I received a strange letter in the mail (the kind with paper and stamps, not the electronic kind) today. It was nicely and formally printed, and looked like something professional…but as soon as I read the first sentence I knew it was junk.
Evolution is defined by the Encyclopædia Britannica (CD Rom Version, 2002) as the process of continuous change from a lower, simpler, or worse to a higher, more complex, or better state [this process is also called growth].
That's a humdinger of an opening line; it's completely wrong, of course. The silly book seems to have confused "evolution" with "progress", since evolution makes no presupposition of a direction in the process. But wait! That's only the beginning! As I read the rest of the first page, it was incredibly inane…but when I turned the page, it got even worse.
The author, Michael W. Johnson, Ph.D. is making an argument against homosexuality, saying it violates the principles of evolution.
Homosexuality is defined by the same source once again as simply erotic activity with another of the same sex. It should not take a mental giant to understand that same-sex activity will not perpetuate the human race. Homosexuals and lesbian can in no way be considered as individuals or groups best adjusted to their environment if their genetic qualities are directed to the extermination of the human race.
Huh whuh? It should not take a mental giant to understand that we do many things that are not directly related to perpetuating the human race. Playing a game of parcheesi instead of fornicating like demented rabbits could be taken as "exterminating" the human race by Johnson's reasoning—we do not follow a strategy of blind, unrestrained reproduction in our life histories, but instead invest more in quality of life and in reliably raising a significant percentage of our relatively low number of offspring to adulthood. Most of our erotic activity is simply not directed towards procreation directly at all; it's for social bonding, for maintaining our mental health, and for fun. From misstating evolutionary theory, Johnson has gone to a completely silly interpretation of sexual behavior through an exceedingly narrow and purely procreative lens.
So far, so dumb. I've heard this shallow sort of argument a thousand times before. But then I turn the page…
Since WW I, homosexuality has a long tradition in the Communist military portfolio of maskirovka (deception). Homosexuality played a key role in gaining Eastern Europe for the Soviet Union by inciting that quintessential homosexual poster boy — coprophiliac, monorchid Adolf Hitler — and his Nazi homosexual henchmen into instigating WW II. This time the Soviets have targeted the entire Free World as they secretly move through the worldwide homosexual collective to undermine Western societies in anticipation of WW III. In the process of achieving their goal of world communism, they will double-cross and destroy with merciless slaughter many tens of thousands in the homosexual movement, just as they slaughtered thousands in the German homosexual movement during and following WW II.
You see, if homosexuality doesn't make evolutionary sense, then it must be a communist plot. And we biologists are enablers of this scheme.
There is a direct correlation between the extent of apologetics by evolutionary scientists on behalf of homosexuality and the importance of homosexual Fifth Column activity to destabilize the West prior to a massive Soviet military advance. America will rue the day when it belatedly discovers that homosexuality is not based upon biology but on military strategy instead.
It's like reading the ramblings of a modern day General Jack D. Ripper. Should someone tell this poor lunatic the Cold War is over, and the Soviet Union crumbled?
It's actually rather sad—the poor guy has an education and the ability to place words one after the other in a sensible way, but his premises are utterly bogus, and he has built this amazing, rickety tower of weird conclusions that are completely divorced from reality.
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Darwin and Commies and gays, oh my!
O... M... G...
That's out of the [i]Brittanica[/i] Encyclopedia? Christ, more like Conservapedia.org.
No, scratch that. Not even Conservapedia is that bad.
I teach my high school freshmen to avoid using definitions in their introductions. Reason: they inevitably make you sound like an idiot. Especially if you're an idiot.
Wait... Now, after rereading your post, PZ, I'm confused. Does the actual encyclopedia say that, or was the letter just BS'ing you?
What does this guy have a PhD in? Please don't let it be anything bio or anything history.
Hitler might have been a coprophiliac, but not a homosexual.
See http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/h/hitler-adolf/oss-papers/text/profil…
for an OSS pyschological profile.
Playing a game of parcheesi instead of fornicating like demented rabbits
Best line ever. Thank you.
Hmm. Britannica uses the word 'better'? Oh man.
He includes a bio with his letter.
