#1751: Richard Hoste

November 24, 2016, 1:13 am

More white supremacism and racism! Richard Hoste might not quite challenge last entry’s Richard Hoskins for derangedness, but he is amply deranged enough to deserve an entry. Hoste writes (for instance) for the Occidental Quarterly and the altright website Alternative Right, a site founded by Richard Spencer that makes VDARE look almost reasonable in comparison and which his currently edited by by Andy Nowicki and Colin Liddell, who thinks that European colonialism of Africa should be seen as a “vote of confidence” in the “Black man”.

Hoste has helpfully set out the mission of the Alternative Right: “We’ve known for a while through neuroscience and cross-adoption studies – if common sense wasn’t enough – that individuals differ in their inherent capabilities. The races do, too [which follows from the previous sentence approximately with the strength that ‘bananas were designed by aliens’ follows from ‘grass is green], with whites and Asians on the top and blacks at the bottom. The Alternative Right takes it for granted that equality of opportunity means inequality of results for various classes, races, and the two sexes. Without ignoring the importance of culture, we see Western civilization as a unique product of the European gene pool. [...] For example, low-IQ Mexican immigration is the greatest threat to America. Anti-discrimination laws should be repealed not only because they’re unconstitutional and infringe on the right to free association, but because whites have very good reasons for avoiding NAMs. Schools should stop wasting time trying to close achievement gaps. And not only do whites have nothing to feel guilty about, they are the best thing to ever happen to blacks. Even ignoring race, humanity will not move forward through equality or by raising up the really stupid to the level of just plain stupid.” Nuff said. (though more here.)

Diagnosis: By his own reasoning Hoste should probably abstain from procreating. Since reason is evidently not his strong suit, we are not holding our breath.

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#1752: John Hostettler

November 27, 2016, 12:37 am

≫ Next: #1753: Greg Howard

≪ Previous: #1751: Richard Hoste

John Hostettler is the former U.S. Representative for Indiana’s 8^th district (from 1995 to 2007, when he lost his reelection bill) and theocracy sympathizer. He is not particularly fond of the Consitution, either, in particular the separation of powers: In 2004, for instance, he at least suggested that when courts make decisions Congress (i.e. he) disagree with, then Congress should simply not enforce them: “Federal courts have no army or navy… The court can opine, decide, talk about, sing, whatever it wants to do. We’re not saying they can’t do that. At the end of the day, we’re saying the court can’t enforce its opinions.” He was also responsible for introducing the Marriage Protection Act that denied federal courts the right to hear cases challenging the Defense of Marriage Act, which used to ban same-sex marriage (it passed).

Of course, although he demonstrably and intensely dislikes the Constitution, he is very insistent about claiming otherwise (not unlike very many other people who also like to thump the Constitution). As current president of the Constitution Institute, for instance, his works to provide state legislators and others with “a greater understanding of the United States Constitution,” which of course doesn’t mean the Constitution but what Hostettler thinks it ought to have said (which, since he is evidently crazy, is equivalent to what he thinks it actually did say). Like what? Well, Hostettler has for instance complained that the “church has extracted itself from government,” creating a vacuum filled by “those adversarial to biblical truth,” and also the education system is currently controlled by “those who really don’t want our kids to understand what the Constitution has to say,” which, once again, doesn’t mean what the Constitution has to say, but what Hostettler thinks it ought to have said but demonstrably doesn’t, such as that “government is an institution that is not just a God-centered one, but it was ordained by God.” In 2008, Hostettler endorsed Chuck Baldwin, the Constitution Party’s nominee for the presidential election.

While in Congress Hostettler introduced legislation (multiple times) to prevent organizations such as the ACLU from collecting attorneys’ fees when they win lawsuits challenging religious symbols on public land or religious groups’ use of government property. Hostettler said the bill would “restore legal balance in this country, and it will protect us from being the victims of this assault on our religious liberties.” In practice, of course, it would guarantee that violations of the First Amendment – for instance teachers forcing students to pray to their particular deity – would have no actual consequences and allow only those able to pay in full for their own legal fees to challenge such practices in court. Wonder if that was an unintended consequence? But of course, it is Hostettler and his fellow Christians who are persecuted: “Like a moth to a flame the Democrats can’t help themselves when it comes to denigrating and demonizing Christians,” said Hostettler when Congress debated complaints from cadets at the US Air Force Academy over “coercive proselytizing” from evangelical superior officers who had tried to pressure them about their religious beliefs.

He has also been involved in some brouhaha around the utterly discredited abortion-breast cancer link.

Diagnosis: Oh, yes – your typical liar-for-Jesus and borderline Taliban theocrat who, instead of admitting that he really doesn’t like what the Constitution says delusionally tries to argue that it says what he wants it to say.

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#1753: Greg Howard

November 29, 2016, 12:47 am

≫ Next: #1754: Linda Moulton Howe

≪ Previous: #1752: John Hostettler

Greg Howard is a wingnut Christian financial planner and blogger perhaps best known for his role as lead theorist in Twittergate: when some Tea Partiers were trolled on Twitter back in 2010 they responded by launching a twitter militia and – of course – creating an elaborate an utterly unhingedly insane conspiracy theory, according to which Democrats must have hired a cadre of “E-thugs” (led by a social media consultant named Neal Rauhauser) to identify and harass prominent Tea party Twitter users and fool them into tweeting offensive things which could then be used to smear the Tea Party. “Democratic campaign funds are being used to front this,” said Howard, offering as evidence the observation that the “links between these people are very clear.” Of course, what really happened was that some people realized that it was incredibly easy to get some Tea Partiers to say stupid and offensive stuff if you prodded them a little, which is not exactly a novel discovery; that Howard and his followers responded with paranoid conspiracy theories is rather telling.

