A Warning To The Pro-Life Community: This Stinks To High Heaven

Thetheorem_1Okay, so I’m surfing the web and I find

THIS ARTICLE ABOUT A NEW BOOK THAT’S SUPPOSED TO SHAKE UP THE ABORTION DEBATE.

Here’s what the article says:

An American scientist is set to publish a crucial new book on the pre-natal behavior of babies that is expected to have a profound impact on the issue of abortion.

“The Theorem: A Complete Answer to Human Behavior” by Douglas M. Arone is set for release in the United Kingdom by John Hunt Publishing Ltd.  The book has already provoked reaction among scientists, such as Dr. B. Abolade, psychiatrist for children and adolescents in Montgomery, Alabama, who calls the theory, "A discovery of great genius that will advance mankind’s march towards progress".

"I specifically wanted The Theorem to be published in the U.K. to avoid the focus on the abortion debate that seems to consume America. It was, and still is my hope that over here the work can be appreciated for the other equally important aspects such as; why we talk, the purpose of sleep and the identification to the possible origins of autism, and not just focused on identifying exactly when the fetus gains a limited consciousness", states Mr. Arone.

The publisher has prohibited any pre-release and review copies, which has fueled interest in the book on the part of both pro-life and pro-abortion groups.  The Theorem is scheduled to be released on December 26.

First, notice the hype in the opening sentence. It’s a "crucial new book" expected to have "a profound impact" on the issue of abortion. Really? How many individual books have been released in the last 32 years that had a "profound impact" on the abortion juggernaut? Not many. Now, this could just be the publicist’s hype and may not be reflective of the views of the scientist who wrote the book, so let’s keep reading.

The next graph gives us the name of the book: “The Theorem: A Complete Answer to Human Behavior.” Now, I work for a publisher, and I participate in product titleing meetings all the time, and while titles are the ultimate purview of publisher (they’re part of the marketing of a book), a significant degree of deference is shown to the author. At a minimum, you want the author to be "on board" with the title. If he hates it then it can hurt sales of the book (even if he never says so in public).

You don’t want to give a book a title that will cause the author to freak out, regret ever signing a contract with you, and refuse to promote the book with enthusiasm. So there’s a great degree of mutual agreement in coming to a title, and it is reasonable to assume that the author of this book–Douglas M. Arone–is on board with this title.

That’s a problem because any scientist worth his salt would FREAK OUT at having a book published with a title like that under his name. The pretentious title "The Theorem" is going to draw the ire of the scientific community. (Every scientist works with theorems. What makes Arone’s so special that it qualifies as THE theorem, compared to everyone else’s?)

And the subtitle will send other scientists INTO ORBIT. "The Complete Answer to Human Behavior"? What? Really? One guy has mastered all the manifold areas of psychology, neurology, embryology, pediatrics, medicine, anthropology, sociology, economics, and the host of other disciplines needed to provide THE COMPLETE answer to human behavior? Just how many doctorates does this guy have? Where is the research team that provided him with all this data? What billion-dollar fund is funding his research team?

Grand unified theories are extraordinarily hard to come by, and when someone tries one, it usually fails. Physics hasn’t come up with a settled Unified Field Theory after decades of trying, and the squishy sciences like psychology are lightyears behind in terms of being able to rigorously explain their subject matter.

What REAL scientists do is publish MODEST claims that offer TENTATIVE proposals to explain SMALL areas–usually in scientific journals–and then slowly, over the course of time, let these build up into big picture proposals.

The title of the book and its subtitle are screaming "AMATEUR PHONY!" to anyone with ears to hear and eyes to see.

Then we’ve got some (apparently clinical, not research) psychiatrist referring to this as a work of "great genius" and saying it will "advance mankind’s march toward progress." Huh? What kind of overblown 19th century progress rhetoric boat did THIS guy step off of?

