And in a similar way, scientists "all" believe in the unfalsifiable (is it hot? Global warming. Is it cold? Global Warming!) junk science of man-caused global climate change.It is time for all real philosophers (people who admit that reality and truth exist, but who do not assume that others must defer to their wisdom in lieu of facts) to recognize that "objective" journalism is sophistry.
Whenever there is a dispute, journalism tends to take a position on it - and it is very reliably a position not supported by facts. "McCarthyism" cannot be debated; if you think that Joe McCarthy had a point you are a whackko. But then, actual research into the record reveals that there is nothing behind that position except the propaganda power of journalism. The Alar scare? Nothing but propaganda. The silicone breast implant scare? Nothing but propaganda (not that it's any comfort to know it now that Dow Corning is out of business). And on and on.
The upshot is that when Ann Coulter takes on journalistic conventional wisdom, I do not presume that she is wrong. She says that the fossil record is that complex life did not evolve over a long geological period but appears relatively abruptly. I do not assume that she is wrong, and I appreciate her point that if you call that punctuated equilibrium or anything else, what it is not is gradual evolution.
Coulter claims that hoaxes consistently are accepted as "proof" of evolution, and that even after they are debunked such hoaxes continue to be taught as "proof" of evolution. I wouldn't know, independently, since I have never studied biology and have never seriously studied the topic of evolution. But Coulter has cred with me because I have seen her fight the good fight when I knew she was right, and I just doubt that she took on this fight casually.
When she brought out her latest book she was savaged for "attacking the 9/11 widows" when she was actually pointing out that four particular 9/11 widows were being used as human shields by liberals to protect liberals from legitimate criticism. She pointed out at that time that she expected the criticism to come over her questioning of evolution. But it never really came. So I guess none of what she said about it was actually indefensible at all.
I have studied quite a bit of evolution, particularly fossil man.
Coulter is wrong.
Do not assume she is correct. The point is that she has no understanding of Punctuated Equilibrium yet speaks about it with authority. She is willfully fostering misapprehension. Her work on evolution is nothing but propaganda and should be treated as such.
A brief excerpt:
"All this is grist for debate on literary civility, of course, but Coulter's tome landed in my crosshairs on account of the third of her book (the last 4 of 11 chapters) devoted to assailing the Liberal's Creation Myth, Darwinian evolutionary theory. Her sashay into matters scientific delightfully illustrates a common theme in sloppy thinking. Coulter is a secondary citation addict. Like a scholarly lemming, she compulsively reads inaccurate antievolutionary sources and accepts them on account of their reinforcement of what she wants to be true. It never once occurs to her that she might find it prudent to check on the reliability of those sources before accompanying them off the cliff, either by investigating critical takes on those sources, or by actually inspecting the original technical literature directly."
You can go to other places like Panda's Thumb, etc., to review Coulter's "analysis". I haven't read her book yet, and I do like her. But what in the world gives her the cred to comment on this issue. I mean, the "lawyers" at DI can't even get the law right. But they still comment on complex scientific issues??? And given what DI did to the Dover School District after they cut and run, I'd sure be scared for my pocketbook if I was in Kansas.
Something like a third of the references in the evolution part of Godless are to the NY Times, which she thoroughly trashed in Slander.