Of course, Howard really isa professional conspiracy theorist. He is, for instance, a birther: Obama is “not American” and not a natural born citizen, and his primary goal is to sow “the seeds of racial hatred; we were healing quite well as a nation on racial issues until Obama came along and now we have a lot of racial discord.” Oh, and he wants to take your guns, too. He may begin “wiping out a few hundred people who own guns, pull a large scale Waco or a Ruby Ridge type incident” and have it “tinged … with racial overtones,” and may even be building a black army to fight the white insurgents who will fight the impending attempt to seize our guns. Indeed, he might even go through with his plans to “take down” the Internet, although – Howard assures us – “people are setting up phone-trees all over the place” to stop Obama in his tracks. But be warned: “If Obama can take your guns away he can take your car, he can take your home, he can take your bank account, he can take your very life,” said Howard.

Diagnosis: Yeah, that kind of guy. He’s been called “The Glenn Beck of Twitter”, and I don’t think we can come up with a better diagnosis than that.

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#1754: Linda Moulton Howe

December 1, 2016, 12:50 am

≫ Next: #1755: Daniel Howell

≪ Previous: #1753: Greg Howard

Another legend among UFO enthusiasts, Linda Moulton Howe is a ufologist and “investigative journalist”, and a mainstay on the Coast to Coast AM radio show and the Ancient Aliens TV series. She is in particular associated with cattle mutilation nonsense, starting with her 1980 documentary A Strange Harvest, where she investigated what she concludes to be unusual animal deaths (but really a mix of hearsay and the readily naturally explainable) caused by “non-human intelligence and technology”. Her conclusions were based on careful investigation of the evidence after ruling out, prior to investigation, the possibility of a natural explanation. She followed up with more “evidence” in the 1989 book Alien Harvest. Howe also claims to have seen secret government documents that supposedly prove that aliens are mutilating cattle, abducting people and generally flying around military bases. Indeed, in 1983 she was shown a secret presidential briefing paper that revealed how “extraterrestrials created Jesus” and placed him on earth “to teach mankind about love and non-violence” (but apparently also randomly mutilate cattle). The documents were allegedly shown to her by Richard Doty. We have covered Doty and his documents before.

Howe runs her own website called “EarthFiles.com”, which charges a subscription fee of $45 a year to access her body of work. Some of it, however, has been ~~published in reputable journals~~ disseminated in radio programs hosted by luminaries like Art Bell, George Noory and Whitley Strieber. That material contains, in addition to cattle mutilation tripe and reports of “unexplained” lights and sounds reported from all over the US:

“Bigfoot DNA”: Melba Ketchum (to be covered) apparently has proof that Bigfoot exists.
“The Return of Ezekiel’s Wheel”, based on recent “eyewitness sightings”.
“Pyramids Discovered in Alaska and Turkey”: “Immense structures not only built, but used in some unknown way for a thousand years.”
“Missing Time”: Howe has managed to unearth “a rare case of documented missing time”.
“Unknown objects in our skies. What are we NOT being told”: Yes, the government is conspiring to deny the presence of UFOs, for the usual nebulous reasons.
“The Rendlesham Code”: Howe ~~investigates~~endorses a UFO contactee’s claims to have telepathically downloaded binary code numbers from aliens.
“Project Serpo”: Yup, Howe fell for that one, to no one’s surprise.

Howe also does crop circles and a variety of other environmentalist conspiracies (eg. colony collapse disorder and Monsanto).

By the way, the aliensdidit “explanation” for cattle mutilations seems to have received some competition from even more exotic hypotheses. Tom Bearden, for instance, thinks the “mutilations are the physical manifestation of the whole human unconsciousness which is somehow aware that the Soviets will, probably within three years, invade and destroy the Western world;” so there is that.

Diagnosis: Crazy, but her most characteristic trait seems to be that she’s amazingly gullible and will fall for anything you serve her if it concerns UFOs – unless it is based on reason and evidence, of course.

Source for much of this entry: The Rationalwiki article on Howe.

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#1755: Daniel Howell

December 3, 2016, 12:21 am

≫ Next: #1756: Jon Hubbard

≪ Previous: #1754: Linda Moulton Howe

Daniel Howell has made a little bit of a name for himself for his advocacy of barefoot running and barefoot living: going barefoot is “natural” and “healthy” and God created us barefoot in the Garden of Eden; no, Howell has, as far as we know, not followed that line of reasoning to its natural conclusion and landed himself in jail. His ideas about barefoot living are summed up in his The Barefoot Book. That’s not the part of his mission we are most interested in here, however, though it is the modest recognition he might have received for his barefoot stuff that drew our attention his other activities: Howell is also a hardcore young-earth creationist; he is a signatory to the Discovery Institute’s petition A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism and associate professor of biology (specializing in human anatomy, apparently) at Liberty University, no less.

Diagnosis: Sort of undermines his claims to know anything about the biological foundations for the barefoot stuff he is promoting. Anti-scientist.

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#1756: Jon Hubbard

December 5, 2016, 12:28 am

≫ Next: #1757: Lowell Hubbs

≪ Previous: #1755: Daniel Howell

Jon Hubbard is a former member of the Arkansas House of Representatives (District 75 in Jonesboro). He is most famous, at least outside of Arkansas, for his 2009 book Letters to the Editor: Confessions of a Frustrated Conservative, which contains gems like this: “the institution of slavery that the black race has long believed to be an abomination upon its people may actually have been a blessing in disguise [because] the blacks who could endure those conditions and circumstances would someday be rewarded with citizenship in the greatest nation ever established upon the face of the Earth.” (The statement was endorsed by Bryan Fischer). The book – its publication coincided with the publication of his colleague Charles Fuqua’s book – also asserted that blacks don’t “appreciate the value of a good education”, and that in the future immigration, both legal and illegal, must lead to “planned wars or extermination” which would be “as necessary as eating and breathing”. Hubbard was not reelected in 2012.