Actually, what boat did he step off of, because it turns out that the guy’s from Nigeria, where he did his residency. Since then he’s practiced in a number of different FIELDS of medicine (can’t settle on a specialty for some reason? legal or ethical review board troubles in one or more maybe?). And, although his bio says he’s licensed to practice medicine on three continents, there are enough stories in the press about problems associated with doctors educated in the third world to raise suspicions about this guy’s qualifications with regard to recognizing theories of "great genius" that will "advance mankind’s march toward progress."

Then we’ve got a quote from the author saying that–for some reason–he’s hinky about publishing the book in America–his homeland–but hopes that "over here" in England "it can be appreciated" properly. As if truth isn’t truth regardless of which side of the Atlantic you’re on? As if Americans will be denied the benefit of all his stunning research? As if (upon checking his web site) you don’t see them advertising that it will be available IN EVERY MAJOR BOOK CHAIN IN AMERICA?

This smells.

And what it smells like this this: The guy COULDN’T FIND a reputable American publisher who was willing to do this book and now he’s spinning why he’s gone to an overseas publisher.

Now, just from this piece (which is essentially a press release
rewritten as a news story) there are multiple warning bells going off.
(NOTE: I have no idea if his British publisher, O Books, an imprint of
John Hunt Publishing Ltd. is respectable or not. I do know that I’ve
never heard of them.)

And then note the way the author "scientist" is referred to at the end of the graph: as MISTER Arone.

What? Not "Doctor"? This guy’s got no PhD? No MD? No nothing? Does he even have a masters degree?

Is this guy QUALIFIED to tell us ANYTHING regarding "The Complete Answer to Human Behavior"?

And then note the sensationalism and secrecy of the last graph: No review copies sent out, which is standard industry practice to build buzz for a book. Again, this stinks. Real scientists don’t go in for this kind of showmanship. And why wouldn’t the publisher send out review copies? It’s not like anybody’s been waiting with baited breath for this book by MISTER Arone to come out. This wasn’t the script for Episode III: Revenge of the Sith or anything (which at least had die-hard Star Wars fans waiting for it).

Is the real reason that the publisher didn’t send out review copies just to engage in cheap showmanship so they could CLAIM that interest was being "fueled" among pro-lifers and pro-aborts, when in fact nobody in the abortion debate even KNEW about the book until this press release was put on the PR wire?

The last line in the article says to go to the book’s website, www.thetheorem.com, for more info, so let’s do that.

What do we find when we get there?

Is there a bio of Mr. Arone telling us his qualifications as a "scientist"? Nope. Not that I could find.

Okay, is there a phone number for his publicists so you can call and ask for a bio? Nope. They want everything through snail mail, e-mail, or faxes. They seem to be averse to giving you a telephone number for some reason. (And the author publicist is listed as having a P.O. Box in Jackson, Wyoming of all places–apparently the new hotspot for New York and L.A. publicists wanting to get out of the city).

Now there’s a page of FORTY ONE "Endorsees" one can look at, and it’s basically a bunch of psychiatrists and sociologists and PhDs and MDs around the country, BUT WAIT! Down at the bottom of the page of "endorsees" we find THIS statement:

These individuals are currently reviewing The Theorem: The Complete Answers to Human Behavior for endorsement. We will post the specifics of the endorsements on this Website when received.

So these people aren’t endorsees AT ALL! The publisher has simply sent them review copies hoping for endorsements. I wonder how they feel about the fact that their names are being used as "endorsees" of a book that they’ve only just got in the mail and have, in fact, issued NO endorsement for.

I know I’d be hopping mad if one of the publishers I occasionally get books from looking for endorsements did that to me!

There’s also a Q & A page on the site where, no matter what the question(s) is (are) the answer is:

After reading The Theorem:
No More Questions – Only Answers!

And there’s NO CLUE what "The Theorem" itself actually is.

If you check Amazon’s US and UK websites, you find out that this is
the ONLY book Arone has ever authored, and if you Google his name and
start subtracting out references to "the theorem" then the number of
mentions of him on the web shrinks towards zero. In fact, I couldn’t
find ANY mentions of him on the web that weren’t connected with this
book. There are no research papers by him in scientific journals.
Nothing. His entire web footprint is this one thing.

