Encyclopedia of American Loons

To give you an idea: Thomas Clough has, among other things, written about the “War on Christmas”, where he has brought up for instance the pertinent question: “Why Do Many Jews Hate Christmas?” That article was published on David Duke’s website. Otherwise, Clough runs the website WeirdRepublic and has (apparently) written numerous books, such as The Little Book in defense of “traditional marriage”, which is aimed at members of Congress, state representatives, clergy, conservative radio personalities and state attorneys general “who are charged with defending natural marriage.” In the book, Clough makes up whatever statistics he needs to support his argument against marriage equality and points out that the fight is made difficult by the “hundreds of queer judges lurking in our court system,” including, he speculates, the most recently appointed Supreme Court justices. Otherwise, Clough seems to focus in particular on MRA stuff, the plights of white males and suchlike.

Diagnosis: You know the type – the scourge of family dinner parties anywhere. Relatively minor, but he probably has a modicum of influence (we've seen his website praised), and there are many enough who share the delusions of Tom Clough.

Craig Paul Cobb is the white supremacist that operates the video sharing website Podblanc. Cobb claims “racism is my religion”, advocates “racial holy war” in accordance with the tenets of The Creativity Movement, and is particularly notorious for his celebration of violence and murder committed against minorities. Hate crimes? No; words like “hate crime” – and “gay” – were “devised by Jews to oppress whites,” according to Cobb. So there.

He is way most famous, though, for his bizarre campaign to dominate the hamlet of Leith, North Dakota (16 inhabitants) with other white supremacists. Cobb moved to Leith in 2012 with little subtlety and promptly made the hamlet both a center for Neo-Nazi ridiculousness and the target of various anti-racist protests. Apparently Cobb owns at least 12 plots of land in the town, and several other prominent white supremacists also own land in Leith, partially because Cobb has transferred ownership of plots to fellow white supremacists, including Alex Linder and Tom Metzger.

Cobb’s plans failed, and he was eventually arrested in 2013 for terrorizing his neighborhood. While in prison he refused food because he was practicing mahasamadhi and believed he would leave his physical body for another “plane of existence” at Yuletide. He’s still around, though he seems to have quieted down a bit.

Diagnosis: I think you’ll manage this one yourself.

Mike Coffman is the U.S. Representative for Colorado’s 6th congressional district since 2009, having formerly served as the Secretary of State of Colorado. He is famous for his birther sympethies, and during a campaign fundraiser in 2012 he declared that “I don’t know whether Barack Obama was born in the United States of America. I don’t know that. But I do know this, that in his heart, he’s not an American. He’s just not an American.” He later claimed that he “misspoke”, which he rather clearly didn’t. He may not have anticipated that a recording from the meeting be made public, but apparently some of the contributors at the meeting (e.g. Brooks Imperial, who made the recording) agreed with the sentiment and thought it should be distributed more widely. He later also walked back on his apology, praising those who don’t believe Obama was born in the United States: “[Issues are] going to determine this election, not focusing on the birther question. God bless people that do that. I understand their passion.”

So that tells you a bit about Coffman’s cognitive abilities – or his honesty and integrity (or probably both). It’s not particularly surprising, then, that Coffman is a global warming denialist. He is aware of the scientific consensus surrounding the issue, but as he points out: “One thing that I certainly read in, from, viable sources is that a lot of the research that’s being done, if you don’t, when you put your application in to get a grant, if you don’t submit to the, you know, orthodoxy of climate change by the radical environmentalists you’re not going to get a grant.” Yes, that’s right. Scientists don’t disagree with the radical orthodoxy for fear of losing their research grants, and need someone like Coffman – who is so independent of any scientific group, background or body of evidence that it borders on the remarkable – to speak out for them. Of course, Coffman doesn’t quite understand how research grants work, but neither does his audience so it is really a win-win for him. (Nor does he have any evidence for his pretty easily testable claim, nor does he realize that even if the claim were correct, it would do little to undermine the existing evidence for AGW, and so on.)

Diagnosis: Inhofe-wannabe, it seems – at least Coffman is yet another delusional conspiracy theorist, Coast-to-Coast-AM-style, who has managed to get himself elected into a position of power. Scary stuff.

Though he is the author of a particularly idiotic essay on Intelligent Design, Jonah Cohen seems to be too minor even for us.