He hasn’t mellowed down much, though, and has also later been caught raging and ranting about his efforts to save America from the “clutches of an obsessed, liberal-socialist-globalist agenda” and how “Obama has systematically gone about his primary objective to destroy America,” meaning, of course, promoting same-sex marriage and religious liberty for any other groups than those fundamentalists who coincidentally agree with Hubbard on political issues, which according to Hubbard were the ones for whom America was created.

Diagnosis: Belongs to a special kind of fuming, rightwing conspiracy theorist that seems notoriously populous among state legislators – Hubbard may be gone, but there are plenty left (also in Arkansas: We’ll return to a couple of examples later on).

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#1757: Lowell Hubbs

December 7, 2016, 12:33 am

≫ Next: #1758: Neil Huber

≪ Previous: #1756: Jon Hubbard

A.k.a. “TruthStorm”

A.k.a. “TruthEducation”

A.k.a. “Anti Vax Warrior”

Small fish, but worth a mention. Lowell Hubbs is an online troll whose mission is to spread FUD about vaccines and vaccine safety. Hubbs has no education or experience in any relevant field, but tends to repeat standard antivaxx tropes and conspiracy theories, claiming for instance that all vaccines are unsafe and ineffective (that better sanitation and nutrition, not vaccines, account for the decline in vaccine-preventable diseases, which is almost as delusionally ridiculous as flat-out denying gravity); instead, vaccines apparently lead to autism, asthma and SIDS. To hold those views, you also need some serious conspiracy theories, and Hubbs is not afraid to go there (“I like whale.to, its a great site containing more real history than I know you can actually deal with,” says Hubbs; whale.to is a frequent source of his information, apparently): In 2011 Hubbs even concluded that his site, lowellsfacts.com, had been taken down by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. It wasn’t.

Hat-tip:RtAVM

Of course, Hubbs thinksthat his claims are backed up by science, but seems genuinely not to understand the difference between a scientific study and a blogpost on a conspiracy website. He does complain, though, that his critics seem not to bother to review his work. His ridiculous nine vaccine questions addressed to non-loons are addressed here. Many of his antics are covered here.

Diagnosis: Hubbs is really not anything but a trivial troll, but he is a rather active one and his impact on civilization, if not major, is certainly not beneficial.

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#1758: Neil Huber

December 8, 2016, 11:51 pm

≫ Next: #1759: Peggy Huddleston

≪ Previous: #1757: Lowell Hubbs

A crackpot of some note, Neil Huber is a Biblical literalist with a PhD in anthropology. He used to be associated with Wisconsin State University (though he can hardly be described as a particularly active scientist), but renounced science in 1990 and decided “to start with the assumption of the authority of the Bible, looking at all the evidence that it presents for trusting it. Then build your science from there, based upon the Bible’s truth.” He is currently affiliated with the Imago Dei Institute, a Bible college. Of course, given that he does, indeed, have a PhD, Huber is also a signatory to the Discovery Institute’s petition A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism, but at least he is pretty explicit that his rejection of evolution is not based on science. He is also on the CMI’s list of scientists alive today who accept the Biblical account of creation, even though he is not a scientist by a long shot.

There is a brief report from one of Huber’s presentations here (which also offers summaries of presentations by John Johnson, Tom Greene and Heinz Lycklama; the last, in particular, is a magnificent trainwreck). Huber tries, unsurprisingly, to run the “same-evidence; different interpretations” canard, neglecting to mention that creationists not only interpret the evidence differently according to their presuppositions but i) also just refuse to look at the vast majority of the evidence (the stuff that doesn’t fit), and ii) that science also tests its presuppositions. Actually, Huber tried to address one problem: the problem that different fossils are systematically and without exception found in different geological strata (because they lived at different times), which is hard to reconcile with the favorite creationist assumption that all fossils are remnants of creatures killed in one single cataclysmic flood. Well, Huber claimed that fossil animals are found at different strata in a particular order because they were running from the flood water, and so more primitive animals were not able to outrun more advanced ones. In other words, the moles outran the velociraptors and outflew the pterosaurs (not his examples). He didn’t mention plants.

Diagnosis: Amazing crackpot. Probably pretty harmless in the grand scheme of things.

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#1759: Peggy Huddleston

December 11, 2016, 12:46 am

≫ Next: #1760: Christopher Hudson

≪ Previous: #1758: Neil Huber

Even the most hardened woo-proponent will usually admit that surgery and emergency treatments of traumatic injuries are pretty obvious success stories for conventional medicine. It’s not surprising, then, that they are eager to claim they can help in these situations as well, in particular to ensure “faster healing” after surgery. Peggy Huddleston, for instance, claims that verbal messages given to a patient under general anesthesia result in “faster healing”, which, though apparently rather innocuous, is an impressively silly idea. Huddleston is a a self-described psychotherapist and the proud recipient of an M.T.S. (Master of Theological Studies) degree from the Harvard Divinity School, and she has managed to turn her “faster healing” ideas into a relatively sleek and professional-looking business. Her book Prepare for Surgery, Heal Faster is crammed with endorsements from charlatans, quacks and crackpots like Andrew Weil, Larry Dossey, Jean Watson, Caroline Myss, C. Norman Shealy, Mehmet Oz and “mind/body” maven Joan Borysenko – Christiane Northrup wrote the foreword.

