The votes are in and we’ll be announcing the winner very soon!
Graham Hancock
Best-selling author of Fingerprints of the Gods and possibly the quintessential counterknowledge merchant, this year Graham has indulged in speculation about the 2012 Mayan doomsday prophecy and life on Mars. He also hosts an extensive website that gives publicity to “alternative” historians and archaeologists, some of whose theories are even more risible than his own.
Echan Deravy
Echan Deravy is director of the Earth Pilgrims project and another believer in some kind of Mayan-style 2012 apocalypse. Echan threw his toys out the pram when we wrote about him earlier this year, but that didn’t deter us: here’s another snippet of comic self-regard.
Visiting Professor Patrick Holford
Patrick Holford, whose tenure as visiting professor at Teesside University didn’t last long, is still regarded by the media as a leading “nutritionist” despite having zero academic qualifications in the field and making some highly questionable remarks about AZT and Vitamin C. Check out the excellent Holfordwatch for more information about his dodgy CV and useless “nutritional” advice.
Gavin Menzies
Menzies, a retired naval commander, is the author of 1421, a bestselling “history” book which claims that Chinese fleets discovered New Zealand, Greenland and Brazil. His latest book, 1434, has the same fleets sailing into Venice to meet the Pope. This is bogus history of the worst variety - i.e., the type that, thanks to the efforts of major publishing houses, reaches a huge audience.
Dr Gillian McKeith
Widely derided as “that awful poo lady” and stripped of her bogus qualification by the ASA, Gillian McKeith continues to be a menace to the public’s understanding of biology and nutrition through her ignorance. This year we laughed at her woes and we threw our hands up in despair at her obnoxious stupidity.
Adnan Oktar, a.k.a. Harun Yahya
The controversial, Turkish-born Roger Delgado look-alike Adnan Oktar is the world’s leading Muslim creationist. His rejection of evolution has attracted even more media attention than his criminal convictions. An “enigmatic” character, Oktar has established himself as head of the slick B.A.V., which has distributed the lavish (but hilariously error-laden) Atlas of Creation to schools, libraries, newspapers and other public bodies. He has also embarked upon a high-profile, take-no-prisoners campaign of censorship against all who dare oppose him.
H.R.H. The Prince of Wales
We’re (almost) sure Prince Charles means well. But please, Your Royal Highness: stop embarrassing yourself. Prince Charles’s vocal support for homeopathy and credulous acceptance of GM conspiracy theories is an abuse of his constitutional position.
Dr Andrew Wakefield
Andrew Wakefield is the doctor at the centre of the MMR scandal. Although the GMC is yet to reach a verdict, we already know that Wakefield’s fanatical quackery has caused needless anxiety for millions of parents - and put lives at risk.
Thabo Mbeki
As president of South Africa, Mbeki oversaw an institutionalisation of counterknowledge that may already have cost the lives of millions. Along with Matthias Rath, Mbeki is one of the highest-profile AIDS denialists in the world. UN special envoy Stephen Lewis attacked called his administration “obtuse and negligent” at the International AIDS Conference in Toronto - surely a massive understatement.
Tim Darvill & Geoff Wainwright
Way back in April, we said there was something fishy about Darvill and Wainwright’s theory – unveiled in a BBC documentary – that Stonehenge was intended as a stone-age Lourdes. Sure enough, in October of this year, the experts agreed. Programme commissioners, take note: this is what happens when you set out to turn archaeology into tabloid headlines.
The Church of Scientology
The Church of Scientology has been accused of pseudoscience and recommending dangerous treatments for mental and physical ailments, Their nomination this year rests primarily on their (we hope) doomed attempts to have John Duignan’s The Complex banned. We’ve reported on the fight against their oppressive censorship and will continue to do so.
The Kabbalah Center
The faux-Jewish spirituality cult of Kabbalah has been called ”the Grand High Church of mumbo-jumbo”. The Center sells bottled water, “blessed” by the Center and “infused with Light”. “Quantum Resonance Technology” is used to “restructure the intermolecular binding” of spring water. Philip Berg, head of the Kabbalah empire, has publicly stated that this water can cure both AIDS and SARS, and once even complained, “If the damn FDA [Food and Drug Administration] would just let me put on the label that the water cures cancer, like it does, I wouldn’t need marketing.”
Dylan Avery
Dylan Avery is the writer and director of Loose Change, the sneakily dishonest “documentary” blaming a U.S. government conspiracy for 9/11. More interesting (and entertaining) than Loose Change ever was is this parody. But the original is still turning kids’ brains to jell-o.