Michael H. Cohen, on the other hand, is perhaps one of the more dangerous promoters of pseudoscience and woo out there. Cohen, apparently a former professor at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health – he has for instance been deeply involved in the woo shenanigans that have plagued the Harvard Medical School the last couple of years – is the founder of the Michael H. Cohen Law Group, which specializes in healthcare-related legal issues surrounding altmed, FDA & FTC law, and how to get quacks and crackpots off various legal hooks. Apparently Cohen is also trained as a seminarian, yogi, Ericksonian hypnotherapist, and energy healer, having been the president of the Institute for Integrative and Energy Medicine in Newport Beach; the NCCAM has also made use of his writings). Of course, Cohen has no background in science, medicine or good critical thinking, but he knows his legal issues, and his numerous books on legal questions surrounding pseudoscience and woo have presumably been quite helpful for practitioners who wish to exploit people in difficult situations (as suggested e.g. by his contribution to the collection Integrative Oncology: Incorporating Complementary Medicine into Conventional Cancer Care (Current Clinical Oncology), edited by Maurie Markman and Lorenzo Cohen). He has even managed to get at least one of his screeds (discussed here) published in the influential (peer-reviewed) journal Pediatrics; in “Informed Consent: Advising Patients and Parents About Complementary and Alternative Medicine Therapies” he and his coauthors (Joan Gilmour, Christine Harrison, Leyla Asadi and Sunita Vohra, a Canadian physician affiliated with the “Complementary and Alternative Research Education (CARE) Program,”) advocate using laws about informed consent to force doctors to “inform” their patients about “complementary and alternative medicine” to pediatric patients, using touching anecdotes and trying to claim that the evidence indicates that certain alternative modalities such as acupuncture are efficacious (false).

Of course, Cohen doesn’t limit himself to promoting acupuncture. His blog, CAMLaw, is “unrelentingly hostile to science-based medicine” and pro-woo, and Cohen has been deeply involved in the American Association for Health Freedom, a group dedicated to convincing the government to legitimize various implausible medical claims through political campaigning rather than science.

To get an idea about where he comes from, you could have a look at his essay “What is the Matrix? A Radical Look at Medico-Legal Reform,” in which he likens health care law and health care to the Matrix, promoting instead what appears to be a complete lack of regulation. And instead of regulations, he suggests … well, perhaps we should let him speak for himself:

“Health and healing can involve the highest of which a human being is capable. Near-death experiences, encounters with angels, and events that touch the individual’s interior castle and border on mysticism-hese experience manifest ‘light,’ in the sense of coming closer to that which is Supreme at the edges of our consciousness. How would an enlightened civilization, composed of enlightened citizens, govern its own evolutionary movement toward the highest possible level of healing? What role would law play? Would the absence of regulation, instead of its pervasiveness, bring peace-a kind of regulatory lacuna? Would legal structures be able to handle the notion that healing involves mind, body, emotions, and spirit, but also such other dimensions of the human experience as inter-species communication and greater sense of earth-consciousness (Gaia)?”

Yeah, that kind of guy. But he still managed to get a (co-authored) article in Pediatrics.

Diagnosis: Not the faintest trace of understanding of or respect for science, reason or careful assessment of evidence. Indeed, Cohen’s writings are prime whale.to material. Yet he somehow still maintains a scary amount of influence.

A.k.a. America’s Pharmacist™ also A.k.a. America’s Most Trusted Pharmacist®

Oh, yes, after reading this far you already know everything you need to know. Suzy Cohen apparently has some training as a pharmacist, a background she uses for what it’s worth in her (probably unintentional) efforts to mislead people with real (or imagined, but probably often real) illnesses and conditions through her syndicated column Ask the Pharmacist– and no: If you have a health-related problem, you definitely shouldn’t.

Coffee enemas, anyone? Yes, some people actually believe that you could derive tremendous health benefits by simply shooting that coffee directly into your rectum. The idea is precisely as silly and unsupported by anything resembling evidence as you would expect, but Cohen is on board. According to Cohen (but emphatically not reality) “coffee enemas may help relieve constipation, insomnia and cognitive problems; they may eliminate (or control) parasites, candida and other pathogens (without disrupting intestinal flora).” And hey, “[c]offee enemas are frequently used in natural cancer protocols such as the Gerson Therapy.” Yes, that Gerson therapy. It is, of course, all about the toxins: “You are exposed to a barrage of toxic compounds in your life, you can easily become overloaded. Some of you cannot detoxify properly. Coffee enemas help you make glutathione, an antioxidant and that sends poisons packing,” says Cohen. She doesn’t specify which toxins, of course. Nor does she provide any citations or even gesture toward any remotely coherent mechanism.

And for Huffington Post, Cohen has given us the rather deplorable article “Feel Bad? It Could Be Lyme Unless Proven Otherwise,” in which she claims – you guessed it – that any otherwise unexplained maladies or feeling less-than-perfect may very well be the result “chronic Lyme disease,” which is almost certainly not a well-definable diagnosis. The lack of a proper definition has, unsurprisingly, not prevented a whole industry from forming around non-evidence-based treatments of this nebulous condition. Cohen, however, seems to base most of her information on the work of Dr. Richard Horowitz, one of several self-styled Lyme-literate medical doctors and brave mavericks who have made a career of diagnosing and treating conditions not recognized by mainstream medical science.