Well, some of Huddleston’s claims are of course plausible and sensible. But “plausibility” and “sensibility” are hardly the criteria Huddleston uses to select what advice she will offer: “… recent studies have documented that care, appreciation and love boost the immune system and enhance the functioning of the heart … Since the heart creates a large electrical field of energy that influences every cell, this has a very positive effect on the entire body.” Methinks think Huddleston may be confusing human anatomy and physiology with the narrative structure of a WalMart paperback romance. So yes, here you find recommendations for intercessory prayer, blaming disease on negative emotions (i.e. blaming the victim for their own physical illness) reiki (“[w]ithout touching the body, practitioners use their hands to influence the field of energy that pulsates in and around the physical body. Physicists call this a force field;” I don’t think those are physicists, Peggy), various forms of energy healing, and acupuncture (which “makes even major surgery free of pain. For 5,000 years, acupuncture has also been used for the treatment and prevention of disease,” which is false but would anyways make it more recent practice than burning witches). It’s all about the powers of the New Age. Physical illnesses are really “trying to ‘talk’ to you, telling you that something is amiss. Your intuition knows what is out of balance and causing a health problem. Allow yourself to hear what it is.” Be like native Americans: “Lakota children could easily merge their beings with an eagle, soaring with it through the clouds.”

No seriously. Just think about the fact that “[y]ou’ll use less pain medication after surgery if your anesthesiologist says three Healing Statements to you during surgery.” The D&D rules say so, and yes – Peggy Huddleston is recommending that anesthesiologists try to cast healing spells. The point is of course that you are suppose to hearthese incantations while you are anesthesized. Though Huddleston admits that “there is ongoing scientific debate about how much an anesthetized patient can hear,” she brazenly concludes that “one point is clear: We never stop hearing.”

And though she claims that “[m]edical research documents the dramatic benefits” of her bullshit, she doesn’t really discuss that research in detail (she does offer some references, most of which are either unpublished or more than 40 years old, based on the principle that you select what seems to fit your hypothesis and avoid looking at the aggregate result of studies like the plague), focusing rather on trying to sell you a series of “Testimonials” DVDs from her website.

Diagnosis: Utter bullshit. But apparently Huddleston seems to have attracted quite a following and her business appears to be doing remarkably well. Which is pretty sad.

Much of this entry is based on an article by Kimball Attwood at sciencebasedmedicine.

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#1760: Christopher Hudson

December 12, 2016, 12:20 am

≫ Next: #1761: Tim Huelskamp

≪ Previous: #1759: Peggy Huddleston

Christopher Hudson is a pastor of ForeRunner Chronicles (FRC), an independent, internet-based Seventh-day Adventist ministry. Apparently the official SDA church does not officially want to associate with them, but Hudson is still a regular lecturer at official SDA schools, preaches at SDA churches around the world, and has a show on the SDA satellite channel. The ForeRunner Chronicles is officially most concerned about Satan and the upcoming endtimes, but is probably best known for pushing a range of conspiracy theories, especially revolving around Freemasons and the Illuminati, and they have for instance claimed that Michael Jackson was really assassinated in a conspiracy orchestrated by the Pope and that Osama bin Laden was really killed in 2007 rather than 2011 since Bush really would have wanted to keep that sort of thing secret – that kind of group. The group had a brief stint in media spotlight when the actor Angus T Jones declared himself an ‘Adventist’, and promptly started spouting a string of delusional conspiracy views straight from Hudson’s youtube channel.

Hudson’s youtube videos include usual fundie wickedness, such as his multi-episode anti-gay “exposé” with the not-particularly-sophisticated title “Homo-Geniz-Nation”, in which Hudson atttacks President Obama for his “disturbing statements” in support of gay equality (Hudson doesn’t like the Affordable Care Act either, which he describes as a “carbon copy” of Hitler’s health-care policies, which it … isn’t). Slightly less mainstream, perhaps (though not in the context of SDA), is his anti-masturbation views: Masturbation is an “unnatural act” with “very serious health consequences”: men losing zinc through ejaculation, for instance, which causes them to have lower testosterone levels, and thus “feel less manly,” which sounds serious indeed. Indeed, ultimately the good citizens of New York City will turn to cannibalism and will eat their babies. “I’m not even playing. It’s just that serious,” says Hudson. It isn’t.

The most interesting conspiracy is the Illuminati/hip-hop conspiracy, however, of which Hudson is among the main proponents (well, among those who actually take it seriously, that is). Hudson is particularly obsessed with Jay-Z, and has even produced a whole documentary, “The Jay-Z Deception”, that seeks to explain how Jay-Z’s Blueprint albums are “markers in obtaining degrees in the secret organization known as the Freemasons,” which according to Hudson is a Satan-worshipping cult. Apparently Kanye West and Rihanna are also involved.

Diagnosis: Deranged maniac, and you should really never have anything to do with him. The SDA is, indeed, plagued by fringe idiots like Hudson, but we are unable to ascertain whether they are more plagued by this than other branches of Christianity.

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#1761: Tim Huelskamp

December 14, 2016, 1:27 am

≫ Next: #1762: Ethan Huff

≪ Previous: #1760: Christopher Hudson

More fish in a barrel, but we've got little choice. Tim Huelskamp was the U.S. Representative for Kansas’s 1st congressional district from 2011 to 2016 (when he was defeated in the primaries), representing the Tea Party – the kind whom The House Republican Steering Committee eventually had to remove from both the Budget Committee and the Agriculture Committee, officially citing his “inability to work with other members” (the unofficial appraisal from colleagues was that he was a “jerk”). Huelskamp is of course an anti-gay loon and climate change denialist, so we couldn’t really afford to overlook him either if we wish to aim for comprehensiveness.

As for climate change Huelskamp has said that it is not “settled science” (offering, by contrast, that “that life begins at conception, that’s settled science,” which is false in any sense that is remotely relevant to the abortion debate) and claiming that “I don’t think there’s a scientific consensus on that.” Huelskamp promptly voted against any effort or piece of legislature targeted at remedying or preventing the negative effects of climate change, however. Of course, there is scientific consensus on that, regardless of what Huelskamp might think, and the interesting thing is that even if there weren’t, from any decision theoretic standpoint that is remotely rational, even the chance of climate change occurring should lead one to support such measures given the potentially disastrous consequences. When offered the fact that science does, indeed, show that burning fossil fuels creates greenhouse gases that are causing the planet to heat up, Huelskamp responded with “No, that’s global warming.” So that settles that, then.