Some of that, then, we can chalk up to brain damage.
We must protect our precious bodily fluids against the communist menace.
So the homosexuals, Nazis, and communists are plotting together to kill us all. I had suspected as much, but I have one question: How are the Jews involved?
Inquiring minds want to know.
If we're going to live to see America fall, it might as well be because of homosexual Soviets. Wouldn't have seen it coming if it wasn't for this Ph.D.
I don't have the 2002 CD version of Britannica handy, but the current online version definitely doesn't define evolution that way. The closest I can find is its entry for "cultural evolution", which begins with: "the development of a culture from simpler to more complex forms, by a continuous process."
His (claims of) qualifications and the nature of his argument do remind me quite a lot of a BBC poster - a female counterpart to him in some ways. Her alleged qualifications vary quite a lot with each telling (depending on what she needs to pretend authority in) but tend to have a basic similar dubiousness of content to them even if real. She's also rabidly anti-homophobic (anti-atheist, -secularist, -scientist, -communist, -satanist! etc etc - all of which she mixes up) and suspicious of government, military and anyone else who isn't also a believer in her strange brand of religion (involving reptilians in power, telepathic ETs, fecundity as a way to reincarnation, some sort of distorted Matrix obsession and a bunch of other weird stuff).
I wonder if some courses are an indicator of craziness to come.
So now I'm part of a Fifth Column that's trying to destabilize the West? And here I thought I was just an atheist, lesbian mother trying to raise my kid in a rational world.
I guess I should report for repatriation training. Then again, my Significant Other says I'm too far gone - they'll just put me in the Hole.
Jen
Oh, I see. He's quoting the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, which is included with the Encyclopedia. Definition 2c(1) in that entry, to be specific. He's conveniently ignored definition 4b from the same entry: "a theory that the various types of animals and plants have their origin in other preexisting types and that the distinguishable differences are due to modifications in successive generations".
Realistically, is this guy any screwier then Pat Robertson?
This is the reasoning that results from the presupposition "god exists."
All thought after this presupposition is chosen becomes a case of:
1.This complies with my god belief.
2.This doesn't.
3.That which doesn't comply with my god belief must be evil.
4.That which complies with my god belief must be good.
Let me see. I hate nazis and communists, therefore they mustn't comply with my god belief, so I will put them in the evil category.
Once your presupposition is god, but especially a christian or an islamic god, included in this presupposition is the false dichotomy of "good and evil." Their reasoning ability then focuses on defining what is good and what is evil according to their god belief. That an incredible amount of cherry picking goes on in a process like this, goes without saying.
I forgot to mention - Therefore according to the process used in 18 - Evolution is evil.
of course, if the current version of EB has anything to say about it, your letter writer was taking considerable "dramatic license" with the actual entry in EB:
Evolution:
theory in biology postulating that the various types of plants, animals, and other living things on Earth have their origin in other preexisting types and that the distinguishable differences are due to modifications in successive generations. The theory of evolution is one of the fundamental keystones of modern biological theory.
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9106075/evolution
it's possible an older version said something different, but i really doubt that it was anything like what the letter-writer quoted it as saying.
The Encyclopaedia Britannica 2002 could also tell him that the Soviet Union was dissolved 10 years prior to its publication, and therefore the set of Soviet homosexuals contains zero members (oo-er!).
World War Two as. . . a Communist plot?
Jesus. This guy has lost it. I mean, anybody with an ounce of sense and a pound of Gravity's Rainbow knows that WWII was really caused by Shell Oil and IG Farben.
Googling "the process of continuous change from a lower, simpler, or worse to a higher, more complex, or better state" turns up this winner:
http://www.ject.org/sections/editor/editor-articles/article5.html,
The Journal of ExtraCorporeal Technology, claiming the quote comes from "the on-line version of Merriam Webster."