Cohen is otherwise “passionate about natural medicine” and promotes a number of nonsensical treatments, from Bach flower remedies to acupuncture for tinnitus. She has also said that “Antibiotics are actually derived from mold/fungus so it’s recommended that you avoid antibiotics if you have any fungal infection or various immune system disorders.” Yeah, that’s the level at which her understanding of biology and medicine is pitched. It hasn’t prevented her from writing several books.

Diagnosis: Crazy crackpot and pseudoscientist. Stay far, far away.

The group One Million Moms was created to promote a boycott of JC Penney over their choice of Ellen DeGeneres, a “strong gay activist” because of her support of same-sex marriage, as a spokesperson. The group, which seems to have missed the million members mark by some distance, prides itself on the promotion of Family Values™ and similar hate ideologies and is, of course, particularly focused on homosexuality. JC Penney was not impressed by their campaigns, but the organization has continued its fight against decency and civilization by focusing on a variety of other targets, as an arm of the American Family Association.

Monica Cole, the director, has for instance made an effort to have Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eyecensored from Common Core because “[t]his book is no different than pornography,” particularly because of one character’s “use of the Lord's name to justify his [perverted] actions,” which is apparently an attempt to brainwash kids into violence and sex slavery or something. Other targets for the group include Wicked (a recipe for “how to get away with murder”), Macy’s (because of a “kinky boots” performance), Graham crackers (because of Honey Maid’s “disrespect of millions of American families by supporting the homosexual agenda”), The Gap, The Fosters, the show Lucifer (because it is “not only disrespecting Christianity and mocking the Bible, but it can mess with people's eternity”) and The New Normal, which according to Cole shows how Hollywood “continues to attack Christian values, conservative values, the traditional family,” while mourning that “the moral decay in public airwaves is continuing.” Among their more recent targets is Tylenol, after a gay couple showed up in one of their commercials. The ad claimed that “[f]amily isn’t defined by who you love, but how,” and Cole responded that this message illustrates that “Tylenol is just contributing to the collapse of the family.” Just think about it.

How successful have they been? In June 2015 Cole at least bragged about having had the television show “Black Jesus” cancelled, which must be news to Cartoon Network, who renewed it in December 2014.

Diagnosis: At least Bryan Fischer shows some originality; Cole is mostly just boring – the same old non-arguments and non-reasons to provide a feeble cover for very mundane hatred and craziness. At least her influence appears to be far more negligible than she seems to think.

Dumpster diving in the Discovery Institute’s petition A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism also produced today’s entry. Nicholas Comninellis is Associate Professor of Community and Family Medicine at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. We have been unable to locate any actual research output for Comninellis (doing science is not a prerequisite for signing the Discovery Institute list), but he is at least the author of several creationist books, including Creative Defense: Evidence Against Evolution, which apparently argues that “[p]hilosophically, the dogma of evolution is a dream, a theory without a vestige of truth,” whatever that means (it certainly doesn’t suggest a discussion of the scientific evidence for that scientific theory). He has also produced Darwin’s Demise: Why Evolution Can’t Take the Heat, which helpfully demonstrates how its central argument relies on wishful thinking in its very title. Harun Yahya is apparently a fan of Comninellis’s writings, which for someone dabbling in biology is the equivalent of being endorsed by Craig Paul Cobb if you’re doing political theory.

Diagnosis: Crackpot who hates science (and philosophy) since it threatens the beliefs he arrived at by non-evidential and non-rational means. I suppose that since he is, in fact, affiliated with a real educational and research institution it’s a good thing he is so open about his anti-science attitude.

Another day, another disastrously insane wingnut. David Conn is a self-proclaimed expert on Jim Jones and his Jonestown cult. His novel contribution, however, is his declaration that President Obama is “the reemergence of the Jones Cult mentality on a grand national level.” As he explained to Rick Wiles, who promptly invited him to his show to explain the details (yes, Conn is the kind of guy that passes as “expert” in these kinds of places): “First off,” according to Conn, “Jones captured the media and Obama captured the media. Jones had a strange childhood,” and similarly “Obama also had a very strange childhood. You know, a father deserted the child when he two years old. Obama’s only father figure was a terribly nasty old man, a pornographer and a child molester and a cocaine user who was an avowed communist,” namely Frank Marshall Davis. According to Conn, “it’s pretty well established that Frank Marshall Davis was the one that got Obama into cocaine. And also, both of them, Jones and Obama, had a background of community organizing.” Can’t argue with that, can you?

More importantly, though, “Obama is a leader of a massive cult himself. He’s the leader of the cult and the cult is Islam and he leads it by way of being its major Western world defender,” and he’s leading America to cultural suicide. He’s accordingly far more dangerous than Jones, “because already what’s going on has caused, I think, enormous amounts of people who have just lost everything they’ve had and who knows how many suicides.”