As you might have expected, Huelskamp has a decent anti-gay activism track record. After the Supreme Court declared DOMA unconstitutional, Huelskamp immedialy suggested introducing a constitutional amendment to restore it, lamented the judges’ attack on Jesus (“the idea that Jesus Christ himself was degrading and demeaning is what they’ve come down to”) and said that he “can’t even stand to read the decisions because I don’t even think they’d pass law school with decisions like that.” It’s probably a fair bet that if you, who are not a legal scholar, disagree with the Supreme Court majority and think their arguments would have failed them in law school, then you are the one who would have failed law school. He has also requested “real men” (not women or gay men, who are not really men) to stand up against gay marriage for the women and children who are unable to defend themselves. Gay marriage will apparently harm children, the economy and society (e.g. because it will “discourage family formation;” he didn’t specify the mechanism). And he claims to have the support of the American people in his fight against gay marriage: “Eighty-five percent of Americans say, ‘We support traditional marriage,’” said Huelskamp, lamenting that the Obama administration still doesn’t listen. Well, his numbers are a bit out of date – or perhaps he is employing the same skills with numbers that led him to deny scientific consensus on climate change. Huelskamp has also appeared in insane conspiracy theory documentaries about gay rights.

There’s a fine resource on Huelskamp here.

Diagnosis: Though he didn’t quite achieve it, Huelskamp got pretty close to vying with Steve King and Louie Gohmert over being both the most insane and the most inane member of Congress. Which is quite a feat.

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#1762: Ethan Huff

December 16, 2016, 12:42 am

≫ Next: #1763: James A. Huggins

≪ Previous: #1761: Tim Huelskamp

Ethan Huff is a staff writer at NaturalNews, and as such responsible for a fair proportion of the wild-eyed conspiracy theories and insane pseudoscience peddled there. Huff is perhaps most notable for his anti-vaccine articles, e.g. this one on gardasil, which is based on some of Sharyl Attkisson’s rants, but adds some extra conspiracy theories, viz. that when certain people he thought were going to support the anti-vaccine cause turned out not to, it must be because either i) Big Pharma got to them, or ii) they are mentally ill; yes, that’s how things go down in the epistemic abyss that is NaturalNews. As for his article “H1N1 vaccine linked to 700 percent increase in miscarriages,” well, it was based on the “research” by Eileen Dannemann – indeed, his only source is Dannemann; although several sources are listed, they are all based exhaustively on her. We have encountered Dannemann before. We have encountered other examples of misusing the VAERS database before, too, but Dannemann’s idiocy still manages to impress (she got some anecdotes, too, as well as her own press release – which she cited in her own “research”).

Huff has also weighed in on the scientific process. In particular, after a debate at the British Royal Society, where Richard Smith, former editor of the British Medical Journal (now The BMJ), took the role of attacking the current processes of research dissemination and hyperbolically called the peer review process a “sacred cow” ready to “slaughtered” Huff took it the only way someone in his cognitive situation could, and the result was the article “‘Sacred cow’ of industry science cult should be slaughtered for the good of humanity, BMJ editor says.” Of course, people like Huff really don’t like peer review, which is a process inherently biased against pseudoscientific, unsupported nonsense dreamed up by people with little understanding of the field they are trying to engage with. Apart from that, I don’t think Huff’s article needs much comment.

It seems to illustrate a common strategy of Huff’s, though: Pick up some anecdotes, quackery, or anti-science covered somewhere else and, if necessary, add some conspiracy theories before covering it on NaturalNews – here is (a commentary on) Huff reporting a very, very dubious breast cancer testimonial reported in The Sun - dubious, in that the person in question, though praising altmed quackery for her recovery, was in fact cured – to the extent she was – by conventional medicine. Or just go for the tinfoil-hat-level conspiracies: In a preemptive review of the movie Contagion, based on the trailer, Huff penned “Hollywood begins mass brainwashing campaign to get people ready for the next bioengineered virus release.” No seriously: “The entertainment industry is no stranger to government propaganda campaigns, and the latest Hollywood flicks are no exception. A quick look at the trailer for the upcoming release of the movie Contagion reveals what appears to be a massive brainwashing campaign designed to prepare the American psyche for the next [!] intentional release of a bioengineered virus – and it also conveniently and subtly programs viewers into accepting the idea that vaccines might be the solution to a major, devastating disease outbreak.” And you have no idea how deep the conspiracy goes: You may not have noticed, but Huff has, that the themes of major movie releases over the past several decades are predictive of what ends up taking place not too long afterwards, which clearly shows “that Hollywood is deeply connected to the agendas of those that are now in control of various world governments, including the US government.” For instance, the movie Armageddon clearly predicted 9/11 since it mentioned the possibility of an asteroid hitting New York, and that proves that the government masterminded 9/11 and that Hollywood is in on it. Reflect on that, sheeple!

Meanwhile, Huff is doing his best to protect you from the big bad wolves in the name of “health freedom”. Huff has for instance promoted, and urged his readers to tell Congress to support, a bill entitled the “Free Speech About Science” (FSAS) Act of 2011, which curbs the FDA’s powers to hold supplement manufacturers accountable for the health benefits of the snakeoil they make – basically that such companies’s right to “free speech” means that they shouldn’t be forced to back up their claims with evidence (“the bill will amend current law to allow growers and manufacturers to freely share honest information about food and supplements with their customers,” according to Huff). Clearly, stopping poor supplement manufacturers from falsely advertising their products is an abuse of the health freedom of average Americans. (Defense of supplement manufacturers is a recurring theme of Huff’s).

