Watch Michele Bachmann!

I heard something to the effect that Wetterling has solid name recognition because her son was kidnapped 15 years ago. What went on there exactly?

Check out her website: www.pattywetterling.com

Does the know that she's flat out lying when she states there's hundreds of scientists that endorse ID?

What Nobel prize winners accept ID?

What Nobel prize winners accept ID?

More specifically... what living Nobel science laureates endorse the idea of teaching ID in a science classroom as science?

Eight of the many Nobel Prize Winners who believed in Intelligent Design:

1) Mog son of Ug; Nobel Prize for Physics, 40167 BC
Mog proved that spears could be thrown as well as used for thrusting.

2) Hesoid; Nobel Prize for Metaphysics, 778 BC*
for his Theogony
*The prize for metaphysics was later combined with the Nobel for Literature

3) Hippocrates; Nobel Prize for Medicine, 376 BC
Let's face it, doctors are always a little weak on evolution.

4) Aristotle; Nobel Prize for Physics, 327 BC
Plato's followers claim this was a sop by the academy to butter up Alexander the Great

5) Jesus ben Joseph (nee ben God); Nobel Prize for Medicine, 40 AD
Given postumously for raising both Lazareth and himself from the dead.

6) King Olaf Tryggvason; Nobel for Physics, Chemistry, Medicine & Peace, 992 AD
The only man ever to win all the Nobel Prizes in one year (except for the Memorial Prize in Economics which was given collectively to the Rus for sacking Constantinople), King Olaf was awarded for forcibly converting the academy to Christianity rather than slaughtering them outright.

7) John Dee; Nobel Prize for Physics 1604 AD (Rescinded)
Dee's prize came for turning base metals into gold, but was rescinded by the academy when the muckraking pampleteer/playwright Ben Jonson proved that the gold had actually been smuggled into the room hidden in a scullery-maid's undergarments.

8) Michael Behe; Nobel Prize for Creationism 2014 AD
After the restructuring of the prizes commensurate with the 2011 U.S. invasion of Sweden. (Sweden was believed to possess weapons of mass destruction and to be fomenting a worldwide war of civilizations due to their hating us for our freedom from universal health care.) Governor Bremer accepted the award on behalf of Behe who had ascended into heaven during the Rapture the previous year.

Brilliant, lockean. :)

However: Don't we have a few, erm..."loopy" Nobel laureates hanging around? I'm not immediately aware of any of them endorsing ID, but they'd be more prone to quote-mining and exaggeration, no? Such as Crick's old Panspermia weirdness?

And regarding the more general "hundreds of scientists" statement, well, that's actually quite true--for certain definitions of "scientist," let alone "scientist in a relevant field" and disregarding the perspective provided by Project Steve.

You may not be interested in religion, but religion
is interested in you.

I'm sure Trotsky would agree.....

There is some limited evidence Richard Smalley (Nobel, 1996, Chemistry) was a creationist.
Unfortunately, he fell victim to one of the less-well designed aspects of Homo sapiens, and died prematurely of cancer last year.

rrt,

I agree with you. But I don't see how it could be any other way. Science is a rational and cummulative system in the aggregate, but when individual scientists step outside the checks and balances of that system, in my experience they're just as crazy as the rest of us, and they have every right to be. And anyone imaginative and confident enough to think things work differently than the majority of their peers assume--any great scientitific theorist, in other words--has to willing to entertain all sorts of strange possibilities. Newton can stay sane long enough to write his Principia, but then it's back to astrology and bible chronologies. Ditto Crick's Panspermia. If human beings could be perfectly rational all the time, we wouldn't need science to begin with. Add to this that there is fame and fortune to be had by telling the public what it wants to hear, and it's surprising that there aren't far more defenders of stuff like Intelligent Design. If science is ever again as prestigious as it was from about 1890 to 1970, then the sort of authoritarian frauds who now pick up the Bible and talk about Joel's Army and the Rapture, might well put on lab coats and cut out women's uteri, found pseudoscientific cults, and talk about sterlizing the poor. Self-proclaimed practioners of 'science' used to do such things. They didn't win Nobel prizes very often, and often they were attacked by real scientists, but in the public mind they gave credence to ideas at least as destructive as ID. Truth and liberty are a constant struggle. At least science aids the struggle eight tenths of the time--a far better track record than any other human institution, unless one considers liberalism itself an institution.

That said, I'm sure most defenders of ID don't really believe in ID. It violates the inerrancy of the Bible as much as Natural Selection does. They just want to encourage a popular perception that there is a dispute about the validity of evolution. It's pure wedge-issue politics. And they will succeed or fail not on the merits of their ideas, nor on the folly of a few naively conciliatory scientists, but by their skill at politics and the political skills of their opponents.

I have a more general question.

It occured to me we could use a database of politicians at the national and state levels who have expressed opinions on evolution/creationism/id. That way, we could direct efforts. for and against, at particular targets, particularly letter-writing, political contributions, etc.. Clearly this Bachmann woman is a fruitcake, but unless you were a regular reader of this blog, you might not know it (I confess I'm not up on the nuances of Minnesota politics)

Anyone know if anyone has created such a thing?

I agree, lockean...just figured it needed pointing out that the letter of her statements probably has a decent amount of truth, even if the spirit of them is woefully false. Our opponents love to seize little technicalities like that.

I believe Kary Mullis, who won the Nobel for pioneering PCR, has also expressed creationist sympathies. He's also apparently a drug-addled space case who has had an "alien abduction experience" or somesuch.

So I can see why Bachmann might not have wanted to name names (if indeed she actually knew the name, and wasn't just parroting the creationist mantra without comprehension or knowledge, as they tend to do: "hundreds-of-scientists, hundreds-of-scientists, OMMMM...").

I believe Kary Mullis, who won the Nobel for pioneering PCR, has also expressed creationist sympathies. He's also apparently a drug-addled space case who has had an "alien abduction experience" or somesuch.

Mullis also is one of the whackjobs who doesn't believe HIV causes AIDS.

He's on everyone's shortlist for the 'least deserving Nobel prizewinner of all time'. Smalley was at least a good chemist.

Gerard's database idea is a good one. It would be wonderful to have a sort of Wikipedia-catalog of right-wing politicians, lobbyists, ID supporters, Creationists, Dominionists, Latter Rain Pentecostals, etc. Alas, I do not have the computer skills.

It would be wonderful to have a sort of Wikipedia-catalog of right-wing politicians, lobbyists, ID supporters, Creationists, Dominionists, Latter Rain Pentecostals, etc.

The Whackjobipedia! Yes!

The difference between us and IDiots is that one of us would have asked her for at least one name of a Nobel Prize winner who backs ID whereas the IDiots hear what she says and since it's something that they agree with they believe it without question. Someone could really clean up with real estate practice specializing on fundies and swampland.

I'll agree - I think there's a need for a Index of Creationist Politicians to complement the Index of Creationist Claims.

Mullis also is one of the whackjobs who doesn't believe HIV causes AIDS.

He's on everyone's shortlist for the 'least deserving Nobel prizewinner of all time'. Smalley was at least a good chemist.

Oh, and Mullis was an "expert" witness for the defense in the O.J. trial, too, let's not forget that part.

lockean: Crank.net has some of the goal of that hypothetical encyclopedia ...