The Ann Coulter Hoax

 
I admit it. I was fooled by Ann Coulter. I thought her latest book was one of the standard IDiot attacks on evolution. The fact that it was so stupid was something I have come to expect from the Intelligent Design Creationists.

Now it turns out that the book was a satirical jab at the lack of intelligence on the political right. Peter Olofsson of The Skeptical Inquirer exposes the hoax [The Coulter Hoax: How Ann Coulter Exposed the Intelligent Design Movement].

Coulter has very cleverly written a fake criticism of evolution, much like the way NYU physicist Alan Sokal in 1996 published a fake physics article in a literary journal, an affair that has become known as the “Sokal hoax.” A self-proclaimed “old unabashed leftist,” Sokal was disturbed by the sloppily antiscientific, postmodernistic mentality that had started to replace reason and rationality within the academic left and ingeniously made his point by managing to get his nonsense article published by the very people he wished to expose.

Coulter’s aim at antiscience is at the other end of the political spectrum. An equally unabashed rightist, she is apparently disturbed by how factions within the political right abandon their normally rational standards when it comes to the issue of evolution. However, whereas Sokal revealed his hoax in a separate article, Coulter challenges her readers to find out the truth for themselves. Without claiming to do justice to Coulter’s multifaceted and sometimes subtle satire, I will attempt to outline some of her most amusing and salient points.

This is amazing. I congratulate Coulter on her expose of the Intelligent Design movement. She has cleverly pointed out every single flaw.

[Hat Tip: John Wilkins]