The Tangled Bank

I'm very popular today. So popular that I had to pare down the usual graphics-heavy layout of the page to accommodate all the traffic. The cause? The Power Line blog picked up on my criticisms of their main man, Hindrocket, and have posted a reply titled "Call me stupid".

OK, you're stupid.

Sorry about that. It's also pretty stupid to feed a guy such an obvious straight line, especially since you know that everyone who comments on it is going to say the same thing. Anyway, the reply is weird. It's the usual whimper of fragile right-wing egos demanding that they be treated better than they treat others, while still insisting on holding the line on the rank foolishness of the original post.

• As Ogged has noted, they don't say the sensible, intelligent thing ("Of course we accept the best scientific explanation of our origins!"), but instead babble about "orthodoxies." The whole bunch over there must be wanking creationists. And yes, that certainly does discredit them—it means that they are not interested in the honest, critical evaluation of the evidence, but instead leap to conclusions based on ideology.
• They complain that my short comment did not present the evidence for evolution. Silly people. I've got articles all over this weblog discussing the evidence for evolution. Check out the Panda's Thumb or many of the sites in the science and evolution categories of my blogroll. Or heck, go to a library. This isn't secret stuff. These guys aren't aware of any of it—so where do they get off criticizing legitimate biology?
• They don't understand how their opinion of evolution is relevant to any assessment of their political stance. There is a sense in which that is correct—if someone honestly says they don't know enough of the scientific story to be able to judge, I think that would actually speak well of their ability to evaluate evidence. That is not what Hindrocket did, however. He pompously claimed that "the empirical foundations of Darwinism have crumbled under attack by a new generation of biologists, especially microbiologists." Either he knows better, and he's lying, or he's completely ignorant of what biologists say, and he shouldn't be pretending to have knowledge he lacks. Either way, he's demonstrating a disgraceful lack of respect for the evidence, and that does call his judgment into question. If I, who have never cracked a lawbook in my life, were to try to tell lawyers how to practice law, and made egregious errors of fact in my claim and even mangled the vocabulary, there'd be no hesitation about deservedly calling me a fool, an idiot, a pretentious poseur…so I'm returning the favor here. Hindrocket doesn't know biology, period. He's a fool, an idiot, and a pretentious poseur for acting as if he does.
• They whine that they've been insulted. I'm sorry, but when Hindrocket can blandly assert that almost the entire Democratic party consists of traitors who are in alliance with terrorists to destroy America, they've lost the privilege of complaining from a lofty moral height about the level of the criticisms levied by others. Wingers are incredibly thin-skinned, aren't they? They can fling it, but they can't take it.
• And, you know, they don't have comments on Power Line, but their fan base is appalling. I got a pair of obscene phone calls last night, after their article was posted, an attempted denial-of-service attack, and a flood of e-mail this morning. Some of it is just godawful stacks of obscenities, while the more civil stuff is basically, "I am a lawyer, and evolution is just a theory." Good grief. Go read this and come back when you have half a clue. You're confirming my prejudice that Power Line readers are benighted morons.