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.