The capstone of all this is a LONG LETTER in which MISTER Arone agonizes about how, like a parent, he birthed and raised The Theorem and is now, regretfully, letting his child leave the nest and go out into the world (all the while giving the reader NO CLUE what The Theorem is).

The freaky thing is that he sounds like a character in a Lovecraft story:

While the discovery was born unto me, I never really owned it, as I was not responsible for its greatness, for this grand design. No, all of the honors went to Nature herself. I was just a witness at an indescribable moment in time, seeing a part of her that I am convinced no man was ever meant to see.

No, this discovery never belonged to me, but I must confess that I treated it as though it was mine. I did everything I could to nurture and support it, for while I never owned it— Nature’s secret into mankind’s behavior— it certainly owned me. I surrendered entirely to the obsession it undoubtedly deserved, and then gave more. If it swallowed me whole, well, that mattered little, as it quenched any and all intellectual curiosity that I, any one man, could generate.

Then I went back through history, and the model answered all of those questions as well. Deeper and deeper, day upon day, I began breaking through levels of consciousness that no drug could provide, no religion could promise and no meditation could silence. This model simply possessed the answers. There were no more questions, only answers, some as complex as Nature herself seemed to be, others were more basic, but nonetheless important.

Yes, for the first time in my life I was free
from the intellectual chains that had bound not only me, but
had bound all men since the beginning of time.

Of course not all of the answers were a joyous discovery,
as a few I would rather not have known, for they challenged
my long held beliefs. The facts were the facts however, and
I was very grateful for the peace and the freedom.

The best
part of it all was that whenever I felt uneasy with my findings,
whenever I feared drifting into some abyss of consciousness
or any level that I was uncomfortable with, I could quickly
ground myself with the scientific evidence that proved the
validity of the original model. And ground me it did, for
unlike all theories that fear scientific evidence, (this of
course because they are incorrect and fear being exposed),
this model, on the contrary, embraced it.

Oh, man! This thing is TOO FUNNY! I’ve never read a real-life example of mad scientist/horror story scientific megalomania before!

READ THE WHOLE THING.

Oh yeah, and he explains that once he got hooked on his theory he realized that he didn’t want to be distracted by things like going to med school and becoming a doctor.

Shades of Charles Dexter Ward!–who "refused to qualify for college on the ground
that he had individual researches of much greater
importance to make."

Let’s hope he comes to a better end than young Mr. Ward did.

But in the meantime, pro-lifers should take warning: This guy is NOT a scientist, he is a quack. Do not WASTE your time and money reading his book. If you’ve pre-ordered it, go back and cancel the order. And, whatever you do, DO NOT give him positive publicity. Rely on stuff from this guy and pro-aborts will eat you alive.

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

24 thoughts on “A Warning To The Pro-Life Community: This Stinks To High Heaven”

  1. “A discovery of great genius that will advance mankind’s march towards progress”.
    Oh no! The only words in the English language more frightening than the dreaded “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”

  2. Yes, the progress quote suddenly had me sick to the gut with images of the new eugenics movement taking great strides across the fallen bodies of the weak and undesirable in all its goose-stepping, swastika-slathered glory.
    But I felt much better when I read the “freed from all the intellectual chains” quote. Good. He’s dumber than a bag of hammers. He’s freed from being intellectual, alright.
    But the scary thing is, if the lie is big enough and outrageous enough, he just might get a large fanatic following. Remember Mohammed? Hitler? Joseph Smith? Luther? Marx? Mao? Koresh? the Hilton twins?
    If the book does what it the preview hints that it does — demonstrably verify when the unborn attains consciousness — then it would invariably be decried by the pro-aborts because they are the ones who refuse to say WHEN it is okay for the law to prevent abortion.
    In the end, ANY sort of definitive limitation would be welcome in America where our abortion laws are only rivaled by countries that FORCE women to have abortions. But no, this guy is a quack who probably opines more in his Dumb Book than he does actually expound on research:
    “Opening up my mind to the whirling verisimilitudes of cosmic beauty, I was entranced by Nature’s enchanting call. It was as if I was being pulled from centuries of slumber and seeing the Universe for the first time. Oh, and test subject B came up negative…” (phony quote)

  3. How does one march to progress? That quotes strikes me as being exactly the kind of craptacular illogic that Chesterton and Lewis both criticized. Proper progress moves someone/something to some goal. You can’t progress toward progress. It makes no sense.
    Also, the hype and title remind me of Dyanetics.

