The plagiarism charge reveals the desperation of the libs and the left to discredit Ann Coulter.
Posted on 07/08/2006 8:00:12 AM PDT by churchillbuff
Virtually all the chattering-class attention has targeted Coulter's comments disparaging the "Jersey Girls" or (this past weekend) a charge that she plagiarized a few sentences. On the latter point, Coulter can defend herself. But a quick scan of one of the sentences in question shows wording that is easily different enough to pass the smell test on that issue.
The "Jersey Girls" are four widows whose husbands died on 9/11. Coulter excoriates them for using their family tragedies to promote a left-wing political agenda.
Whether one would have used exactly the same words to make the author's point (who can top Coulter's talent for turning a phrase and heading straight for the jugular?), these women's activities have surely given every appearance of being less about bringing closure to their grief and more about shilling for the Kerry campaign.
While echoing the "Bush lied" agitprop, these four women totally ignored ample evidence of Bill Clinton's corrupt criminal negligence on terrorism during eight years in the White House. Only Bush's eight months (prior to 9/11) mattered. "Bush knew?" Sorry, but it's hard to take that seriously as a quest for "truth." They'll have to do better than to say, "Our husbands died, so don't you dare contradict us."
One could cite the 75 pages involving Coulter's anti-Darwinian arguments and say that responding to them (pro or on) would require a large part of yet another book on the subject. And this column does not purport to do justice to her work in the limited space here. That does not justify totally ignoring it, either.
Basically, Godless makes the case that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is "a make-believe story" based on "no proof in the scientist's laboratory of the fossil record — and that's after 150 years of very determined looking." According to Coulter, "We wouldn't still be talking about it but for the fact that liberals believe evolution disproves God."
By way of explanation, the full title of the book Godless: The Church of Liberalism goes to issues beyond evolution. Coulter argues that liberalism is itself a pagan religion. Among its distinguishing features, Coulter suggests, are:
Its sacraments (abortion).
Its holy writ (Roe v. Wade).
Its martyrs (from Soviet spy Alger Hiss to cop-killer Mumia Abu Jamal).
Its clergy (public school teachers).
Its churches (government schools).
Its doctrine of infallibility (as manifest in the "absolute authority" of such spokesmen as Cindy Sheehan and Max Cleland [and the "Jersey Girls?" — WV]).
And its cosmology (in which mankind is an inconsequential accident).
"Even if evolution were true," Coulter writes, "it wouldn't disprove God." She goes on to make her case that evolution is not true. Obviously, she has done considerable careful and time-consuming research. Much of the book, especially the evolution part of it, is — as Rush Limbaugh has noted — "an intellectual feast," albeit sprinkled with her signature penchant for the facetious wisecrack, e.g. "If you want something that complicates a belief in God, try coming to terms with Michael Moore being one of God's special creatures."
The book points out that Darwin "hypothesized [not proved]" that the bat might have evolved from a clumsy squirrel. The idea that we emerged from a monkey (or whatever) has yet to be proven. Human breeders have not produced a single biological structure in the laboratory — let alone a whole new animal species — even under artificial conditions. "No such demonstration exists; none has ever been provided."
Next, we come to a major fraud that has contributed to the "evolution" theory: the discovery of "a manlike ape that looked like a transitional fossil between ape and man — the long sought after 'missing link.'" For decades, biology textbooks (studied by our kids in liberal "churches" — i.e., government schools) presented this as fact.
In 1953, the "finding" of the "Piltdown Man" (the ancient skull of an apelike man in transition) "was exposed [after decades of respectability in scientific circles] as a complete and utter fraud" and was in fact "from a thousand-year old human fossil and the jaw from an modern orangutan."
Other fakes include "findings" by such "scientists" as the German Ernest Haeckel whose early 20th Century "demonstrations dealt with the "amazing similarity of fish, chickens, and humans to the womb." His work too appeared in biology textbooks in government "churches," even after embryonist Michael Richardson discovered in the 1990s that Haeckel had "used the same woodcuts for some of the embryos and doctored others to make sure that the embryos looked alike." Said Richardson: "It looks like it's turning out to be one of the most famous fakes in biology."