That's quote mining, since the entire definition is:
"1: one of a set of prescribed movements
2 a: a process of change in a certain direction : unfolding b: the action or an instance of forming and giving something off : emission c (1): a process of continuous change from a lower, simpler, or worse to a higher, more complex, or better state : growth (2): a process of gradual and relatively peaceful social, political, and economic advance d: something evolved
3: the process of working out or developing
4 a: the historical development of a biological group (as a race or species) : phylogeny b: a theory that the various types of animals and plants have their origin in other preexisting types and that the distinguishable differences are due to modifications in successive generations; also : the process described by this theory
5: the extraction of a mathematical root
6: a process in which the whole universe is a progression of interrelated phenomena" http://www.m-w.com/
I see nothing like the quote in the online 1911 Britannica,
http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Evolution (or in the current version, of course.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekw3XVq1uHs
This reminds me of an acquaintance of mine who memorably mounted a full-blown assault on a bicycle with a butter knife. Some explanation seemed in order, but I never heard it. I had to leave while they were removing the spokes from his arm, you see.
When I ran into him a few years later he was minus even more brain cells and (quite understandably) did not recall the event in question. I might add the butter knife was a plastic....SH
Pffft. The top authorities of on of the European Union's member countries espouse the same view as this poor guy.
I, for one, Welcome Our Fifth Column Homosexual Overlords.
I might add the butter knife was a plastic..
i suspect for good reason, based on your story.
I doubt you would have even seen him later otherwise, as likely someone else would be telling the story of how he tried to slice the top of his skull off with a metal butterknife, and succeeded.
So, because I don't have kids, am I gay, or what? I'm confused now.
I have two cats. Do they count? Or my sponsor children?
I mean, I think right now that the best way to perpetuate the species is not to have so many kids. No?
Bluh? Last I checked, homosexuals were one of the persecuted groups during the Holocaust. Was it all just a ruse?
This poor guy. His work really sounds like the ramblings of my neighbor in Santa Cruz, who suffered from both schizophrenia and senile dementia--the words form sentences, but there's just no sense there.
As best as I can recall, my neighbor's ramblings also often focused on the nefarious plots of the Soviets and their Nazi allies. Oh, and her daughter, who had been replaced by a robot duplicate.
There but for the grace of no organic brain damage go I...
RM - you hail from Santa Cruz? I lived there for about 9 years (moved south in 2001).
I do rather miss it.
His letter to Osama bin Ladin is looney.
just wanted to say, this post, your description of the book, and your analysis of it made me laugh!
How do you get on these fascinating mailing lists? Did someone once sent you a gift subscription to the National Enquirer and now you are cursed forever to receive trash from the buyers of their mailing database?
Simply amazing that this guy can coexist with himself.
Despite the humor of this post I also got a feeling of a macabre undertone. I'm sure your physical description of the letter got me to think about this (wonder if you intended for anyone to make the comparison leap).
Theodore Kaczynski was supposed to be a genius and also had earned a Ph.D., albeit in mathematics. This guy, Johnson, seems to have a fear of "teh gay" similar to Kaczynski's fear of modern technology as well as being close to producing his own manifesto perhaps entitled "Teh International Gay".
I'm pretty sure that's the most insane thing I'll read, well, at least for the rest of the week.
World war II was a Communist plot instigated through homosexual Nazis? The Soviet Union still has a military?
Homosexual Fifth Column?
Blimey, even mentalists make knob jokes....
Icthycic--yep, lived in da Cruz '92-'99. Graduated from UCSC in '97 (medieval studies and archaeology, woo-hoo!). Had a baby in '99 and couldn't afford both housing and daycare, so had to get out of town.
(It's still home, though. I had family living there when I was growing up and our best friends are still there. Cue violins...)
Where'd you move?
No, DISL, that's "Teh International Male."
Shall we also assume that the Catholic Church and its celibate priests and nuns are similarly "directed to the extermination of the human race"? After all, they reproduce about as often as the fifth column queers.
(I realize that the teachings of the papist Catholics are not a favorite of PZ's, but I imagine they're held in about the same regard as those of the heretic Protestants.)
Er, "Ichthyic," sorry. (There is a fat grey tabby on my lap, spilling onto my keyboard. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.)
remember..some americans became bi peds simply because someone put their beer on the top shelf....god works in strange ways, eh?
Does he say anything about how Ann Coulter is a witless pawn in the plot to destroy the Republican Christian Conservative Party?
