My daughter had mentioned something a while back about some speaker named Mike Adams coming to UMM, and that she'd get extra credit for attending, but it didn't sink in until I saw the signs around campus. It's this Mike S. Adams, columnist for TownHall, Horowitzian shill, anti-feminist, creationist clown, homophobic bigot, warrior for free speech, professional racist, gun kook, academic-by-accident, beauty contest judge, and just generally contemptible far, far right-wing nutcase.
I'm very disappointed in our students. We're far off the beaten track and we don't get that many speakers passing through our area, and they had to go exhibit the poor taste to invite this sorry sack of rethuglican excreta to our campus. Couldn't they have at least tried to find an intelligent conservative to bring out here? Why'd they have to scrape the bottom of the barrel for this guy? At least we're seeing our rather dismal right-wing campus rag's fading credibility implode with their sponsorship of such a low-wattage guest speaker.
I've heard that a few of our liberal students want to protest his visit. I'm not happy about that, either; we paid good money to ferry this stiff here, let's at least have him put on a show and argue with him.
I'm not sure I'll be able to make it to his talk, but if I can, suggest some good questions I can ask him. I'm tempted to ask him to simply expound on the distinction between micro- and macro-evolution, so that he can scuttle himself with his own words…although I suspect his talk itself will be sufficiently foolish on its own.
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When life gives you the ridiculous... make ridicule!
What I'd want to ask him, in all honesty is,
"Exactly which subject should we be giving the students who came here credit in? It can't be biology, because... (etc, etc)"
My nephew is at U. Mass Amherst, where Adams is going next.
Must. Warn. Him.
Ask Adams how hard it was to come up with this:
"May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your jockey strap."
http://www.dradams.org/hate_mail.html#cherenkova
Little point in asking him a serious question. He's clearly an idiot.
That is a good one...I'll keep it in mind.
My nephew is at U. Mass Amherst, where Adams is going next.
Must. Warn. Him.
Ask Adams how hard it was to come up with this:
"May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your jockey strap."
http://www.dradams.org/hate_mail.html#cherenkova
Little point in asking him a serious question. He's clearly an idiot.
Reminds me of when I was in college. The school I attended was in uber-conservative West Michigan and every single time one of the conservative groups got a lunatic, lying speaker (like Coulter, for example) to come to campus, the liberal groups would then host somebody, anybody who would refute the conservatives lies and bullshit. (If a speaker about the middle east managed to refer to Arabs as sand niggers and towel heads constantly and, on top of that, managed to be completely anti-semitic, the liberal groups would bring in a panel of speakers, Arabs, Jews, etc.) Because these liberal groups were 'spreading propaganda and lies' the conservatives needed to book yet another speaker to 'provide balance!'
"Dr" Mike Adams? Can't be too hard to get Ph.D. these days.
Hold up a picture of a vagina. Watch him run away.
Ask him how come he wasn't promoted to full professor. Don't say the words "deficient in all respects" or he'll kill you with one of his many manly weapons.
Protesting people coming to speak on campus, no matter how stupid their views, is just retarded. If you don't think someone is worth listening to, don't listen to them. People that get so darn worked up about what some blowhard is saying to an audience of willing suckhard that they run out in the cold and wave signs or storm stages are idiotic busybodies. How about putting all that pointless energy into, I dunno, actually doing something useful: at the very least, working on bringing interesting speakers to school? Protesting is generally worthless, and in cases like this, serves only to draw publicity to people that don't deserve it.
"I'm very honored to meet a man selfless enough to donate 2 pounds of brain tissue for transplants...my question is, how much, if anything, did they pay you for it?"
On a more serious note...hmm. Ask him why Creationists can't seem to agree on what a "Kind" of animal is, perhaps?
To be fair the campus DID have Al Franken there previously.
Protesting outside mgiht be silly, but being part of the Q&A, if it happens, would be much more productive (as PZ suggested).
What are the protesters wanting? Censorship of people whose ideas they don't agree with? The protest might be okay if they're just saying what a dunce they think this guy is. That's fair enough.
