Here’s an email I received today that gave me a chuckle and that I thought might amuse the readers of this blog:
From: RJDownard@snip
Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 14:11:02 EDT
Subject: Ann Coulter’s New Book
To: william.dembski@snipDear Bill
I see that you, Michael Behe, and David Berlinski are commended by Ann Coulter in her new book apropos the “generous tutoring” she obtained at your hands. I am presently in the process of analyzing her anti-“Darwiniac” arguments point-by-point at Talk Reason (with courtesy postings at Panda’s Thumb as well) , and so naturally am curious about the extent and content of those tutorials, and to what degree those tutorials could have contributed to her written conclusions.
I also notice that you “take all responsibility for any errors in those chapters” (Uncommon Descent for April 26, 2006).
In Parts I & II posted so far I have noted Coulter’s remarkable unfamiliarity with the range of the ID controversy and apparent unawareness of the biogeographical underpinning of speciation, as well as a consistent inattention to any of the available fossil information. Am I correct in surmissing, for example, that you did not communicate any of the content of Cavalier-Smith’s review of Behe’s book, or the particulars of biogeography to Coulter, or the relevant fossil taxa in matters paleontological? Hence that you would not be legitimately liable for her views relating to those points?
Regarding upcoming analyses, there are a host of terms and concepts which do not figure in Coulter’s treatment, so I wish to know whether any of these came up in the tutorials (either through her own questions or on your initiative). A sampling of terms, in more or less connective order:
neoteny
homeobox genes
endosymbiosis
phosphatization
tunicate larvae
Conservation Lagerstatten
plate subduction
erosion
coelerosaurs
Mesozoic birds
dentary bones
mammalian developmental biology
ProbainognathusAny comment or information concerning this will be of considerable assistance in clarifying the extent to which Coulter has accurately reflected her tutorial experience.
Jim Downard
In the interest of propriety, I won’t list the host of terms and concepts that came to my mind as I read this email.