A world-class neurosurgeon couldn’t possibly have been as stupid as Michael Egnor — the denial of even the most basic and medically relevant evidence of evolution in bacteria, the outright denial of the importance of the scientific literature, dismissing it as “chaff”, the obtuse insistence on self-contradictory definitions of information — it should have told us long ago that our leg was being pulled. We put a lot of effort into debunking arguments that only a purblind ignorant creationist could have fallen for, and we should have noticed that Egnor was just a little too far over the top.

As the Panda’s Thumb reveals, those wacky fellows at the DI have carefully set us up with a well-built-up foundation for an April Fools prank, establishing Egnor as a believer in ideas so outrageously inane that not even Casey Luskin could possibly have fallen for it. I blush to admit that I did think it was possible a well-trained surgeon might hold notions as foolish as those expressed by the clownish Egnor persona. It just goes to show that the line between creationist parody and creationist reality is drawn awfully fine.

Now that the trick has been played, though, I do hope the Discovery Institute goes back through Egnor’s postings that were put up to establish his fake creationist bona fides, and edits them or adds disclaimers. There’s a lot of material he’s put up in the last month that’s going to have to be labeled with big bold THIS IS A JOKE! stickers, lest others also be fooled into thinking the DI supports that kind of blatantly backwards old-school creationism.