Is PZ's daughter taking a logic class? That'd be a great lecture to go to for extra credit. I recall a game played by the panel of the podcast, The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe, called "name that logical fallacy." It's a good game and could be played with Dr. Adams.
Azkyroth:
Be careful about that. I have spent most of the last year trying to get an answer from these SciBlog people about what "species" means. It apparently is just as poorly defined as "Kind".
No, I am not a "fundie" or an IDiot, or any of those. I am a rational atheist, member of ACLU, HRC, etc.
I'm pretty sure "May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your jockey strap." comes from Johnny Carson when he did his "Carnac" character.
So he also steals jokes.
I went to Grinnell College, down in Iowa. The Campus Republicans brought David Horowitz, which irritated me to no end - why not bring a smart conservative, like William Safire, George Will, or even David Brooks? At least those guys come of with clever ways of saying things. I went to see him, and everything went exactly like I feared it would. People made noise, tried to "protest" and shout him down, etc. This sort of thing played right into his hands. He didn't care about convincing anyone of anything, denounced our professors without knowing anything about them, and generally tried to stir things up. People reacted stupidly, and now he has more stories about how higher education is a bastion of irrational, uncouth communists or something.
I guarantee you that's exactly what Adams is going to do. He wants people to react so he can write a column denouncing them. If the liberal students were smart, they would organize a bunch of people to sit quietly and politely and then, while remaining calm, ask tough questions. Yelling and making a scene is the easy way out, and doesn't accomplish anything.
Couldn't they have at least tried to find an intelligent conservative to bring out here? Why'd they have to scrape the bottom of the barrel for this guy?
I'm beginning to think that this type of conservative is all that's left of the people willing to call themselves that. The term has picked up a lot of negative connotations and it seems like a lot of goopers are now distancing themselves from it. Kind of like the abusive husband though, "I'm sorry that I hurt you, it will never happen again" rhetoric in trying to get votes.
My nephew is at U. Mass Amherst, where Adams is going next.
U. Mass Amherst WTF?!?!?! God damn it. New England is supposed to be the one safe corner of the U.S. from right-wing nuttery (and shitty weather). Why must we be inviting this boob and not a smarter, more-intellectual conservative? I never thought I'd look back on the days of Russell Kirk et al. with nostalgia.
Karl, please read the chapter "Gaps in the Mind" in A Devil's Chaplain by Richard Dawkins.
Maybe there's a bright side to this: consider this guy sort of a attenuated strain of the right-wing virus; exposing young people to him at an early age might just immunize them for a lifetime against all kinds of sloppy thinking. You see, things aren't so bad; its all about public mental health...
Protest can be a good idea, when done tactfully. Chanting slogans and waving crudely drawn signs is just the sort of thing to validate a crank like this -- they feed on this sort of attention. Asking tough questions is a lot more appropriate.
Shawn:
I would imagine that they probably aren't advocating censorship of people whose ideas they disagree with, or even people whose ideas they find deeply offensive, but rather that such people not be explicitly invited to come present those ideas at an institute of higher learning, particularly theirs.
Karl:
"Species" is rather poorly defined, probably because the Linnaean system originally presumed the fixity of taxa, and hence is rather difficult to apply cleanly to evolving populations. I think the consensus is that separate species are established by reproductive isolation.
Xerxes:
Now that is actually a very good idea. PZ, forward it to your offspring?
Adams is a criminology professor. Nice, huh? Just the sort of influence our aspiring police officers need.
Ask him why UNC-Wilmington denied him tenure.
On a not too related point.... 'attend for extra credit'. Every so often I hear an a-merkin say that, and I don't really understand the principle. You get credit for JUST SHOWING UP?
I.e. Show up to enough stuff and get a degree? Is that how it works?
PZ- don't blame us! There is small group of crazed conservatives plaguing our campus with the most detestable events they can pull off. Remember the "end racism, kill all white males" fiasco last year? Same culprit. Unfortunately the sane among the student body are doing things like studying. We're sorry. Try to ignore them.