Voting closes one month from now, on 22 December 2008 - just in time for Christmas. The winner will be presented with a certificate. And a perhaps bottle of snake oil. Happy voting!
Click here to sign up for free RSS updates.
Download the free 
Join 
20 responses
I wish there was an option for ‘all of the above’. The list could have hundreds more names on it. It would be more meaningful if you’d found some way to limit the number of names to, say, just quackery or just the UK.
Shame Goran Dragovic isn’t one of the options - evading international justice by disguising yourself as an alternative practicioner is pretty outstanding.
I’d be surprised if the Church of Scientology doesn’t win this purely because of being the enemy of choice for Internet obsessives, but really, Thabo Mbeki is the one that really stands out as the most deserving of the award. The others are largely just large-scale con artists or misguided buffoons; Mbeki has harmed far more people who weren’t just stupid/naive enough to let him.
Robert Mugabe should also be on the list for blaming just about everything that goes wrong in Zimbabwe on the British government. But I voted for the Church of Scientology.
Find out why the “Church” of $cientology will probably win this award, at http://WWW.XENU.NET or just Wikipedia “Scientology” or “Dianetics.”
- Why did a sword-wielding former member of the CoS show up their Hollywood building? How had the CoS driven him to insanity? And WHY was he murdered in cold blood by hired security guards?
- What is the CoS trying to protect…. or hide?
- Why does the Co$ attract Hollywood types like Tom Cruise and John Travolta?
Without wishing to reveal too much, I would like to thank our readers for the enormous response to the Counterknowledge Awards so far, reflected in the staggering number of votes already cast.
Thank you - and do keep spreading the word!
My vote goes to COUNTERKNOWLEDGE…a leading advocate of falsifation of knowledge
LOL
Number 6 or is it Number 10(Downing)…President Robert is quite right.The brits not only reneged on their promies to address land reform, theyve sought to terrorise the zimbabweans to vote for their candidate: MDC who they fund.
People can get a different perspective by reading Stephen Gowans investigations. here is one:
http://gowans.wordpress.com/2008/08/14/negative-image-robert-mugabe-through-the-lens-of-western-propaganda/
Wow, how mentally deranged is ‘brian’? Apparently the MDC is a terrorist organisation! But then what do you expect from someone who’s not only a ‘truther’ but who believes that AIDS can be cured with coconut oil? Sanity? Intellectually coherent thinking? Common sense? Rationality?
If he could actually publish his stuff maybe he’d make it on this list.
Definitely Thabo Mbeki. According to a Harvard study just released, his AIDS denial and refusal to roll out antiretrovirals has cost the lives of more than 365 000 South Africans. (’Steve’ is right, the other candidates are con artists, not killers.) As for the Mugabe-denialist,’Brian’,I suggest he comes and lives here in South Africa, or better still in Zim, to get a personal taste of Mad Bob’s medicine.
I suppose this is the same “Brian” who crops up all over the Internet regurgitating the most absurd ZANU-PF propaganda.
But can even he justify the latest outrage - the refusal to allow Kofi Annan, Jimmy Carter and Graca Machel to visit Zimbabwe? Can even he swallow the deranged claims (you will find them in Tuesday’s issue of the Zimbabwe “Herald”, the regime’s loathsome mouthpiece) that all three are agents of the British, scheming to impose “regime change”?
This petty act is also indicative of Mugabe’s ingratitude. Graca Machel is the widow of Mozambique’s first president, Samora Machel, the man without whom Mugabe could not have come to power.
Perhaps Brian would like to ponder why hospitals are closed, doctors are fleeing the country, and cholera (a disease whch is easily cured) has claimed the lives of hundreds of Zimbabweans. No doubt he will blame it all on the evil British, and the sanctions which prevent Grace Mugabe from shopping at Harrods.
Returning to the awards, I take the point about Mbeki and his AIDS denialism. But Mbeki is no longer in office. The person who is about to enter office, within the next few years, is the dreadful Charles Windsor. Unlike his mother, who had the good sense to keep her mouth shut most of the time, Charles has made clear his determination to thrust his views on everything from arechitecture to homeopathy down the throats of the rest of us.
It will be a tremendous boost for counterknowledge, quacks and conspiracy theorists all over the world, to have this opinioniated and ignorant clown as the British head of state. Since HRH is potentially much more dangerous than Holford, McKeith et al, I suggest he should win the award.
I hope Scientology wins “Dumbshit of the Year” and all other win “Dumbshit runner up”
I want to vote for Nadine Dorries and the 20 Weeks Campaign, for their sterling services to Pseudo Scientific Counterknowledge.
Incoming links from other sites