You get the gist. Here Huff and J.D. Heyes creates a couple of year-end lists for Natural News: their 2015 Journalist Courage Awards and their 2015 Celebrity Hall of Shame Awards. Guess where the science-based stuff ended up.

Diagnosis: Once again: you get the gist. Ethan Huff is an utterly lunatic tinfoil hatter and hard to distinguish from people with epilepsy-inducing webpage designs and weird font choices who are complaining that the lizard people in their TVs have possessed their ex-partners, were it not for the fact that Huff is usually able to stick to ordinary grammar conventions. And even so, NaturalNews can apparently pride themselves on a rather substantial readership.

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#1763: James A. Huggins

December 18, 2016, 12:36 am

≫ Next: #1764: Randy Hultgren

≪ Previous: #1762: Ethan Huff

James A Huggins is a professor and chair of the department of biology at Union University and director of their Hammons Center for Scientific Studies. It’s not as impressive as it might sound. Union University is a fundamentalist Southern Baptist institution and no place to get an education – according to the University website, Huggins, who is also a pastor at Unity Baptist Church, “prays with students in each class as well as when they come to him for advising.” It is instructive how Union University uses this to market their institution. Huggins is also on the Creation Ministries International’s list of “scientists alive today who accept the Biblical account of creation”.

Of course, given that he does, in fact, have a science-related education and a few publications on wildlife ecology that have nothing to do with evolution, he is one of the few signatories to the Discovery Institute’s petition A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism that superficially might seem to lend some air of credibility to such lists.

Diagnosis: Huggins doesn’t seem to be much in the spotlight on these issues, but the fact that he i) does appear on these lists and is ii) associated with something that pretends to be an institution of education is enough to qualify him for inclusion here.

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#1764: Randy Hultgren

December 19, 2016, 1:24 am

≫ Next: #1765: Paul G. Humber

≪ Previous: #1763: James A. Huggins

It’s truly depressing how many of these we need to cover, but Randy Hultgren is another US Representative, this time for Illinois’s 14th congressional district (since 2011; prior to that he sat in the Illinois General Assembly). According to some, Hultgren has gained a reputation as an ardent supporter of research and science education, and NBC Chicago claimed that he has “carved a reputation as a pro-science, pro-STEM education supporter.” He has even won some awards, and praise from various people in powerful administrative positions at major universities; Fermilab Director Pier Oddone, University of Illinois President Robert Easter and University of Chicago President Robert Zimmer even said that “Congressman Hultgren provides a strong voice for science in Congress,” which, I suppose, comes close to clinching a place in our Encyclopedia for all three of them.

Hultgren is a climate change denialist and, apparently, an intelligent design creationist who wants to allow school districts to teach this kind of pseudoscience. A pretty illustrative example of Hultgren’s scientific credentials is his claim that, unlike “dangerous” sex ed, abstinence-only programs have “incredible success records”. He has worked to get funds assigned accordingly. The evidence, which consistently shows the opposite, be damned.

Diagnosis: Anti-science extremist.

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#1765: Paul G. Humber

December 20, 2016, 12:28 am

≫ Next: #1766: Jim Humble

≪ Previous: #1764: Randy Hultgren

Paul G. Humber is the director of CR Ministries and author of things like 400+ Prophecies, Appearances, or Foreshadowings of Christ in the Tanakh and Evolution Exposed. Humber is, of course, a young-earth creationist, and has also penned articles for the Institute of Creation Research and Creation Matters, the newsletter of the Creation Research Society (both organization apparently put “Research” in their name since otherwise no one would ever have guessed that this is what they think they are doing).

Well, Humber’s writings on science contain the usual tropes, appeal to the Bible, obvious lack of expertise and rank denialism, and we’ll limit ourselves to an example: One obvious problem for young-earth creationists is radioactive decay, which rather clearly, uh, suggests that the Earth is somewhat older than they’d like to think. Their solution is of course to (completely out of the blue) assert that radioactive decay isn’t constant but happened much faster in the past. So here’s Humber:

“[C]onsider Deuteronomy 32:22 – ‘For a fire is kindled by My anger, and it burns to the depths of Sheol, devours the earth and its increase, and sets on fire the foundations of mountains.’ This verse may point us in the direction that radioactive decay is a physical manifestation of God’s anger against evil, affecting even biological life. Prior to the Noachian flood, mankind lived much longer. His lifespan has diminished substantially since the flood. Also, even though Noah might well have had some immature dinosaurs on the ark, their nearly total extinction following the flood seems obvious. This also holds with respect to many other animals that have become extinct.”

Or put differently: radioactive decay can’t be used to measure the age of anything, but is instead a measure of how angry God is at any moment. It’s hard to express how mind-boggling it is that anyone above the age of 7 can write this with a straight face and expect to be taken seriously (it’s at the level of “rain is angels relieving themselves”), but at least it entails that God is much less angry these days and accordingly unlikely to be overly concerned with gay marriage, abortion or transgender people using their bathroom of choice.

Here is Humber on Nebraska Man, an incident that really shows science working the way it should, but which to Humber is, irrationally, a reason to dismiss science in general if it doesn’t fit with what he has already convinced himself that he wants to believe.

Diagnosis: Oh, you silly duck. All the facepalms in the world wouldn’t reflect how crazy and silly Humber’s pseudoscientific babbling is, yet he is apparently viewed as an authority in certain quarters.