Murk:
Not so drastic. More likely it's "get a 68% on your total score for tests and homework, show up at the event, do something to prove you attended it and were paying attention (write a 1-page paper, perhaps) and still pass with a C-." No professor gives enough extra credit opportunities to pass even one class on that basis alone--hell, not even Hank "it really works" Wesselman who hijacked an anthropology class on tribal religions at American River College to try to sell people on New-Age woo, subsequently distributed fliers for his expensive New-Age woo seminars in class, and gave tests it was possible to literally bluff your way to an A on, did anything like that.
Good grief. PZ, any idea on why blockquoting multiple paragraphs works sometimes, but not others?
DON'T "protest"
DO: Rubbish him completely in the Q-and-A session afterwards.
Shouldn't be too difficult, really, should it.
Though you have to remember, that he may, simply be insane, as I suspect Coulter is.
"Kinds" are supposed to be fundamental, immutable categories. Species are anything but.
Not to mention that we have some good ideas on how species originate, and it has been observed. 'Kinds' originate by magic.
I tend to regard "kinds" as an artificial and somewhat anthropocentric (the more visible species are and the more humans are exposed to them, the less likely they are to be lumped together at the genus or higher level as one "kind") semantic construct, with little to no application in actual empirical study of the world, but a potentially useful tool for introducing taxonomical concepts to those unfamiliar with biology, provided the contrived and arbitrary nature of the construct is not ignored.
The site onegoodmove gives an extract from "Boston Legal" on a courtroom debate on religious beliefs in the workplace.
http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/
Why do you get extra credit for listening to people like that?
Is it some kind of hazard pay?
Maybe the whole point of inviting outrageous speakers is in the hopes of an protest from your political opponents. The speech itself does not matter, but the reaction can get you plenty of news coverage. Especially if the political opponents rush on the podium.
I like the idea of having a few people with a sign outside that says "this guy doesn't understand what he's talking about." Just so people know what they're getting into when they go see him. No chants, no screaming, no interventions, just a passive warning.
Also, have people inside ask calm, direct questions and demand a straight answer.
The class giving extra credit is a poli sci class. I think it's a fine thing: the instructor gives a small incentive for students to explore ideas outside the boundary of the classroom, and in this particular case, even look at the reactionary extremes of political thought. You know, the kind of liberal examination of differing ideas that a Horowitz or Adams claims we don't do.
Yes, student, I know this is the work of a small minority of student wankers. This is also the price we pay at a liberal arts university--the diversity of ideas present includes some really stupid ones. What we're supposed to learn from it is how to deal with bad ideas. I think it requires more than posturing outside the door of the lecture room; like others have said, I hope some people ask the guy difficult questions.
"The class giving extra credit is a poli sci class."
Well that makes sense then.
I agree with others here, I highly recommend organizing a nice group of calm question-askers. It'd be wonderful if PZ could be there in person, but otherwise, I'd recommend generating a list of good, clear questions and passing them around to students knowledgeable enough to ask them. Thus, good biology students would be the best ones to hammer him on evolution, since they would be able to back the questions up if he engages them, rather than read from a script.
I know many here have better experience at this than I, but my ideas:
On evolution, I'd hit typical questions, definitely challenging his micro/macro distinctions. That'll probably wander into irreducible complexity and "molecular machines," so it'd be good to brush up on proposed evolutionary histories of flagella and such. I like pointing out how the "Law of Conservation of Information" is awfully similar to the Second Law of Thermodynamics canard, and that it isn't accepted by information theorists. And I like asking why every prominent scientific organization (and listing many) and nearly all scientists in relevant fields (here, I'd recommend not just Project Steve but a comparison between the degrees of Steve participants and those on the creationist list) accept evolution and reject ID/creationism because it calls out responses like that of our Dr. Fink from Ohio. If we get him to call nearly the entire scientific community idiots or a "godless conspiracy," that helps bring his credibility down a lot...which sounds like it shouldn't be too hard to do.
One thing I'd stress is persistence. That is, asking follow-up questions and coming back repeatedly to points he tries to dodge, and focusing the questions. Hard to do in a Q&A, but if there's enough student cooperation, the next student can take up right where the last student was shut off.
