Wednesday, November 14, 2007

You know, Denyse, that's really just plain creepy.


Regular readers of this blog will already know about one Denyse O'Leary, whose claim to fame is being probably Canada's best-known Intelligent Design crackpot. Anyone who keeps tabs on O'Leary is already well aware that there is no ID argument so inane, vacuous or hopelessly misguided that she won't pimp it in all of its pseudo-scientific glory on her blog. But that's not why we're here -- no, there's something a little less obvious and a little more disturbing happening in Denyseville.

Unlike most of us who find one blog more than adequate, O'Leary needs to spread herself around. According to her profile, Denyse has two blogs related to pseudo-scientific drivel -- there's her Post-Darwinist collection of ID-related tripe, as well as her neuroscience-oriented Mindful Hack, and she seems to keep busy enough generating content for the both of them. But that's where it starts to get a bit weird.

See, Denyse has this bizarre tendency to arbitrarily link to previous articles of hers for no apparent reason. Consider this post, in which Denyse decides that you, dear reader, desperately need a running list of a number of Denyse's previous pieces, many of them from that very blog.

But what's the point? Granted, all of us, at one time or another, have linked to a previous post of ours, but normally we have a context for it. Not Denyse, though. Apparently, every so often, the urge grabs her and she just whips out a random set of URLs for you, as if this is somehow informative. Beats the hell out of me what the point is although, if you're trying to drive up your blogosphere ranking, maybe it's an easy way to look important. Who the hell knows? And, trust me, Denyse does this on a regular basis but, depressingly, it doesn't end there.

As we've already mentioned, Denyse has two blogs, and that's reasonable if there's a rigorous distinction between their contents. Sure, why not? But that would make too much sense since, in that same post above, Denyse pulls the same stunt in linking from her one blog with a whopping handful of links to her other blog, for reasons that elude the clinically sane among us. And like this, too.

And if you visit Denyse's Mindful Hack blog, are you going to be surprised by what you find? Right: even more links to posts by Denyse, on that blog, back to the first blog, then to her book. At this point, one wonders if Denyse's world can get any more incestuous and hermetically-sealed.

Yes, it can.

As if Denyse doesn't already have enough blog real estate to keep her busy, a little research shows that she's also a member here, where we find the main page advertising -- God help us -- Denyse's course in ID. And just when you think you can't possibly take any more, Denyse has an article at that site that ... oh, fuck it, just go read.

By now, one has to wonder if Denyse even realizes that there's a world outside of her bubble. It would be fascinating to generate some stats to see how frequently Denyse links to herself in one form or another. On the other hand, you can't really be surprised. I mean, these are ID people and, if there's one thing they're good at, it's avoiding reality. But there's avoiding reality, and then there's Denyse O'Leary. And, frankly, there's something just plain not healthy about what she's doing.

GOD ALMIGHTY ... it's just pathological with her, isn't it?

WHOOPSIE
... I plumb forgot about this. And do I even need to do this?

BUT WAIT!
There's more.

5 comments:

Lindsay Stewart said...

Mindful Hack...oh, I'm sorry. I read that as mind fucked hag. My mistake.

Karl Haro von Mogel said...

I think she discovered that hyperlinks are magical.

And I think it is safe to say that there may be some phenomena that science simply cannot explain, such as how her brain works if at all.

I pretty much stopped reading anything she wrote since she went "Oh my stars! PZ Myers is getting sued!"

Monado said...

I don't mind that she links to herself in a neverending circle of self-delusion. She probably just enjoys jumping from one article to another, admiring her own logic. And that's a harmless occupation--after all, she could be writing more, instead.

I mind that she quote-mines legitimate comments instead of posting them.

Ti-Guy said...

I mind that she quote-mines legitimate comments instead of posting them.

Yeah, that was pretty unprofessional (and kind of childish...the way she said 'there's a dear').

...Now I really want to take her course.

Jeff Matzke said...

There is nothing wrong with shameless self promotion, but this goes a bit too far.