Jim Anderson wrote:
So true, and yet even professional writers do it. When they don't sound like idiots, it's still a very weak opening. Even within the body, definitions often break the flow of writing in a jarring way.
Where'd you move?
housing indeed was my downfall as well, the internet boom and bust pretty much deflated my sails for being able to live there.
I ended up moving close to some family near Palm Springs; staying here until the next fish job comes up - looking at NZ.
man, best place i ever lived was near the village in Capitola.
to the beach for breakfast every morning, great sushi for dinner, volleyball, salmon fishing...
*sigh*
well, this isn't the best place to reminisce, so I'll just end it there.
cheers
The Journal of ExtraCorporeal Technology, claiming the quote comes from "the on-line version of Merriam Webster."
That's quote mining, since the entire definition is:
Yep, he's quote mining from the wrong definition.
Oh look, I can disprove the theory of evolution:
evolution
5: the extraction of a mathematical root
Hey, Darwin was wrong after all...
Ah, yes--the famous "Lone Nut" theory.
I smell a Simpson's episode coming on...
...Muuuusst... Cruuushh... Capitalism.
Isn't one of the "Darwin Dissenters" opposing evolution because it it a capitalist plot?
He's from USC... big surprise :)
*playful dig at my rival Trojans. Go Irish!*
Just as long as he doesn't show up on your doorstep with a spanner...
Scott Hatfield:
This is the second-funniest thing I've heard all day.
I would totally pay to see that.
that quintessential homosexual poster boy -- coprophiliac, monorchid Adolf Hitler
Wow, only 1 out of 3 on that 1. This clown doesn't let facts get in his way, does he? Adolph was a walking mental freakshow, & a monster to boot, but since he's dead & everyone hates his memory, you get to say anything you damn well please.
This. Is. The Best Thing Ever. Oh my stars. I can't stop laughing. I'm going to go read more of your stuff now.
That, folks, is what we call paralogism.
Holy disapointment Batman. The Encyclopædia Britannica blows chunks.
Holy disappointment Batman. The Encyclopædia Britannica blows chunks.
This guy's letter makes no sense at all - for one thing, it completely fails to account for the existence of PYGMIES and DWARVES.
A lot of you appear to be suffering from tunnel vision. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the quoted definition of evolution apart from the fact that it is, as several people have pointed out, from Merriam-Webster and not from Britannica. It is a completely correct definition of evolution it is however not a definition of biological evolution. If the clamouring mob had pointed out that the letter's author had confused two different meanings of the word evolution that would be OK but many of you including the boss Mr Phayngula in person have jumped on this definition as being incorrect in itself. I expect a more crtical attitude from scientists. ;)
remember..some americans became bi peds simply because someone put their beer on the top shelf....god works in strange ways, eh?
monorchid Adolf Hitler
Ah, yes--the famous "Lone Nut" theory.
There are way too many screaming funny lines in this thread.
If the clamouring mob had pointed out that the letter's author had confused two different meanings of the word evolution that would be OK but many of you including the boss Mr Phayngula in person have jumped on this definition as being incorrect in itself.
Dr. Johnson quoted it as if it referred to biological evolution; in that context, it is wrong. As was uncovered by "the clamouring mob" here, the definition was quote mined from a dictionary. The so-called "clamouring mob" is a group that refined its understanding over time. Your complaint is much like criticizing evolutionary biologists because Darwin didn't get everything exactly right.
If you're writing about science, never ever use a definition from a dictionary. Dictionaries are not written by scientists. Dictionary definitions of technical terms are almost always far, far, far off.
And no, evolution as progress is not "another meaning". It's a misunderstanding. One with a venerable tradition that to some extent includes Darwin himself, but it's still wrong.
O...P....E..., no, P...O...E..., nope, E...O...P...
Ah, the hell with it. I'm just gonna go shoot a Coke machine.
Wow.
Would it be convenient to post a scan of that letter, possibly with addresses deleted? I have a few friends who would love a copy.
First I laughed, then I cried as it frightens and reminds me that people/individuals can be that stupid, ill informed and bigoted.
What? Has no one ever read 'Protocols of the Elders of San Francisco?"