Diagnosis: The comparison is, indeed, telling – it doesn’t say much about Obama, of course, but quite a bit about what kind of hysterically insane delusions certain loons on the far right is currently trying to mainstream.

Paul Connett is the executive director of the Fluoride Action Network (FAN), an anti-fluoridation activist group that has been somewhat successful in rallying doctors and dentists – people who look like they might have credentials (Connett himself, though, is a retired professor of chemistry) – together in his mission to destroy any attempt to add trace amounts of fluoride in water for the betterment of children.

Connett has been in the game for over 30 years, and his impressively large output has succeeded in scaring many local communities. A typical example is his pamphlet (created with the late John Yiamouyiannis) “A Lifesaver’s Guide to Fluoridation,” widely distributed to policy makers and concerned citizens (avoiding scientists, of course), which provided 250 references that supposedly backed up the claim that fluoridation is ineffective and dangerous. Though when a Ohio team traced the references, they found that almost half had no relevance to community water fluoridation and many others actually supported fluoridation but were selectively quoted and misrepresented. Which, of course, is how health scares and hysteria mongering work.

Connett’s masterpiece, 50 Reasons to Oppose Fluoridation, lays out his reasons for why the scientific consensus is mistaken. Predictably, the reasons range from the ridiculous to professional twisting of statistical data and denying the clear and substantive evidence in a manner worthy of the fringe of the global warming denialist movement. He even has, prominently on the front of his webpage, “3,209 Medical, Scientific, and Environmental Professionals Sign Statement Calling for End to Fluoridation Worldwide.” Oh, weee. A better indication of crankery you’ll struggle to find. Heck, Connett even admits that among the signatories there are 458 chiropractors and 138 naturopaths. Counting as “Medical, Scientific, and Environmental Professionals”. Seriously.

The sordid story of his book The Case Against Fluoride: How Hazardous Waste Ended Up in Our Drinking Water and the Bad Science and Powerful Politics That Keep It There, coauthored with James S. Beck and H. Spedding Micklem, is related here. At least he’s popular with Joe Mercola, Mike Adams, and Alex Jones, and he has been showing up at the antivaxx quackfest Autism One.

Diagnosis: Oh, yes; yet another example of the bullshit that feeds Alex Jones and whale.to. And yes, it is pseudoscience, crackpottery and conspiracies through and through.

Though he didn’t get elected, Bill Connor was one of a colorful array of Tea Party candidates challenging Sen. Lindsey Graham in South Carolina’s 2014 Republican primary. He was admittedly overshadowed by Lee Bright in terms of media coverage, but Connor, an Army veteran and former lieutenant governor candidate, did receive some attention when the Tea Party Coalition arranged a lively debate between Bright, Connor and the two other Tea Party candidates, where Connor spent the whole event waving a pocket copy of the Constitution, which he has apparently never read particularly closely. During the debate Connor asserted (among other things) that the Europeans he fought alongside in Afghanistan were less hard-working and ingenious than American soldiers because “Europe had gone socialist” and “post-Christian”; that Congress should impeach President Obama over his executive order implementing part of the DREAM Act; that the separation of church and state has caused “atheism to be our national religion”; and that Congress should disband federal appeals courts that enforce church-state separation because “if you’re being biblical, you’re doing your job as a judge.”

When asked about climate change, Connor responded that it was “gobbledygook,” which he illustrated by asking everybody in the audience to take a deep breath, breath out, then telling them that “you’re putting carbon deposits in the air and you’re causing global warming.” Gobbledygook, indeed. No, he doesn’t really get the point, but neither did the other candidates (Nancy “a recent freeze disproved climate change” Mace and Richard “MLK’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech was about banning abortion” Cash).

Diagnosis: Look, Bill: Waving a copy of the Constitution is not magically going to make the theocratic nonsense that falls out of your mouth more in line with its contents. Though we admit that Connor might just be a prop in a deliberate strategy to make Lee Bright come across as less insane than he is. It didn’t work.

The money is apparently too tempting, and the result is that today even venerable, well-respected medical and academic institutions are experiencing the aggressive intrusion of woo, pseudoscience, fraud and quackery. Among those fallen to the temptation of incorporating ~~medieval witchcraft~~alternative medicine and faith healing is the University Hospitals of Cleveland, which since 2011 has been offering reiki, acupuncture and reflexology to people in pain and distress. Reiki, of course, is faith healing, but with an orientalist rather than Western-medieval wrapping that makes it more palatable to urbane middle-class people with slightly racist attitudes toward people with Asian backgrounds. Reflexology, on the other hand, is the idea that one may be able to affect specific organs by linking them to where they are “mapped” on the soles of the feet and palms of the hands, based on the same noble and ancient principles as palm reading. Neither treatment is even remotely supported by any serious medical evidence, of course. But as Dr. Francoise Adan, medical director of UH’s new Connor Integrative Medicine Network, tried to explain, “[w]e are an academic center, so these are evidence-based therapies.” No, Dr. Adan. That’s not how it works.