Anyway...those are my rambling ideas. :)
A "kind" is any group of organisms in which common ancestry is so blindingly obvious that even a young earth creationist can not deny it. It can be a genus ... or a family of genera ... or even an order of families; it all depends on what is needed at the time. It sole purpose to dismiss as irrelevant or meaningless those cases in which there is irrefutable, overwhelming evidence that a given taxonomic group shares a common ancestor.
The use of the word "kind" allows the user to dismiss the evidence for evolution with the phrase "well, all of those different species are still just a "kind"", as in "all of those different Galapagos finches are still just finches". This way, the user of the word can maintain the position that there are other groups of organisms that couldn't possibly have a common ancestor because they are "different kinds". At least, they are "different kinds" until we clearly show that they have a common ancestor, at which point, the different groups will suddenly become a single kind. At that point, some other groups will be found that are "different kinds" that lack a common ancestor.
In other words, it allows the user of the word "kind" to still say that "macroevolution" doesn't happen, despite the evidence to the contrary. Since its sole purpose is rhetorical, there will never be a firm, testable definition of "kind".
So is it bad form to wish for a snowstorm to get him trapped up there?
How about a question dealing with the immorality of professors marrying their undergrad students?
Or ask him how logn does it take him to invent those made up characters in his columns?
I don't know. Attending and filling up the auditorium is a bad idea. Student should just stay away. Going to the event will only encourage him and inflate his already significantly-huge ego. Do a quiet boycott.
The hall will be filled with a small group of Republicans and maybe some administrators with big salaries who like Republicans.
Let 'em enjoy each other's company all by their lonesomes.
I would suggest asking him; "What is the diving speed of a swallow?" and, when he fails to answer, hurl him into the chasm. You do have a chasm in Morris, don't you?
The fundamentalist Christian lunatics have taken over the conservative asylum. Prominent intelligent conservatives? Let's see, who's left? George Will (who had an excellent book review in last Sunday's NYT, by the way), John Derbyshire of National Review, Charles Krauthammer. But mention any of these on a conservative site and a horde of Neanderthals will deny they're conservative at all.
Last night, Jim Robinson, owner of the 'Premier Conservative Webforum', FreeRepublic, admitted he wantonly and anonymously destroyed an extensive and elaborate web page consisting of pro-evolution links, on FreeRepublic, because the poster, a long time pro-science conservative, was a 'smart-ass'. Robinson also described evolution, homosexuality and global warming as tools of global Marxism. That's the level of conservative discourse, now. And that's the level to expect from Adams, I'm afraid. Maybe about two IQ points higher than Ann Coulter, but then, so's my cat. And, FWIW, I was campus adviser to the College Republicans at the University of Nebraska for five years, and I have a column this week in FrontPageMagazine. I'm no left-winger.
Gun kook? I'd have to agree since he lacks the basic understanding as to how to hold a handgun.
Sheesh. I would now be afraid of being around him whilst he was armed....
I am not sure it is a good idea to ask him why he didn't get tenure. It is a perfect opportunity to rant about how he is being supressed by the liberal establishment. You can never give these sort of people the chance to blame everyone else for their problems. I suspect it may be difficult to find a question he doesn't have this sort of "out" for.
I would ask him to define "kind" (not give examples, actually define it). If he attempts to weasel out you can ask him why he doesn't give a real definiton. If he doesn't weasel out you can then ask him about an example where someone has seen a change between "kinds" in that definition. Either way you have him (theoretically, although I wouldn't count on it).
If he discusses homosexually being unnatural, you can ask him about the dozens of species that practice it.
If he discusses how bologists are abandoning evolution, you can ask why no anti-evolution petition is ever signed by more than a tiny fraction of a percent of the biologists that are eligable. If he answers by saying scientists are being supressed, you can ask why none of the scientists who have signed the petition have been harmed in any way (neither in their jobs or their lives). You can give specific examples like Behe, who still has his job despite being such a prominent antievolutionist. If he says that the supressors don't want people to know and thus aren't targetting signatories, then you can ask what the scientists have to worry about. If he instead answers the first question by saying that scientists are closed-minded, you can ask about the recent nobel prizes, two of which are responsible for fundamentally altering our understanding of molecular biology and were widely accepted within a few years. You can also point out that one of these nobel prizes, the one responsible for compltely overturning our thinking about the role of RNA in the cell, was awarded in just 8 years, extremely fast for a Nobel prize.
