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Ann Coulter's latest essay against evolution

Skeptic Ginger said:
Per capita Nobel winners by country.

Being a winner is no guarantee one is a rational thinker:

Kary MullisWP

Luc MontagnierWP

Wangari MaathaiWP
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And even per capita numbers aren't a great measure of a country's intelligence. A large number of US nobel laureates were born in other countries and came here because our large universities support research well. The sheer scale of our large economy sucks smart people out of other countries.

In fact, our ability to do groundbreaking work is dependent on our large economy. When you have US money from the government and a major university, you can innovate in physics or medicine. If you live in Sommalia, no matter how smart you are, those kinds of resources are a lot harder to come by and you're not very likely to be able to do that kind of work.

Add to that, because of the way research is conducted here, a larger number of prizes are split between teams of two, or more than in many other countries. This inflates the numbers significantly.
 
bikerdruid said:
i hope you are correct.
however, there is an astounding and shocking percentage of americans who don't believe in evolution. i've heard between 60 and 75%.
is this really true?
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I think most of those actually do believe in most of the Theory, they just don't know it. A lot of them accept micro-evolution, but not macro-evolution, and that is about 90% of the battle won, right there! I think a lot of them even accept speciation, these days, but reserve creation in the "higher taxa".

Both positions are ridiculous from the point of view of science (macro-evolution is the result of a bunch of micros, and "higher taxa" appeals to taxonomic models instead of nature). But, it's better than nothing. A few decades ago, very few creationists even accepted that much.

We still have a lot of work left to do, but from a historic perspective, there is no reason we can't continue making progress as long as we are willing.
 
Also, note the age related trend in the poll linked above. A higher percentage of younger people accept evolution:
Ages 18 - 34: 49%
Ages 55 and older: 31%
 
Cavemonster said:
And even per capita numbers aren't a great measure of a country's intelligence. A large number of US nobel laureates were born in other countries and came here because our large universities support research well. The sheer scale of our large economy sucks smart people out of other countries.
Click to expand...
On the other hand, the overall numbers are skewed because in the first decades of the Nobel prize, it disproportionately went to countries culturally close to Sweden. While I believe all the Swedish laureates are deserving individuals, it seems obvious that the selection committees were simply more familiar with candidates from Nordic and German-speaking countries in those days. This is something they have actively tried to counter in more recent decades, and I think if we looked at say the last 50 years or so, the US would do quite well in terms of prize per capita. Even adjusting for the fact that the US is very attractive for top scientists from other countries, it is pretty clear that the most educated Americans are second to none. What is lacking is not the height of the pyramid but the breadth of the base.
 
Pardalis said:
But in a thread about evolution BD meant it as the reverse of evolution, which doesn't make sense.
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But loss of intelligence through natural selection would a completely defensible proposition :) Actually it's what probably would happen in a "paradise" setting - if intelligence is genuinely unneeded for procreational success in a milk-and-honey environment, the associated traits would likely drift off over time. More actively, if intelligence makes you directly less competitive (e.g. because your pool of possible mates consists of Fundamentalist Christians who won't have anything to do with you), it would be selected against. If we can keep up a steady succession of Coulter clones for a few dozen generation, that's totally achievable.

Sounds like a plan!
 
I had to verify that we're discussing the same Ann Coulter, the woman who wrote How To Talk To A Liberal (If You Must), a book that manages to function as a form of political porn for the uneducated and the bigoted. Quite frankly, I've found that over the years, even when Coulter is trying to write something moving about a good friend who died in the 9/11 attacks, she's become appallingly condescending and rude. I'm sure among her closest friends and allies, she comes across as intelligent and compelling, but to me, a generally conservative individual, she's dismissive and destructive.

I don't think this is a parody on her part. I think she's genuinely convinced that Evolution is a crock, even as she ignores the work of over a century (at least), even as she ignores the work of the Leakys and others. This is more a sign of Rule 34 than it is Poe's Law. The only good to come out of it is that Matthews and others are now on notice they're going to have to raise their game somewhat in order to counter the babble put forth by Coulter and her ilk.
 
What I'm curious about is why I should bother with this. I mean, Coulter's area of expertise (ostensibly, anyway) is politics. Why should i trust what she says at all? This is so far outside her area of knowledge that she's probably worse than a lay person (in that she's used to pretending to be right).
 
Perpetual Student said:
On the other hand, it seems only 25% disbelieve evolution.