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#1766: Jim Humble

December 22, 2016, 12:45 am

≫ Next: #1767: Stephen Humphrey

≪ Previous: #1765: Paul G. Humber

Miracle Mineral Supplement (MMS) a solution of 28% sodium chlorite (NaClO2), a toxic industrial chemical known to cause fatal renal failure, in distilled water and prepared in a citric acid solution (thus forming chlorine dioxide, an oxidising agent used in water treatment and bleaching), named and promoted by former scientologist Jim Humble – especially in his 2006 self-published book The Miracle Mineral Solution of the 21st Century. MMS is promoted as a cure for HIV, malaria, viral hepatitis, the H1N1 flu virus, ebola, colds, acne, cancer and lots of other stuff (though on e.g. eBay it is generally sold as a water purifier to circumvent certain restrictions on pushing dangerous substances as medicine; at least one importer has been convicted in the UK). Of course, any remedy that is claimed to be effective against a wide range of unrelated diseases is bullshit (except to the extent that it might cause death, which sort of brings any other illness you might suffer from to an end and which MMS can, in fact, bring about), and Humble’s evidence is strictly limited to anecdotes, which are not supported by (and don’t support) anything. Even whale.to is skeptical, which is something to think about.

The treatment was first advertised to poor families in Haiti and the Dominican Republic as a low-cost solution to their medical needs, and though much of the marketing is targeted at religious cults or people in really desperate situations, MMS has recently been promoted as a “cure” for autistic children. Subjecting a child’s gastrointestinal system to industrial bleaching agents is child abuse, but MMS has nevertheless been promoted at the anti-vaccination movement’s annual quackfest Autism One, and seems to have gained some popularity due to credulous testimonials bandied around by people who don’t know how evidence and reason work. How it is supposed to work seems to be somewhat debated (on closed forums; report here) but apparently it is supposed to clear the body of mystery parasites known as “rope worms” and other pathogens that delusional users apparently believe cause autism (horror stories here; the most horrible part being, of course, how MMS fans, like the religious fanatics they are, take any (negative) effect of the treatment on the patient to be a good sign). The idea is, needless to say, one step up from autism-is-caused-by-evil-spirits and one notch below autism-is-caused-by-imbalance-of-the-humors, and has nothing to do with anything resembling science or minimal knowledge of how the body works. (And of course: the parasites are caused by vaccines – adopting one crazy delusion doesn’t mean that you have to give up the others; they all fit together in a grand unified system of depraved nonsense).

As a matter of fact, authorities have – for once – tended to take MMS seriously as the insanity it is both in Europe and the US (see here for a good summary, and here for fair and balanced coverage). Because of reports including nausea, vomiting, and dangerously low blood pressure as a result of dehydration following instructed use of Humble’s bleach product, the FDA has advised consumers to dispose of the product immediately, and (e.g.) Irish parents who have used MMS on their children are facing criminal investigations. In the US, Kerri Rivera – the main promoter of MMS as an autism cure – was subpoenaed in the wake of her presentation at the 2015 Autism One conference, and after proving (of course) to be unable to present anything resembling evidence for the benefit of MMS she was forced to sign an agreement barring her from further promoting it or appearing at conferences in the state of Illinois. There have been legal backfires as well. In 2015 Louis Daniel Smith was found guilty of selling industrial bleach as a miracle cure for various diseases including cancer, AIDS, malaria, hepatitis, lyme disease, asthma and colds (three of his alleged co-conspirators, Chris Olson, Tammy Olson and Karis DeLong, pleaded guilty to introducing misbranded drugs into interstate commerce before the trial). Rivera claims MMS is most most effective when doses are timed to cycles of the moon: “full moon because the parasites go into the gut during the full moon and the new moon and they mate,” says Rivera.

Jim Humble himself is the self-styled archbishop of The Genesis II Church of Health and Healing, and tends to present himself as some sort of messiah; a report from a secret meeting of his church is here. MMS is described as a “sacrament”, though that is probably mostly for legal purposes. Humble lists an impressive CV (hard to back up, of course), including having cured malaria (though of course the Red Cross is desperately trying to cover up the remarkable results for unclear reasons but a tendency toward conspiracy). As for evidence, well, he’s got some testimonials – e.g. from Lindsay “Bionic woman” Wagner – and seems not to understand why anyone would ask for anything else. Among the more interesting details of his background is his claim to have been sent to earth from a “Planet of the Gods” in the Andromeda galaxy on a mining mission, which is also how he discovered the miracle cure. He also has plenty of stories of how he has been pushing his dangerous nonsense to poor areas of Africa as a cure for malaria, which is not funny. Humble seems to have had a particular success with cults (the CBC recently covered the trend among certain religious groups using MMS for healing purposes, for instance) – though I suppose most of his groups of fans may come close to fit that description in any case – where Humble can really emphasize the magic properties of his bleach product to audiences receptive to that kind of crazy. Humble’s “archbishop” Mark Grenon says that if you get breast cancer you brought it on yourself, and that women should rely on MMS, not mammograms, surgery, and chemotherapy.

Diagnosis: The mind boggles at the insanity of it all – and it attracts otherwise ordinary-looking people in a manner reminiscent of standard horror movie tropes about dark cults. Humble himself is either a very cynical liar or a complete idiot. Those are not mutually exclusive attributes.

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#1767: Stephen Humphrey

December 28, 2016, 12:53 am

≫ Next: #1768: Margaret Hunter

≪ Previous: #1766: Jim Humble

State legislatures again! This time it’s the Colorado House of Representatives (they’ve got Gordon Klingenschmitt, too), where Stephen Humphrey has been representing District 48 since 2013. Promptly after having been elected, Humphrey submitted House Bill 13-1089, an “Academic Freedom Act” for both K-12 public schools and institutes of higher education in the state of Colorado. Academic Freedom Acts are of course attempts to protect teaching creationism in public school classrooms, often padded with protections of other types of pseudoscience and denialism as well, usually modeled after the example of the Discovery Institute’s Model academic freedom statute on evolution. It has nothing to do with academic freedom, but “protecting academic freedom” sounds better than the more accurate “trying to get religion back into classrooms and removing scientific facts that fundamentalists find threatening to what they wish were true”.