Those are a few possibilities. The idea is to trap him so any answer leads to a bad outcome. That is great in theory, but as I am sure you know these guys are notorious for having a way out of even the seemingly most impossible trap so I am not sure any of my ideas will actually work in practice.
Many, many years ago I was involved with others in organising speakers for a local Physics society. We had had some speakers who were excellent in their fields but audience numbers had been flagging. So for some light relief, we asked a hollow earth advocate to give us a talk. One of us had met him earlier and had been impressed not only by his evident enthusiasm for the subject but also by the quality of his presentation. That is, he relied mainly on flip charts but these were beautifully hand drawn and coloured.
The lecture was well publicised and the small theatre was packed on the night. There was a large undergraduate contingent in the crowd, who gave our speaker a rousing welcome. They loved the bits about flying saucers utilising monopoles to whizz along magnetic lines of force and when (answering a question from the floor) he explained how the holes at the poles moved along with the magnetic poles as they wandered about, the shouts of encouragement from the students made it quite difficult to hear what he was saying. I could see too that some people in the audience were weeping, possibly because of over-excitement. There were some more questions at the end but by then the din was such that we called things to a halt, with a standing ovation.
It wasn't science, but it was great entertainment and he was worth every penny of his very modest fee. We had been worried for him, and felt a bit rotten too that he might have thought we had set him up, but he assured us afterwards that he thought the talk had gone rather well; the audience was bigger and livelier than he was used to and they seemed to him to have been a very happy and friendly crowd. He was right about that anyway. Maybe he made the odd convert too - good luck to him if so. It was a cracking good show.
Raindogzilla wrote: I would suggest asking him; "What is the diving speed of a swallow?"
African or English?
[Gun] magazines will be almost as rare as a feminist orgasm if the Democrats take over.
Mr Adams, with regard to the above, have you ever met a feminist?
Here's something that says he is a former liberal and atheist. So what the heck happened? Maybe that's a good question.
Mike S. Adams to speak at Law School
Stuart Bray, Federalist Society
The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy will present Mike S. Adams, a professor of criminlogy at UNC Wilmington. A former liberal and atheist, Adams is the author of "Welcome to the Ivory Tower of Babel: Confessions of a Conservative College Professor."
www.law.wisc.edu/newsletter/archives/printView.php?iID=2005-02-21
Here's a little bit of explanation:
Adams is a former atheist who returned to the Christian flock after a spiritual catharsis in a South American prison (He was a visitor, by the way, not a resident). He's an avid hunter who responds to criticism from animal-rights activists by describing the taste of his cooked prey with lip-smacking gusto.
http://galatiansc4v16.wordpress.com/2005/04/22/professor-sails-against-…
A hunter. Now I REALLY hate him.
Many, I imagine, but with his attitude towards women, I doubt that he's ever seen an unfaked female orgasm, from a feminist or not.
In regards to your accusation of MA's "gun kookery":
http://www.hairyfishnuts.com/archive/83_aug_06.htm#811061111AM
So, two pictures of your opponent, one after a hunt (or whatever caused the fatality of the animal in question), and one holding a firearm, is enough to be branded a "gun kook"?
Ahem.
Gav: what you describe sounds a lot like Gene Ray's invited 2002 lecture at MIT. Standing room only, an awful lot of trenchant questions which couldn't pierce his simplistic fervor, and a surprisingly respectful crowd. No jeering, no outright mockery. It was glorious and insane.
When nobody takes this sort of thing seriously, it truly is the material for brilliant farce. But when they take it seriously, it's a tragedy.
So, two pictures of your opponent, one after a hunt (or whatever caused the fatality of the animal in question), and one holding a firearm, is enough to be branded a "gun kook"?
Ahem.
Read the link I posted with the feminist simile and consider whether or not gun mags are his whack-off material.