[Gallup poll]
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yes, but another 36% had no opinion.
i'm guessing that most of those disbelieve evolution, but chose to not admit it.
in any case, there is a shockingly high percentage that choose to remain ignorant.
in the 21st century, i find that a little frightening.
 
Dinwar said:
What I'm curious about is why I should bother with this. I mean, Coulter's area of expertise (ostensibly, anyway) is politics. Why should i trust what she says at all? This is so far outside her area of knowledge that she's probably worse than a lay person (in that she's used to pretending to be right).
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The short answer is you shouldn't. You probably shouldn't trust anyone else who gets paid to have an opinion either, especially when they are talking about a subject they have no education or experience in.

In Coutler's case, a lot of what you are seeing is (I believe) part of an act. I find it hard to believe (though it isn't impossible) that she is THAT ignorant of real science. Perhaps I'm giving her too much credit here, but she seems to be playing to what she thinks is her core audience.
 
Moon-Spinner said:
Okay, hold onto your stomachs. Ann Coulter has a new essay with her anti-evolution views, and as usual, it's pretty demented.

Anti-Evolution

She basically claims that all the scientific advances in biology (since Darwin) prove that evolution is impossible. She still uses 19th century biology as the cornerstone of evolutionary knowledge, and then claims that advances in knowledge disprove what was believed then, thus disproving evolution.

At least that's what get out of her twisted logic.

And of course, life is too complex to happen by itself blah blah blah...
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It's her job, that's how she makes a living.
 
bikerdruid said:
yes, but another 36% had no opinion.
i'm guessing that most of those disbelieve evolution, but chose to not admit it.
in any case, there is a shockingly high percentage that choose to remain ignorant.
in the 21st century, i find that a little frightening.
Click to expand...

No, you have that backwards. Many Americans will answer they don't believe in evolution on polls when they actually do. This is because many don't go to church and think giving "pro-religion" answers on poll questions makes up for their "faith laziness."

According to polls creationists are everywhere but in real life they might as well be Jackalopes.
 
Dinwar said:
What I'm curious about is why I should bother with this. I mean, Coulter's area of expertise (ostensibly, anyway) is politics. Why should i trust what she says at all? This is so far outside her area of knowledge that she's probably worse than a lay person (in that she's used to pretending to be right).
Click to expand...

That's kind of an appeal to no authority isn't it?

If what she says is right, then her qualifications are irrelevant.

Of course, the only relation between "right" and Ann Coulter is political affiliation, not factual accuracy. But that's not the (nitpicky) point I'm trying to make.
 
mhaze said:
Of course it's true more tomorrow than today, but man may alter himself. To some degree he's doing this now. He's selecting what babies are born. He's also altering plant species.

And the convergence of nanotech, biology and computer capabilities is on the horizon.

Doesn't this doom "Darwinian evolution" per the strict definition of it, or resign it to the past on this planet as best we know, and not the future? Coulter does not refer to "modern evolutionary theory" but "Darwinian...".

:)
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Where are you getting your "strict definition?" Darwin discusses human-directed selection in the first chapter of Origin of Species.
 
nvidiot said:
That's kind of an appeal to no authority isn't it?

If what she says is right, then her qualifications are irrelevant.

Of course, the only relation between "right" and Ann Coulter is political affiliation, not factual accuracy. But that's not the (nitpicky) point I'm trying to make.
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Yes, the argument that she's not a scientist and therefore wrong would be a fallacy, but I don't think that's Dinwar's point.

Before we evaluate an argument, first we must decide if we want to bother.
There are countless arguments and ideas floating around in the world, in books from holy manuscripts to Coulter's to scrawls on bathroom walls. There are the ideas spoken to you by teachers, by friends and by the crazy guy on the street corner. It goes on and on. To evaluate them all critically and rigorously would take more time than an of us have on this earth.

So before we apply logic to determine if these argument are correct, first we must winnow them down and decide which are worth actually spending the time to digest and address in logical detail.
 
I hope this doesn't sound cynical, but I doubt that most American's know what evolution means.

Nobody wants to feel stupid, so these polls may be slanted. We don't like what we don't understand. Calculus, for instance, sucks.

Unfortunately, elections are a lot like polls.
Presumably, we voted for GWB twice, even though Gore probably did know the meaning of evolution. The GOP is definitely coddling the uneducated. And of course, the wealthy.

Rush Limbaugh is very popular and rich. Even his Oxycontin abuse couldn't bring him down, even though its called 'hillbilly heroin'.
 
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