Humphrey’s bill in particular would “direct teachers to create an environment that encourages students to intelligently and respectfully explore scientific questions and learn about scientific evidence related to biological and chemical evolution, global warming, and human cloning.” The bill also referred to those as “controversial issues”, where “controversial issues” means “issues where Humphrey doesn’t like the consensus position among scientists.” There is no scientific controversy over evolution or global warming. So, not only is Humphrey a creationist and global warming denialist; he also wants Colorado to ensure that his politically and religiously motivated denialism is what is taught in schools. According to Humphrey, his intention was not to add religious dogma to the curriculum, but his intention was, of course, precisely to add religious dogma to the curriculum. Even the most baldfaced lie is apparently acceptable as long as you do it for Jesus.

The cosponsors of the bill were Perry Buck (R-District 49), Justin Everett (R-District 22), Chris Holbert (R-District 44), Janak Joshi (R-District 16), Dan Nordberg (R-District 14), Lori Saine (R-District 63), and James D. Wilson (R-District 60), so you know who not to vote for if you have a vote in Colorado. The bill was apparently also introduced in the senate, where the sponsors were Scott Renfroe (R-District 13), an anti-gay activist and card-carrying member of ALEC, an organization devoted to this kind of legislation; Kevin Grantham (R-District 2); Ted Harvey (R-District 30); and Owen Hill (R-District 10).

The bill died in committee, as expected, but Humphrey is still in the Colorado House, and he is surely up to no good.

Last time Colorado saw a creationist bill was apparently in 2010, when state senator Dave Schultheis submitted his creationism andtheocracy bill (not Schultheis’s title).

Diagnosis: Another Taliban representative in a State legislature. He shouldn’t be there. Get him out.

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#1768: Margaret Hunter

December 30, 2016, 12:59 am

≫ Next: #1769: Scott Huse

≪ Previous: #1767: Stephen Humphrey

Creationists have, if nothing else, come up with some pretty amazing arguments, such as the banana argument, the peanut butter argument, pygmies+dwarfs and the evergreen “why are there still monkeys?” to mention a few. Margaret Hunter has an argument that, although it can’t perhaps quite compete with the aforementioned ones, is definitely in the same league.

Who is Hunter? Apparently she is a self-described mathematician (we haven’t verified her credentials) and the owner of Bible Charts and Maps in Duck, West Virginia. She also has a vanity press book. We haven’t read that one, but it came accompanied by a press release containing an argument that, if it is representative for the contents of the book, suggests that it is a unique experience. The press release was titled “Amazing Bible Timeline Highlights Math Supports Creationism,” and the argument concerns “the twelve events stated in the Biblical account of creation.” You see, “[s]cience has actually confirmed that these events are not only correct but they are stated in the correct order.” Naturally, Hunter wondered: “Without prior scientific knowledge, what are the chances Moses guessed the correct order of Earth’s evolution or creation when he wrote Genesis?” And she calculated that it must be “Less Than 1 Chance in 479 Million Moses Made Up The Creation Account.” Oh, yeah. Of course, she overlooked the fact that it’s not like it would have been a random guess (you don’t need to know much science to figure out that the Earth must be created before the plants, for instance). She also overlooked the fact that Moses didn’t get the chronology even remotely correct (light being created before the sun and the stars, plants being created before animals and so on). But you know. Details. Jesus.

Diagnosis: Astonishing crackpottery. It’s probably pretty harmless, though, and will hardly recruit many non-crazy people to the anti-science movement.

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#1769: Scott Huse

January 2, 2017, 12:41 am

≫ Next: #1770: Warner Todd Huston

≪ Previous: #1768: Margaret Hunter

More creationists. Scott Huse is the author of The Collapse of Evolution, a book that has apparently achieved some popularity in certain circles. Huse’s book, which describes the crisis in and imminent collapse of the theory of evolution, was first published in 1983. A book with the same title was published by one Luther Tracy Townsend in 1905. Apparently the collapse of evolution is as imminent as the end times.

Anyways, the book consists of more or less every anti-evolution PRATT you can think of, such as the claim that evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics (the scientific illiteracy required to run that argument is pretty staggering, and it is telling that it is still so popular among the more delusional creationist segments), that there are no transitional fossils, that radiometric dating cannot be trusted, and that human and dinosaur fossils have been found alongside each other. Indeed, when reading Huse claiming that according to evolutionary theory humans descended from birds or that the platypus is the evolutionary link between birds and mammals, one almost starts wondering whether the whole thing is a poe. It isn’t. Huse is just dense.

Diagnosis: Completely delusional. One almost feels sorry for him.

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#1770: Warner Todd Huston

January 5, 2017, 12:34 am

≫ Next: #1771: Jennifer Hutchinson

≪ Previous: #1769: Scott Huse

Warner Todd Huston is a wingnut and occasional writer for Breitbart.com, who at least used to be part of the Stop the ACLU group. Huston is the kind of guy who would blame the Santa Barbara shootings on hippies and universities since colleges are now all about gay rights and frivolous sex and have completely stopped being places of learning and education and are thus contributing to … well, if the connection between porn and radical Islamism isn’t entirely clear to you then you are probably already lost to the “moral corruption” of contemporary higher education. That kind of guy. Here is Huston on the Christmas tree tax. And yes, he is a complete moron.

Huston is actually probably most famous for his 2014 article for Breitbart where he reported that Loretta Lynch, Obama’s nominee for attorney general, had been part of Bill Clinton’s defense team during the Whitewater scandal. Apparently college didn’t teach Huston to do his homework. He also has a long history of arguing that kwanzaa is a fake holiday with a racist goal that is completely made-up, unlike other holidays which apparently weren’t made up, and we have no idea what the distinction amounts to.

He has written for RenewAmerica, too, no less, for instance arguing for the criminalization of Islam long before it became mainstream (not really, though).

Diagnosis: We could continue, but you get the gist. Angry, delusional zealot.

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