  4. Mr. Arone responded to a critique of him and his book on our blog on Saturday (at least the author identified himself as Mr. Arone), according to him, he wants Christians to hold off on any type of criticism of the book as he said he can provide information that can be used to prevent abortion. He appears to be manipulative, anti-Christian, and pretty strange over all.

  7. So how exactly is this book to have a profound impact on the discussion of abortion? Does anybody have any idea of what this (probable secular) view of human behavior is?

  8. How can anything he comes up with be considered progress when the unifying theory concerning human behavior was more or less summed up by Augustine centuries ago? Someone needs to check up on him more and make sure he does not waste time “inventing” things like sliced bread and the printing press.

  9. The Theorem: An Update

    I have heard nothing back yet from Douglas Arone since his response to my initial post on his strange new book, The Theorem. However, Jimmy Akin has an insightful assessment that is well worth reading.
    …

  10. Jimmy, I can always tell when you’re all up in a lather by the proportion of skipped words in a post. This one is right up there.
    Can anyone say TimeCube?

  13. Jimmy, I can always tell when you’re all up in a lather by the proportion of skipped words in a post. This one is right up there.
    Hmmm. I would have thought that the length of the post, the number of words in all caps, and the number of exclamation points would have told you that.
    I counted (and fixed) several typos, but only one skipped word (“hope” in the line about Charles Dexter Ward).
    Didn’t see a lot of skipped words–unless you’re counting the conversational writing style as generating them (e.g., as with the lack of the personal pronoun “I” at the beginning of this sentence). That’s a sign of informality rather then fervor, though.
    But I apologize again for all my shortcomings.

  15. I have already debunked the Time Cube before lunch: For months now, sunup to sunup here has been 23 hours, 59 minutes (NOT 24 hours) and of course sundown to sundown has been 24hrs, 1 min. Shortly, this will be reversed for the next few months. Of course, this revelation is so mind-boggling that I have not yet had time to set up my ‘Morphing Time Rhombus’ website; when I do, I’ll be in touch with the ‘stupid’ 4-day math guy (living in his delusional, equator-centric cube world) to collect my $10,000… REJECT THE EVIL 4-DAY MATH!
    😉

  16. Microsoft beefs up push to small businesses

    Reuters – Microsoft Corp. unveiled a new rebate and free service offer for its small business accounting software on Monday, aimed at luring customers away from rival Intuit Inc…

  17. Okay, so we all know you found this article on the Catholic News Agency’s Website and you have self published a book on Catholicism, so you were jealous and wrote this long piece to try to put down this new author’s book. We all know that you were so jealous and full of envy that you couldn’t even compose your piece properly. That’s fine; hey that’s what most blogs are for, right?.. Letting the little guy get his frustration out.
    We also know that you were angry at your failed writing career and that this guy’s book is in all the big bookstores and yours can only be found through mail order on a Website that sells costume jewelry, begs for donations and claims to be a nonprofit organization. What even burns you up more is that you have to work there to get it published. Hey, we all feel your frustration partner, no problem. We also all know that during the process of trying to slam this author’s new book you were shocked at how interesting it sounded. We also know that it was so interesting that you even became obsessed with the book and the author as you over enlarged the book cover, tried to call his publicist, collected discarded pieces of his publisher’s Website and looked him up on Google. No problem again, as we all get confused from time to time. We all know that you felt it unfair that a doctor calls his work genius, and the author hasn’t even gone to medical school. That really doesn’t seem fair, but genius works that way sometimes, it just shows up in the strangest places. So we are all following you to this point.
    Where you loose me and I think most of your readers on this piece is when you get confused that you are someone of significance in the pro-life community. I have never heard of you and I don’t think many others have in this context. I am searching the Websites of the major pro-life organizations and I do not see your name as president or even as an executive of any of these organizations. I guess you could say that you are a nobody in the pro-life community, just like most of us, with all due respect of course. Where you are not like the rest of us however is when you begin your transparent racist attack and slander on this doctor who is from Nigeria. You claim he got off of a boat, you over enlarge Nigeria and begin a slanderous attack on his dignity. This is where I, as an average pro-life soldier, start to lose my cool. By this time I have lost all respect for you and anyone who associates with you. After reading this part of your piece I become embarrassed not only to be in the pro-life movement, but also I feel embarrassed to be an American. This is very disturbing to say the least. What even is more disturbing is how easy you handle this part of your piece, how natural it all comes to you. One could say your true colors of racism begin to truly show here.
    I do not know much about this book. I do not know much about this doctor. I only know what it is like to be an American. I would suggest that you invest some time in learning that too.
    -Joseph