And that last sentence gives you a hint about the identity of the “Connor” part of this entry as well. Chris Connor is the chairman and CEO of the Sherwin-Williams Co., and has been a board member at UH for more than 10 years. He and his wife Sara have apparently decided to spend some of their fortune to offer non-efficacious, fake medical treatments to people, and funded the program at UH in 2013 with a $1 million gift, “knowing that people would be more open to such therapies if they were offered through a medical center.” Indeed. None of the money was earmarked for the purpose of trying to boost the acceptance of such treatments through, you know, evidence. The real villains, of course, are the administration at the University Hospitals of Cleveland who lacked the integrity, spine and moral compass to decline the gift. And apparently more than 1,500 employees of UH have been treated with “integrative medicine” and, disconcertingly, 356 of them have undergone reiki 1 training.

Diagnosis: Some wealthy people do indeed spend part of their wealth to benefit humanity. Others spend it like Chris Connor. A serious threat to humanity and civilization.

Ed Conrad is a legendary internet kook particularly familiar from his, uh, contributions to the talk.origins newsgroup. Without going into to much detail, Conrad claims to be the victim of a grand scientific conspiracy since he allegedly found human remains in a coal seam that dates to long before humans were around. Accordingly, the Darwinian Establishment wants to silence him, and will stop at nothing. Naturally, his contributions to debates are characterized by Conrad suspecting that any critic of his ramblings being part of the conspiracy; the result is … well, for the most part much fun. His website is here.

Much of the noise centers around Conrad’s skull-shaped object (a rock, in fact), which he says was found in the Carboniferous-dated anthracite region of Pennsylvania in June of 1981, and which was investigated (according to Conrad) by scientists at the Smithsonian, who determined that it was a concretion, a conclusion Conrad has … had a hard time accepting (he has later come up with a range of other, similar items, none particularly more impressive than his first ones) since it does, to Conrad, look so much like a skull. He is, however, somewhat more skeptical of otherpeople’s claims (this one is hilarious). The spirit of Ed Conrad and his discoveries is well captured here.

At present he appears to be pushing 9/11 truther insanity and some half-garbled urban legends as proof of the existence of God, or something.

Diagnosis: Might be a bit unfair to include him here (he’s pretty harmless), but Ed Conrad has managed to become something of a legend in certain circles.

Louis Conte is a Community Corrections officer (i.e. a parole or probation officer) and anti-vaccination activist who sometimes contributes to that pit of quackery and denialism Age of Autism. To a significant extent, it seems, Conte expresses his frustration that the world at large doesn’t seem to take him or his insane crankery seriously (so yes, he seems to be sort of aware of that, at least) and complains that it (reality) is out to get him.

Thus, when Seth Kalichman of Denying AIDS and Other Oddities received a $100,000 grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to “establish an internet-based global monitoring and rapid alert system for finding, analyzing, and counteracting misinformation communication campaigns regarding vaccines to support global immunization efforts,” Conte took it personally – in particular, Kalichstein’s failure to answer his (apparently numerous) emails – and concluded more or less that Bill Gates was out to get him (and give him some nebulous punishmet) after finding him guilty without due process. Yes, it is the reasoning of your stock conspiracy theorist, and quite illuminatingly: Kalichman is monitoring antivaccine activists not because he cares about the truth or about health, but because he serves (and is on the payroll of) some shady, undisclosed agenda. (And no, just to get that out of the way: Kalichstein’s program is not a threat to Conte’s free speech.) It is also telling that Conte is the author of The Autism War: A Novel, which is a novel about an autism coverup conspiracy.

We’ve actually met Louis Conte before, as a co-author with Mary Holland, Robert Krakow, and Lisa Colin on an absolutely abysmally horrible “analysis” of Vaccine Court claims that they tried (and failed) to represent as “proof” that the government has conceded that vaccines cause autism, using (among other things) an impressive array of misleading arguments and fallacies. Though of course, the purpose of the analysis was never to win on science, but to win law and policy makers over to the idea that there is, indeed, a serious issue here, which is the same strategy used by denialists and creationists everywhere. (There is also that novel, if you need further emphasis of that point.)

Otherwise, Conte seems to be a regular at anti-vaccine conferences and apparently a popular speaker (again, that novel – yeah, it’s fiction, but so is most of the other stuff peddled at those conferences).

Diagnosis: An interesting case; Conte seems to recognize that being a lunatic conspiracy theorist is sort of bad, but he doesn’t seem to be able to help it, and his writings are often blatant displays of the spirit of David Icke’s forums and InfoWars. That said, Conte has done quite a bit to perpetuate vaccine hysteria, and seems to have made some impact. Dangerous, in other words.