Haeckel, by the way, had other theories as to how man emerged. Among them was his "scientific" claim that "wooly-haired Negroes" were psychologically nearer to the animals (apes and dogs) than to civilized Europeans...[and therefore] we must....assign a totally different value to their lives."
In fact, there are more than tenuous links between evolution theories and those of Nazism. As Coulter puts it, "From Marx to Hitler, the men responsible for the greatest mass murders of the twentieth century were avid Darwinists." As evidence of this, one can site Richard Weikart's book From Darwin to Hitler, wherein the author traces the evidence that eugenics organizations in Germany at the dawn of the 20th Century touted "scientific" theories of the laws of evolution.
As Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf, "Everyone who believes in the higher evolution of living organisms must admit that every manifestation of the vital urge and struggle to live must have had a definite beginning in time and that one subject alone must have manifested it for the first time. It was then repeated again and again, and the practice of it spread over a widening area, until finally it passed into the subconscious of every member of the species, where it manifested itself as 'instinct.'"
Coulter writes, "It is impossible to understand Hitler's monstrous views apart from his belief in natural selection applied to races. He believed Darwin's theory of natural selection showed that 'science' justified extermination of the Jews."
And here, the author gets closer to home and contemporary society when she notes that many abusers, politically correct advocates, sexual profligates, racists, and "animal rights nuts" eventually gravitate to Darwinism.
Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, believed in Darwinism. In fact, she cited Darwinism to support her crusades for birth control. She was also a eugenicist. Call it pure happenstance, if you will, but Planned Parenthood is the largest provider of abortions in the U.S., and — coincidence or not — about 36% of aborted babies in this country are black. Blacks make up only 12-14% of the United States population.
Hitler's own opposition to abortion, as Weikart explains, was not based on the tenets of Judeo-Christian morality, "but rather was a complete repudiation of them." As Coulter writes, "He didn't oppose abortion because he believed in the human soul. In fact, and needless to say, he didn't oppose abortion for everyone, only 'Aryans.'"
For 80 years now, we have heard over and over again about the Scopes "monkey trial" in Tennessee wherein the story is told of how the evolutionists made monkeys out of the creationists. Clarence Darrow — for the evolutionists — was the hero who destroyed the credibility of the dottering three-time Democrat presidential wannabe William Jennings Bryan. He is one of the more famous of defeated presidential candidates in history, second only to Barry Goldwater whose ultimate influence was arguably more long-lasting.
It turns out that the whole monkey trial was nothing but a publicity stunt to put the town of Dayton, Tennessee, on the map. Everyone involved was in on the showmanship — Darrow, Bryan, all of them (though Bryan likely would have preferred better PR). It was plotted by the ACLU and eagerly embraced by the city fathers and Chamber of Commerce types. This is all told in detail in the book Summer for the Gods, where Edward Larson explains how the circus (that's exactly what it was) was set up. Hollywood, of course, perpetrated that historical hoax with no less than four productions of Inherit the Wind, in which the trial is portrayed as a real watershed confirming the most sacred belief of what Coulter identifies as the "liberal religion."
To sum it up: Godless cites facts that schoolchildren should be taught. Among them:
The entire fossil record shows a very non-Darwinian progression, noticeably lacking the vast number of transitional species we ought to see.
The truth about Haeckel's embryos is that they were a fraud perpetrated by a German eugenicist.
One by one, so-called "proof" of evolution has melted under honest scrutiny.
There is much more, of course. We've just skimmed it. Ann Coulter has done the research. Her book is a page-turner, not just for her one-line zingers, but for its depth.
Hey Darwin won't like this.
The plagiarism charge reveals the desperation of the libs and the left to discredit Ann Coulter.
To further destroy DARWINISM Press Here!
My favorite comment in Ann's book is almost a toss-off, but bears further examination. She mentions that liberals cannot support both rampant homosexuality and abortion, and Darwinism. Survival of the fittest does not countenance behavior that does not lead to propagation of the species. The human species will not survive if we keep killing unborn children and allowing people to pair up without producing children. So, if you really believe in Darwinism and evolution, you should be opposed to abortion and open homosexual relationships.