  19. Ah, you’re busted, Jimmy! Your rejection of the elegant logic of The Theorem proves that you are a racist, as well as un-American!
    I wonder how joseph james is related to Mr. Arone?
    Employee? Relative? Mr. Arone, himself?

  20. Great, this is just what this country needs; more racist slobs polluting the Internet with hate. Why do all the supremacy oddballs like you always have the physical appearance of the poorest specimens of the white race? I mean, really, look at you. You couldn’t make the dress code to a NASCAR event, and this is an insult to NASCAR. All that is missing are the mustard stains on your T-shirt. What a slob. The only thing I can smell here is the obvious stink of the bathroom after you would use it. Try and visualize the odor, as some bloated moron like you leaves a stench that lingers for days in a toilet of a fast food restaurant after he inhaled super size chili-fries. I think all of us have been stuck there before. Now that stinks!
    Why don’t we take you and your little racist buddies and put them on a “boat” to Africa. Or better yet we will send you to South Central Los Angeles. We will see how long you last there, talking all your racist garbage. I am guessing it won’t take five minutes before you start wetting your pants. Everyone is tired of prejudice clowns like you. If I were one of your few readers, I would hit the delete button on any message you sent me. I wouldn’t want my name tied to a racist like you in anyway possible. What a poor excuse for a man you are. What a cowardly joke this blog is.

  21. Great, this is just what this country needs; more racist slobs polluting the Internet with hate. Why do all the supremacy oddballs like you always have the physical appearance of the poorest specimens of the white race? I mean, really, look at you. You couldn’t make the dress code to a NASCAR event, and this is an insult to NASCAR. All that is missing are the mustard stains on your T-shirt. What a slob. The only thing I can smell here is the obvious stink of the bathroom after you would use it. Try and visualize the odor, as some bloated moron like you leaves a stench that lingers for days in a toilet of a fast food restaurant after he inhaled super size chili-fries. I think all of us have been stuck there before. Now that stinks!
    Why don’t we take you and your little racist buddies and put them on a “boat” to Africa. Or better yet we will send you to South Central Los Angeles. We will see how long you last there, talking all your racist garbage. I am guessing it won’t take five minutes before you start wetting your pants. Everyone is tired of prejudice clowns like you. If I were one of your few readers, I would hit the delete button on any message you sent me. I wouldn’t want my name tied to a racist like you in anyway possible. What a poor excuse for a man you are. What a cowardly joke this blog is.

  22. I just think you are creepy. I think you are totally obsessed with this author. You are now convinced that he is writing to you. I bet this guy has never even heard of a loser like you. The next step is that you will be thinking he is sending you secret messages over the television set. I believe one day we will turn on CNN and see that you have been arrested for stalking, maybe hiding in his backyard or something. Why don’t you just write him a letter and ask if you can be president of his fan club? Please spare us all the psychodrama of your love-hate relationship with this author. Get a grip. Get some help!

  23. Is this how true believers of The Theorem go about defending it?
    Jimmy, if these are your enemies, you must be doing something right!

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