Tara Cook-Littman was a Democratic candidate for the Connecticut legislature in District 134, a career she embarked upon after having made a name for herself as an ardent promoter of denialism and anti-science. Indeed, Cook-Littman is a self-described “holistic health counselor”, and her zealous disregard for science, evidence or reality has been on ample display in her campaigns against genetically modified foods and for laws addressing the labeling of GMO foods.

Even more objectionably, Cook-Littman featured in the film “Bought”, a piece of shrill propaganda trying to argue, against all medical evidence, that vaccines are dangerous and lead to autism and that – once again without a shred of evidence and clearly as a feeble attempt to avoid having to engage with the actual science by appealing to conspiracy – that the pharmaceutical industry has “bought off” the government to make money selling vaccines. The film also discusses GMOs, suggesting – once again blatantly contradicting numerous peer-reviewed scientific studies to the contrary – that they, too, are dangerous, and that – but of course – the relatively small biotech industry has bought the government regulators.

Diagnosis: No, anti-science is not the exclusive domain of wingnuts; indeed, Cook-Littman’s attempts to support advicing adults not to vaccinate their children is arguably more dangerous and insane than what all but a very few wingnuts could come up with. A horrible person and a real threat to civilization.

Coombs. We haven't
managed to find any picture
that we can verify is, in fact,
a picture of Morris.

If you really want to see an array of quackery in real life like you’ve never seen before you may seek out the anti-vaxx crowd’s annual quackfest Autism One, though you need to be discrete – they are pretty wary of letting in people who have a record of promoting science. Many of the talks and presentations there are devoted to alleged remedies for autism – none of them even remotely connected to reality or real research, of course, and there seems to be few restrictions on what level of insanity is considered acceptable. Take Nathan Coombs and Rhonda Morris’s contribution to the 2011 meeting. Coombs and Morris promote the use of medical cannabis for autism, which I suppose sounds sufficiently zeitgeisty to have the potential for a modicum of popularity. Evidence of efficacy? No, you see, the presentation “is a parent’s personal perspective on the use of medical cannabis on their children with autism, and its effectiveness on symptoms.” Evidence has got nothing to do with it.

Coombs and Morris represent the Autism and Compassionate Care Connection, an organization devoted to “offer individuals with autism and their families a holistic alternative,” meaning cannabis. According to their website they “are highly compassionate and educated professionals with many years of experience” … but none of them have any background in medicine or science. A “Bachelors degree in Spanish Linguistic” or “an Administrative Credential from California State University San Bernardino” isn’t really quite the same.

Diagnosis: Their influence seems to be pretty limited, but they sure give us a good example of the amazing range of quackery and crackpottery that prey on parents of children with autism spectrum disorders. Complete shit.

According to herself, Diana Cooper was “born on 7th September 1940 in the Himalayas at the exact second the first bomb fell on London [yeah, she might be British; we’ve no idea, and we don’t care];” indeed, she “was sent to bring in light to counteract the darkness at the other side of the world,” though her purpose in life was kept hidden from her until she was divorced at the age of 42, when “a beautiful six foot tall golden angel stood in front of me and pulled me out of my physical body. We flew together and it showed me many things. Finally we flew together over a hall full of people with rainbow auras and it told me I was on the platform for I was to be a spiritual teacher.” Yes, there of deep sadness to that story that Cooper doesn’t seem to be entirely aware of (which is part of what’s sad about it), but in any case Cooper subsequently “trained to become a hypnotherapist and set up in practice,” to help people get in touch with angels. Yes, Diana Cooper does angel therapy, and that is possibly the most ridiculous, silly and laughable branch of woo you’ll ever encounter (perhaps short of homeopathy). And in her book New Light on Angelsshe generously shares information she reports to have gained from the angels she’s met with you (the advice is, unsurprisingly, pretty inane, nebulous and offered in the kind of language stupid people think suggests profundity). She is also the founder ot the Diana Cooper Foundation, which offers advice and train angel healers.

On her website she will accordingly advice you on all things angelic and how you can use it in daily life. You could, for instance, make yourself an angelic healing ball to send energy. To do so, you need to “activate the palm chakras, by rubbing your hands together” and “[i]nvoke the angel of the energy that you wish to send, the angels of colour to add their energy to the ball and the angels of sound” (the quotes are from one Susan Rudd, who is “Master Teacher at Diana Cooper Foundation”). Apparently the ball exists only in your imagination, like everything else. You can also learn to communicate with animals. How? Well, make sure that you’re “asking the unicorns and [your] guardian angel to connect with the guardian angel of the animal or plant.” Wait, unicorns? Oh, yes, right. That’s another, uh, something you can communicate with. Cooper has written a book on them, too: The Wonder of Unicorns. “Enjoy connecting with them – it is magical and creates big energy shifts” (according to Penny Wing, “Master Teacher at the Diana Cooper Foundation”).

