Powerline: Benighted Morons?

If you aren't familiar with the Powerline site, you aren't missing anything — and should probably count yourself fortunate. Time's award for "blog of the year" didn't have anything to do with the quality of their writing, their reasoning, or their arguments. I think it might have been related to the level of their influence over the nether-regions of the internet.

PZ Myers commented on statements made by John H. Hinderaker, one of the people who runs Powerline, on evolution:

Hindrocket doesn’t know any science. The “macroevolution” canard is stock mindless creationism. The real outrage here is that a clueless nitwit like Hindrocket can claim that the entire field of biology is a fraud that cannot stand up to scrutiny

This led to all sorts of attacks from Powerline members:

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.

Hinderaker's comments about evolution were blatantly, stupidly incorrect. He's undeniably clueless about science, biology, and evolution — but the reaction to this at Powerline is to get defensive and attack an informed, educated person who has the gall to publicly point this out. Unfortunately, such atrocious behavior is only par for the course for the administrators, so it isn't surprising that the readers would act similarly.

Read More:

• Evolution vs. Creationism
• Science vs. Religion
• What is Science?