Uncommon Descent and the Indian Astrologer, Round 2

You may recall a few weeks ago when crandaddy, one of Dembski's acolytes at Uncommon Descent, posted a link and a quote from Raj Baldev noting a "grave error" in human evolution. When I pointed out that Raj Baldev was in fact an astrologer, a consultant to Saddam Hussein, and a general occult whacko, the post was quickly edited to take out the reference to Baldev and crandaddy dishonestly claimed that he deleted it not because of the embarrassment of being caught quoting an astrologer but because the quote didn't "contribute adequately to the purpose of this entry". Fast forward to this morning, when another Dembski acolyte posted another link to an article about Baldev, a "staunch supporter of Intelligent Design."

Ocellated jumped right on it immediately with this post. Do we really need to say what happened next? The post has now been deleted. Gone, into the Winston Smith Archives, never to be mentioned again. You can almost picture the guy as Homer Simpson muttering to himself, "Don't link to astrologers, don't link to astrologers, don't like to astrologers", then making that post and seeing someone point out that it's the same astrologer they wanted us to forget they mentioned before - D'oh! This is getting to be like a movie, where the owner of a company appoints the Three Stooges to run the show and hilarity ensues. Pass the popcorn, please.

Update: Thanks to the magic of archive files, here's a link to an archive of the post. Fellow PT contributor Andrea Bottaro archived it before they deleted it. The title of the post even names Baldev, so it's not like he didn't know who the link was about.

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By afarensis (not verified) on 06 Feb 2006 #permalink

The link in your update seems to not be working.

By Kristjan Wager (not verified) on 06 Feb 2006 #permalink

Read his stuff on the Big Bang. It's absolutely hysterical.

He does answer the question all the other "Cosmo Theorists" are afraid to ask...What came before the Big Bang? His answer....another Big Bang! As for providing support, he's on the case, "According to my theory of TOPU (Theory of Parent Universe) this principle may be confirmed sooner or later."

[quote]You can almost picture the guy as Homer Simpson muttering to himself, "Don't link to astrologers, don't link to astrologers, don't like to astrologers", then making that post and seeing someone point out that it's the same astrologer they wanted us to forget they mentioned before - D'oh! [/quote]

Or indeed as Bill Buckingham, according to his testimony, muttering to himself: "Don't mention creationism, don't mention creationism, don't mention creationism," then blurting out to Fox News reporter: "In my opinion, it's OK to teach Darwin, but you have to balance it with something else such as creationism".

By Ginger Yellow (not verified) on 06 Feb 2006 #permalink

D'oh. Apologies for the wrong tags.

By Ginger Yellow (not verified) on 06 Feb 2006 #permalink

What exactly is a Cosmo Theorist??? Is it something like a PhD in apologetics of creation science? I know a couple of very well-known, US-based astrologers and neither of them would ever refer to the work they do as "cosmo theory." BTW, both also happen to fully accept evolutionary theory as the core construct for their understanding of life on earth (no ID causality here), one works in Mayan systems, the other in the more familiar Zorastrian-mesopotamian one.

What exactly is a Cosmo Theorist???

Isn't that someone who analyzes the sex-tips articles, generates the quizzes, and makes sure there are sufficient exclamation marks in each article headline?

Or is that a Cosmo Theorist?

Steve Story wrote:

We need someone to write a script which archives Uncommon Pissant, for the next time this happens.

Are you listening, Wes? Please add this to the enormous list of things you have to get done by Thursday. :)

I would do it myself if I had the time and ability. As it is, I can barely keep up with the necessary LabView and MatLab stuff for work. If I try to learn a scripting language it would push something important out of my head :-)

Still more funny business at "uncommon descent". Of Caroline Crocker the site says, "She received her PhD under the guidance of Derek Burke, who discovered interferon." This statement implies that he was her advisor.

At the time she was researching her PhD at Southampton, Derek Burke was vice-chancellor of the University of East Anglia. One wonders what "under the guidance of" means in this case. I hazard a guess that she new Burke through "Christians in Science". In view of the reliability of "Uncommon Descent" perhaps the relationship is yet more remote.

For reference - my Crocker page:
http://www.geocities.com/lclane2/crocker.html

Articles from that Baldev guy kept showing up recently in my Google News custom search. I was especially intrigued by the one that was titled "Evolution theory does not prove Man?s decent ? ID ?Series V."

I don't recall ever hearing anyone suggest that evolution had anything to do with the decency of humankind, do you?

I didn't realise Crocker was educated in the UK. Is there something in the water at the University of Warwick? She got her BS (how appropriate) there, while Steve Fuller is of course professor of sociology at Warwick.

By Ginger Yellow (not verified) on 07 Feb 2006 #permalink

This is getting to be like a movie...

Yeah, "Creationist Memento," where the story runs backwards, the "heroes" are trying to lead science backwards to the Dark Ages, no one can seem to remember what they said fifteen minutes ago, or how their "latest" argument was refuted years ago, and everyone's trying to forget the obvious fact that all their "science" is invented with the sole objective of enshrining a religious belief. Sometimes funny (especially when replayed on DVD), sometimes creepy and sad.