Of course, with a mind as unfettered by the constraints of reason and reality as Diana Cooper’s you can rest assured that she’s not going to limit herself to angels. Indeed, her website is a source of pastel woo so rich that it would rival the (usually somewhat angrier) information available whale.to. Extraterrestrials? You bet: “The Arcturians are one of the most advanced civilisations in the galaxy. They teach that the most important ingredient for living a 5th dimensional life is love.” Apparently we will all enter the 5th dimension by 2032 (as described in her book A New Light on Ascension), and it is a matter of opening new chakras – no, I have no idea how she defines “dimension”, but I doubt Cooper has any idea either.

And that’s just the beginning. Wouldn’t you just love to take the Lemurian Planetary Healing Course taught by various teachers from the Diana Cooper Foundation (“[b]y the way, a lot of us have had lifetimes in both Lemuria and Atlantis!” And apparently Hitler also escaped to Atlantis after WW2 since he was an inhabitant of Atlantis who fell to the dark side). Oh, and if you – like some customers – have wondered why there is a “spiral/swirl shape” on the Atlantis cards you can buy from the foundation, it is because “[w]hen the planet finally ascends it is predicted that a crystal cap will descend from the heavens onto the top of the Great Pyramid in Giza, Egypt. The energy from this crystal cap will spiral out round the world passing through and connecting all the sacred sites on the planet such as Stonehenge, Machu pichu and so on. The effect of this will create the final energies needed for the ascension of the planet.” That should clear it up.

Cooper herself has recently reasserted her optimism for the future since, according to her, angels are finally getting the recognition they deserve. Apparently organized religion has tried to keep this knowledge of angels from the masses (wait, what?), but people like Cooper has finally seen through this web of oh good grief, I can’t take this anymore. Visit her webpage yourself it you wish to wade further into this drivel.

Diagnosis: At least there is just so much love. Rainbows and unicorns and marshmallows, pink and light blue and fluffy and soft. Mostly harmless, though given her cognitive abilities I sure hope she doesn’t have a driver’s license.

One of the unfailing characteristics of pseudoscientists is that they are oppressed. One of the unfailing characteristics of Christian fundamentalists is that they are persecuted. And when a movement is both pseudoscientific and fundamentalist, like the Intelligent Design movement, you’d expect them to construct a whole mythology out of it (as illustrated for instance by the movie Expelled).

A more recent story of persecution pushed (variably – even the Discotute may have dimly realized that they didn’t have a very good case here) by the Discovery Institute concerns David Coppedge, a computer technician (yes – though the Discovery Institute would go to lengths to try to enhance his credentials) who was demoted and then fired by the JPL in 2012. Coppedge, on his side, claimed to be the victim of discrimination against his views on creationism. The JPL, however, pointed out that Coppedge was out of line harassing scientists with nonsense, passing out DVDs of creationist nonsense, pushing his website, and basically wasting his time and not doing his job. They had repeatedly warned him, and even through his demotion Coppedge persisted. So they fired him, understandably enough. Coppedge, backed by a team of creationist lawyers, sued. The case (covered in detail here) was made difficult by the fact that Coppedge evidently struggled to distinguish reality from fantasy and tended to see conspiracies everywhere – and then there is his legal brief, which included a three-page “screenplay” dramatizing his interactions with one of his co-workers while admitting that “[s]ome liberties have been taken with the dialogue and action as artistic license” (not obviously something legal experts would advise you to include in a legal brief). The lawsuit failed, and his lawyer, William Becker, was not happy: “David was the victim of religious discrimination because a handful of malicious co-workers hated his Christian views,” said Becker, which is hilariously false but very telling with regard to the delusional mindset – persecution complex – of this particular group of people mentioned above. It is also telling that the Discovery Institute, who vehemently (and falsely) denies that Intelligent Design (ID) is a religious view, also seems to think that anti-ID moves constitute religious persecution.

Coppedge’s website, Creation/Evolution Headlines, is, by the way, one of the most preposterous young-earth creationist websites out there. Coppedge is also a board member of Illustra Media and has written posts for the Discovery Institute’s Evolution News and Views. And his arguments, by the way, are the same as ever, distinguished (perhaps) only by a particular penchant for citing some exciting paper and declare that evolution cannot explain how the system in question could have evolved without doing any research whatsoever on whether biologists have actually already responded to the challenge.

Diagnosis: A loon, and a persistent, relentless one. The lawsuit might have given him more prominence and influence than ever, but Coppedge seems to be sufficiently crazy that his contributions may do more harm than help to his anti-science movement.

