Thoughts in a Haystack

Jerry Coyne has an article in The New Republic about Ann Coulter that is no more vicious than she herself is. Entitled "Coultergeist," it starts out:

That might seem a bit beneath a fine scientist like Coyne, but this is the woman who said of the widows of men who died in the World Trade Center attack "I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much."

A cattle prod hooked up to the Niagara Falls Power station is going easy on her.

After noting that Coulter clearly hasn't a clue about the "Darwinism" she rejects (in quotes because it isn't even of the same phylum as the scientific theories that sometimes go by that name), Coyne says:

. . . Coulter was tutored in the "complex ideas" of evolution by David Berlinski, a science writer; Michael Behe, a third-rate biologist at Lehigh University (whose own department's website disowns his bizarre ideas); and William Dembski, a fairly bright theologian who went off the intellectual rails and now peddles creationism at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. These are the "giants" of the ID movement, which shows how retarded it really is. Learning biology from this lot is like learning elocution from George W. Bush.

After noting the usual distortions of evolutionary theory brought to the table by such IDeologists, Coyne comments that:

What is especially striking is Coulter's failure to tell us what she really believes about how the earth's species got here. It's clear that she thinks God had a direct hand in it, but beyond that we remain unenlightened. ...

[W]hen faced with the real evidence that shows how strongly evolution trumps ID, she clams up completely. What about the massive fossil evidence for human evolution--what exactly were those creatures 2 million years ago that had human-like skeletons but ape-like brains? Did a race of Limbaughs walk the earth? ...

Maybe the truest shot that Coyne fires is this:

There are none so blind as those who will not see, and Coulter knows that myopia about evolution is a lucrative game. After all, she is a millionaire, reveling in her status as a celebrity and stalked by ignorazzis. I have never seen anyone enjoy her own inanity so much.

And Coyne's parting words are fitting for the Queen of Mean:

Her case for ID involves the same stupid arguments that fundamentalists have made for a hundred years. They're about as convincing as the blonde hair that gets her so much attention. By their roots shall ye know them.