Coulter mangles Dover case
Coulter mangles Dover case
MIKE ARGENTO - York Daily Record, June 18, 2006
There is an irony buried deep under the vitriol, idiocy, slander, vileness, ignorance, stupidity and simply breathtaking inanity that passes for the contribution to the public discourse of an alleged carbon-based life-form that goes by the name of Ann Coulter.

Of course, you've heard about this vile life-support system for a mane of blonde hair. She's been all over the media, spreading her poison, the vaguely human counterpart of a Gila monster, except with colder blood. It's amusing that one of her complaints about what she calls the liberal media establishment is that it gives short-shrift to morons like herself who seek airtime to inflict a toxic stew of idiocies masquerading as ideas upon an unsuspecting public.

Her latest missive - I won't name it because it doesn't need the publicity - is yet another of her fact-free exercises in what comedian Stephen Colbert calls truthiness, which is essentially cattle excrement that tries to pass itself off as truth.

She's received a lot of airtime to discuss her idiotic remarks about the women who were widowed in the Sept. 11 attacks. I'm guessing she's mostly jealous of these women because they have demonstrated the ability to have a relationship with a man that didn't end with them killing and eating him.

I won't repeat her slanders - they are beyond indecency and lapse into the pornographic. You've probably heard them already, and there's no need to repeat her idiocies about the widows "enjoying" their husbands' deaths.

One part of her latest book that's getting little notice is the part that deals with Dover and what is purported to be the "debate" over evolution.

She begins her screed by saying that liberals have contempt for science.

What?

She offers as proof that liberals support stem-cell research.

Yes, I know, I don't get it either.

Lots of conservatives also support stem-cell research. Nancy Reagan, for one. Arnold Schwarzenegger, for another. Gov. Arnold has even supported increased funding for stem-cell research in California, after the federal government, kow-towing to the religious right, cut off money to explore this vital area of scientific research.

"Liberals," Coulter writes, "just want to kill humans."

Moving on, she then says liberals worship the theory of evolution.

Which is science.

Which she says liberals hate.

OK, it's a mistake to try to figure this out. I'll try, though.

She wrote, "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."

Where do you begin with that?

First off, lots of conservatives subscribe to the theory of evolution and oppose the teaching of creationism in the guise of intelligent design - or whatever they're calling it now - in public schools.

And why drag Scientology into it? Darwin's theory and Scientology are two completely different things. One is a rigorously tested and thoroughly accepted scientific explanation for how life evolved on this planet and the other is the reason Tom Cruise acts so weird.

"A make-believe story"? "No proof"?

I suggest that Ann do some reading.

Tons of laboratory work and the fossil record clearly support evolution. She has no idea what she's talking about.

But that doesn't stop her.

"Liberals think evolution disproves God"?

Now, that's just stupid. For one thing, Ken Miller, an Ivy League biology professor and one of the leading evolutionary biologists in the country, is a devout Catholic and he has no problem balancing belief in evolution with his faith. Speaking of Catholics, Pope John Paul II, for God's sake, spoke out in support of evolution, saying it is now beyond mere supposition and is fact. Catholic schools and universities teach evolution in biology classes. Last I heard, Catholics still believe in God.

She goes on to completely misrepresent what happened in Dover and concludes, "After Dover, no school district will dare breathe a word about 'intelligent design,' unless they want to risk being bankrupted by ACLU lawsuits. The Darwinists have saved the secular sanctity of their temples: the public schools. They didn't win on science, persuasion, or the evidence. They won the way liberals always win: by finding a court to hand them everything they want on a silver platter."

First off, Ann, this wasn't a victory for liberals. It was a victory for everyone who believes in the separation of church and state, for everyone who believes in quality education, for everyone who believes that scientific research and human progress shouldn't be thwarted by the prejudices and fears of a small group of people.

Secondly, the plaintiffs in this case - the parents who brought the case - weren't a bunch of crazed liberals. Many of the 11 plaintiffs are Republicans and consider themselves conservative. They just didn't like the idea that a small cabal on the school board chose to trample on their rights and violate the Constitution.

Thirdly, they did win on science, persuasion and the evidence - as so eloquently outlined in U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III's decision in the case. They also won because the side of righteousness - as Ann would have you believe - lied repeatedly during the trial.

For all of Ann's blather about activist judges, Jones, appointed to the federal bench by President Bush, was just the opposite. His ruling was based on the evidence presented during the trial. For him to have ruled differently would have required not just activism, but the kind of legal gymnastics that would have made a mockery of the judicial system.

The logical extension of Coulter's bent reasoning seems to be that the scientific method is a liberal trick and that adherence to it by scientists is part of the liberal plot to ... um ... whatever.

She seems not to understand that researchers doing the kind of work that will cure disease and ease human suffering need to know how the evolutionary mechanism works, just as engineers building bridges need to know math.

So that brings us to the big irony of Coulter's work.

Her vitriol and ignorance shows contempt for science and for the scientists working to cure diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer's and whatever it is that is afflicting Ann Coulter. Mike Argento, whose column appears Mondays and Thursdays in Living and Sundays in Viewpoints, can be reached at 771-2046 or at mike@ydr.com.Read more Argento columns at ydr.com/mike or at http://www.yorkblog.com - Argento's Front Stoop