Very profound point. I will get Ann's book posthaste and read it immediately!
Really? Systematically destroys the theory? It doesn't look very systematic to me. It looks more like a rant and a collection of poorly thought out criticisms.
So now she's a biologist? LOL.
Ann Coulter is a lawyer. Having read the tedious rant that is Godless, I seriously doubt that she ever successfully argued any cases.
Most seem to have origins in creationist websites, and have been repeatedly debunked. Its sad that she had to do such poor research; it discredits her other chapters.
Just one example: transitionals. There are a lot of them. This is an example of a transitional. Note its position in the chart which follows (hint--in the upper center):
Site: Koobi Fora (Upper KBS tuff, area 104), Lake Turkana, Kenya (4, 1)
Discovered By: B. Ngeneo, 1975 (1)
Estimated Age of Fossil: 1.75 mya * determined by Stratigraphic, faunal, paleomagnetic & radiometric data (1, 4)
Species Name: Homo ergaster (1, 7, 8), Homo erectus (3, 4, 7), Homo erectus ergaster (25)
Gender: Female (species presumed to be sexually dimorphic) (1, 8)
Cranial Capacity: 850 cc (1, 3, 4)
Information: Tools found in same layer (8, 9). Found with KNM-ER 406 A. boisei (effectively eliminating single species hypothesis) (1)
Interpretation: Adult (based on cranial sutures, molar eruption and dental wear) (1)
See original source for notes:
Source: http://www.mos.org/evolution/fossils/fossilview.php?fid=33
Source: http://wwwrses.anu.edu.au/environment/eePages/eeDating/HumanEvol_info.html
Smiling quietly at the aptness.
Unless you are susceptible to an attempt at brain washing with a pick axe based upon mere assertions of 'it is so because I say it's so by screaming and calling people who disagree nasty names,' my suggestion is that you read Bambi, it's more accurate and makes better sense. And, yes, I've read her latest book.
Exactly. I think most of this automatic knee-jerk rejection of evolution theory is pure PC BS. If one claims membership in a Christian oriented group then one is under pressure to toe the partly line at all costs.
I'm amazed at the number of people willing to casually dispose of scientific theories on vastly complex subjects that don't as yet have definitive answers. There's millions of cubic miles of sedimentary layers we will never get to sift through looking for clues, and the clues available are very fragmentary and incomplete. This lack of completeness is constantly seized as "proof" that evolution did not and could not occur. We've only been looking a very short time, and can only see odds and ends on the surface here and there. We've barely begun the task of unraveling the ancient past, and finding a whole, complete progression of any kind of fossil would be an absolute miracle.
Aeronautical engineers are still deeply divided on how an airplane wing works. One faction believes an air pressure differential "sucks" the wing upwards. One faction believes that air forced downward from the wing creates a Newtonian reaction in the opposite direction. Who's right, the suckers or the blowers? No one knows yet. The subject is very difficult to study, as is the vast fossil record that we've barely scratched the surface of. We've got a very long way to go yet.
I'm sick to death of the knee-jerk party line that says "I'm a Christian, therefore evolution does not exist". In the scale pan on one side we have millions of cubic miles of sedimentary layers and the fossils therein, and the other scale pan contains nothing tangible at all, just blind faith.
Modern human. No mystery to that one.
I'm glad Ann has taken up the charge against what is a very narrow version of evolution that is clearly focused on eliminating the idea of God's creation, though it could never do that no more than discovering life on other planetary bodies would. No more than the re-discovery by the devout Christian Copernicus that the Earth was not the center of the universe did.It always amuses me that those who are constantly calling for their oponents to have open minds require that one only accept a very limited set of facts in order to reach their very narrow conclusions whether it be concerning evolutionary processes or any number of other neo-scientific bugbears like global warming.
Although I haven't read the book, I heard Ann "discredit" evolution on Hannity. Although liberals are may be Godless, Ann is clueless about the real science of evolution. Between the fossil record and the growing capture and analysis of the genomic record, the evidence for evolution is strong and increasing.
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