (there's not much meat there anyway), but I wish she'd shut

up and learn something about evolution. Her case for ID involves

the same stupid arguments that fundamentalists have made for a

hundred years. They're about as convincing as the blonde hair

that gets her so much attention. By their roots shall ye know

them.

Jerry Coyne is a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution

at the University of Chicago.

_________________________________________________________________

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lucaspa · September 11, 2006

I think Coyne overlooked one obvious and devastating rebuttal to Coulter: most evolutionary biologists in history have been Christians!

Also, Coyne falls for the "Christians are IDers, evolutionists are atheists" argument and never challenges it.

"Coulter finally gives away the game on page 277: "God exists whether

or not archaeopteryx ever evolved into something better. If evolution

is true, then God created evolution." "

What Coulter does is very common in the creationist community: turing the creationism vs evolution debate about two scientific theories into an atheism vs theism debate. What I dislike is that Coyne goes along with it!

Why? I suspect because Coyne is an atheist and would like to "prove" his faith by science just as much as Coulter wants to "prove" her faith by science. But Coyne's acceptance of Coulter's basic logical error does is also harmful to science. Having science "prove" there is no deity is just as erroneous as Coulter trying to have science "prove" there is one.

john5746 · September 22, 2006

What Coulter does is very common in the creationist community: turing the creationism vs evolution debate about two scientific theories into an atheism vs theism debate.

I agree with you completely, except the part above: creationism isn't a scientific theory.

AL · September 22, 2006

Also, Coyne falls for the "Christians are IDers, evolutionists are atheists" argument and never challenges it.

I don't think Coyne ever premised this in this particular article. I'm not familiar with his other works, but it's certainly not the case that he never challenged it here. See:

As for biologists' supposed agenda of godlessness -- how ridiculous!
Yes' date=' a lot of scientists are atheists, but most have better things

to do than deliberately destroy people's faith. This goes doubly

for the many scientists -- roughly a third of them -- who are

religious. After all, one of the most vocal (and effective) opponents

of ID is Ken Miller of Brown University, a devout Catholic. [/quote']

lucaspa · September 25, 2006

I agree with you completely, except the part above: creationism isn't a scientific theory.

Of course it is: a refuted (or falsified) theory. Being falsified doesn't remove a theory from science. It just moves it from the short column of currently valid theories to the very long column of falsified theories. However, from 1700 to 1830 creationism was the accepted scientific theory.

The reason we have this confusion that creationism is not science is because of lawyers. When creationists wanted YEC taught in public school science classes, the ACLU lawyers decided that their argument would be that creationism is not science. They then got Michael Ruse to mistakenly define science such that creationism would be excluded. So, instead of a definition of science and scientific theories done by scientists or philosophers of science, we got one made up by lawyers.

In the process, we lost the most potent argument against creationism. Saying "creationism is not a scientific theory" says nothing about its truth value. There are lots of statements/ideas that are not scientific theories but which we accept/know are true. By putting creationism outside science, we were unable to pronounce on whether it is true. However, if we evaluate creationism like we do any other scientific theory, then we can pronounce will absolute confidence that it is wrong. (And still keep it out of science class becaus the proponents don't want it taught as wrong, but as valid.)

"There is another way to be a Creationist. One might offer Creationism as a scientific theory: Life did not evolve over millions of years, rather all forms were created at one time by a particular Creator. Although pure versions of Creationism were no longer in vogue among scientists by the end of the eighteenth century, they had flourished earlier (in the writings of Thomas Burnet, William Whiston, and others). Moerover, *variants* of Creationism were supported by a number of eminent nineteetn-century scientists -- William Buckland, Adam Sedgwick, and Louis Agassiz, for example. These Creationists trusted that their theories would accord with the Bible, interpreted in what they saw as a correct way. HOWEVER, THAT FACT DOES NOT AFFECT THE SCIENTIFC STATUS OF THOSE THEORIES. EVEN POSTULATING AN UNOBSERVED CREATOR NEED BE NO MORE UNSCIENTIFIC THAN POSTULATING UNOBSERVABLE PARTICLES. [emphasis mine] What matters is the character of the proposals and the ways in which they are articulated and defended. The great scientific Creationists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries offered problem-solving strategies for many of the questions addressed by evolutionary theory. They struggled hard to explain the observed distribution of fossils. Sedgwick, Buckland, and others practiced genuine science. They stuck their necks out and volunteered information about catastrophes that they invoked to explain biological and geological findings. Because their theories offered definite proposals, those theories were refutable. Indeed, the theories actually achieved refutation." Philip Kitcher, Abusing Science, the Case against Creationism, 1982, page 125.

lucaspa · September 25, 2006

I don't think Coyne ever premised this in this particular article. I'm not familiar with his other works, but it's certainly not the case that he never challenged it here. See:

I stand corrected.

It's such a minor challenge. I had to read the article 3 times (twice deliberately looking for it) before I found it. Coyne should have made it his central thesis. It's so easy to overlook after the much lengthier paragraph before it:

"What's annoying about Coulter (note: there's more than one thing!)