THE HOLLOW CAST

I've known some pretty decent people who happen to be creationists. They use arguments that I reject, but they treat scientists as people. I've even met a few ID supporters who, by their own lights, act with integrity. These folk don't engage in conspiracy theory, don't call us names and don't accuse evolutionary biologists of willful deceit.

Larry Faferman doesn't fall into any of these categories. He's an obsessive crank even by the standards of many a tin-foil hat, to the point that he has been banned from commenting at many well-known science blogs. His latest move, however, is the cherry on top of a large, rancid sundae of abuse and accusation.

Apparently, some of the leading lights in the world of evolutionary biology? Simply goose-steppers attempting to suppress free inquiry, sez Larry, and thus worthy of enshrinement, to wit:

FIRST RECIPIENTS OF "FRIEND OF HITLER" AWARD

Judge John E. "Jackass" Jones III, Eugenie "Evil Genie" Scott, Fatheaded Ed Brayton, Stupid Steven Schafersman, Sleazy PZ Myers, Wesley "Ding" Elsberry, Brandon "Haughty" Haught, Josh Rosenau, Kevin Padian, Jerry Coyne, Chris Mooney, Chris Comer, Carl Zimmer, Ken Miller, Francis Collins, National Center for Science Education, Florida Citizens for Science, Texas Citizens for Science, Texas Freedom Network.

So, yeah. I can't actually say anything good about the guy, except that he has the potential to (by his lights) 'honor' me as well. So I took a stab at it, leaving the following post on his blog for all to see:

Larry: my name is Scott Hatfield. I am an enthusiastic teacher of evolution and proud NCSE member.

I have a request.

Please, Please, PLEASE nominate ME for your newly-minted 'Friend of HITLER' award.

It would indeed be an unprecedented honor for me, a humble science teacher, to have my pedagogy, my field of study, yea verily my personal character attacked by the likes of you and your buddies with the Disingenuous Institute.

I cheerfully invite you to so lambaste me. Feel free to visit my blog:

www.monkeytrials.blogspot.com

I have been trolled by professional provocateurs, so you would not be the first ID maven to misrepresent the state of the scientific enterprise in my neck of the woods. Your attempt to make rhetorical hay with your version of 'Der Fuhrer's Face' is like an outtake from 'The Producers': twice as juvenile, and nowhere near as funny.

Anyway, I have to confess that I can only look forward to the day you attempt to brand me with the same sort of limply-rotating, politically impotent mock-swastika.

After all, the intellectually crippled should, as a rule, avoid goose-stepping. They are likely to slip, fall and hurt themselves. It's awkward even for the adroit, and for you it's pure vaudeville spectacle, akin to slipping on your own banana peel.

Now, that might not seem funny to YOU, but compared to the trivialization of the Holocaust your precious 'award' implies, it has the ring of high farce.

Sincerely....Scott Hatfield

(now holding breath)