Dianna Cotter may not be a household name, but she was at least responsible for a Washington Times 2012 article – pinched from Pravda, no less – alleging that Obama’s birth certificate is forged, based on the astute investigations of Joe Arpaio. As the article notes, in a hilariously incoherent stream-of-consciousness ramble, “[t]he house of cards is about to come tumbling down around Barack Obama’s ears as the momentum of evidence builds. Law enforcement [that would be Arpaio] has found his birth documents to be “highly suspect” as a forgery. His draft card has similarly been found by law enforcement as being “highly suspect” as a forgery. The smoke screen cover created by his birth certificate, hiding Minor v. Happersett [what???] in a shadow of false mockery, has been blown away. Leaving the Supreme Court case alone on the stage, glaringly exposing Barack Obama as an usurper [I don’t … can anyone help me out here?], an unconstitutional President of the United States.” And of course: “The American Press is deliberately hiding the evidence published on the internet [wow] about this defrauding of the American public and the deliberate evisceration of the Constitution of the United States. It is hiding Barack Obama’s Fraud as it has been revealed by a Sheriff in Arizona [Arpaio again].” Oh, whee.

But at least the author’s credentials are impeccable. “Dianna Cotter is a Senior at American Military University, a 4.0 Student, the recipient of the Outstanding Student Essay of 2009, a member of Delta Epsilon Tau and Epsilon Pi Phi Academic Fraternities and on the Dean’s and President’s Lists for academic achievement.” Pravda, on the other hand, is, as a continuation of its long and honorable tradition of free, critical, independent and US-friendly positions, currently known for investigative articles such as “Russian fishermen catch squeaking alien and eat it” and “Aliens forced Americans out from the Moon”.

Diagnosis: Moron

According to the WND, Stephen Coughlin is a “noted specialist on Islamic law and ideology … who has been cited as an expert for the Pentagon.” Coughlin works for the Center for Security Policy, Frank Gaffney’s group. His grand idea is that “a coalition of Islamists and Marxists is working to destroy the United States.” I suppose he forgot the gays; so much for his expertise (or perhaps they are already covered under “Marxists” and/or “Islamists”). His contract with the Pentagon was, by the way, not renewed, for obvious reasons, though WND neglected to mention this. According to his fans, including the Washington Times, Coughlin was persecuted. So it goes.

Diagnosis: Yes, one of those.

Aromatherapy is utter pseudoscience and really, well, not far away from being as silly as angel therapy and approximately as well grounded in evidence, reality and science. George Cox is an aromatherapist who seems to have, accordingly, taken it upon himself to combat evidence, reality and science, and in particular the FDA, who appears to be a bit nitpicky about such things. First of all, Cox is being persecuted since he is not allowed to make false claims about the remedies he sells: “If my granddaughter ran into my office right now and I saw her nose was running and I said, ‘Honey, you’re getting a cold. Go ask Grandma to make you some chicken soup. It’ll make you feel better,’ I am in violation of the law. I have diagnosed, prescribed (yes, chicken soup has become a pharmaceutical), treated and developed a prognosis. I am thereby practicing medicine without a license. The FDA is not going to break down the door and arrest Grandma and me. But they could,” says Cox, which is false on so many scores, but serves to create the kind of atmosphere Cox wants to convey in his writings.

And then we’re off: You know that “science was wrong before,” right? Therefore Cox is just like Galileo. Indeed, medicine changes its conclusions as new evidence comes in, unlike aromatherapy, which of course means that aromatherapy is more akin to a religious dogma and not sensitive to evidence or new facts, but that is not the conclusion Cox wishes to draw. Moreover, “there are small clinical studies that prove it and we have tons of anecdotal evidence.” Of course, small clinical studies ‘prove’ exactly nothing – and that’s not the point of such studies; instead, they provide preliminary data to establish the viability of conducting larger, more rigorous clinical studies. As for “tons of anecdotal evidence …”

One wonders what evidence he thinks he has for the Ion Infrared Detox Units and Far Infrared Belts he is selling.

Diagnosis: Your standard, inhofy mix of quackery, crackpottery and persecution complex. Probably a relatively minor figure, but the victims of his efforts are still victims.

#1471: Thomas Clough

#1472: Craig Paul Cobb

#1473: Mike Coffman

#1474: Michael H. Cohen

#1475: Suzy Cohen

#1476: Monica Cole and the "One Million Moms"

#1477: Nicholas Comninellis

#1478: David Conn

#1479: Paul Connett

#1480: Bill Connor

#1481: Chris Connor & Francoise Adan

#1482: Ed Conrad

#1483: Louis Conte

#1484: Tara Cook-Littman

#1485: Nathan Coombs & Rhonda Morris

#1486: Diana Cooper

#1487: David Coppedge

#1488: Dianna Cotter

#1489: Stephen Coughlin

#1490: George Cox