You'll see there that the whole Communist/Nazi thing was just a front.
They're actually....Whigs!
Steve "Or Maybe even Bheards!" James
I second rrt's request above. Please do post a scan.
Some more comments 1) Definitions
Merriam-Webster is integrated in the Electronic Britannica so I think that explains that little piece of confusion.
"As was uncovered by "the clamouring mob" here, the definition was quote mined from a dictionary."
I seriously don't think he quote mined at all. I think the man is too effing stupid to realise that what he was quoting is not a definition of biological evolution but one of several definitions of evolution in its non-biological uses. In fact a fairly usable definition of the biological meaning of evolution is further down the same page:
4 a: the historical development of a biological group (as a race or species): PHYLOGENY b: a theory that the various types of animals and plants have their origin in other pre-existing types and that the distinguishable differences are due to modifications in successive generations; also: the process described by this theory.
"Dr. Johnson quoted it as if it referred to biological evolution; in that context, it is wrong."
I have already addressed this point: "If the clamouring mob had pointed out that the letter's author had confused two different meanings of the word evolution"
"And no, evolution as progress is not another "meaning"."
Tunnel vision! Outside of biology evolution can perfectly correctly be used to describe progress and the definition that bonehead used in his letter was one from outside of biology. In this sense evolution is synonymous with development as in "the evolution/development of ideas/concepts etc."
As to not using dictionary definitions in science I totally agree with you.
2) Gay conspiracies:
On reading this extraordinary document two ironic thoughts on the history of the Nazis, WW II and homosexuality occurred to me. On the one hand the most prominent homosexual Nazi was Ernst Röhm the founder and leader of the SA and look what happened to him. On the other hand the gay icon of computer science Alan Turing made a very significant contribution to the defeat of the Nazis when he and his team at Bletchley Park succeeded in breaking the Enigma Code
"Hi, I'm Comrade Julian and this is my friend, Comrade Sandy. Welcome to the Bona International"
"Bona Internationale. That's your actual French, you know."
Have a stroke, move to the right. It never fails!
I think y'all are being a bit overcritical. I note this comment from his bio...
...and I have to say I think this is some pretty good thinking for a guy who's been dead for 20 years! Cut him some slack, won'cha'?
(OK, OK, sorry to be such a syntax dork... but I'm just sayin'...)
You mean it's Zombie Michael Johnson? Uh-oh.
Pause for a moment's pedantry:
In fact the word evolution wasn't one of Darwin's favorites, and it appears in the Origin only in its sixth (final) edition, a few times in the last chapter. He preferred transmutation or descent with modification instead of evolution, for good reason. At the start of the 1800's, the word evolution (from the Latin word evolutio , meaning "unroll like a scroll") was used to refer to an orderly sequence of events, particularly one in which the outcome was somehow contained within it from the start. It referred to the development of the fetus, until Lamarck used the analogy, still strong until this century, between the growth of a single organism and the development of a species.
Darwin didn't use the term evolution until long after he had formulated his theories. In 1871 he made extensive revisions to the Origin, using the word evolution for the first time in print. This sixth edition was published in 1872. Its text is online (searchable) at wikisource and other sites.
Since then of course both the technical and popular meanings of evolution have been shaped by Darwin's impact.
Those are all misuses of the biological meaning as a metaphor.
You'd think so, but I've actually seen a Catholic argue that homosexuality is unnatural because it doesn't make babies. Maybe that's why they don't mind the clergy sex scandals--after all, the poor priests are just trying to raise their fitness above zero.
"1: one of a set of prescribed movements"
Thanks, this helps me a lot. For some time now, I've been puzzled by a usage of the word "evolution" in fire/rescue that doesn't seem to have anything to with any biological meaning of the word. This may be it. Just as a note, they always seem to use it when describing a standard operating procedure on a fire ground.
If you're writing about science, never ever use a definition from a dictionary. Dictionaries are not written by scientists. Dictionary definitions of technical terms are almost always far, far, far off.
And no, evolution as progress is not "another meaning". It's a misunderstanding. One with a venerable tradition that to some extent includes Darwin himself, but it's still wrong.
Those are all misuses of the biological meaning as a metaphor.