[edit] Evolution
“ For many, the claim that evolution enabled life to cross the species
barrier so that humans are merely the last link in the evolutionary
chain remains a step too far — not least because, by the standards
science itself sets, it fails the test of evidence. It is merely a
theory.
— Melanie Phillips[15]

Wacko alert (the only types that Lee likes to quote):

[from wikipedia]

Evolution
Phillips argues that evolution is "merely a theory." She writes that
it "does not explain the irreducible complexity of certain cells for
example, which cannot have been formed by simple organisms coming
together".[15] She claims that it "does not explain human self-
consciousness; it does not explain altruism; it does not explain how
existence began".[16] She has also defended the teaching of
creationism in schools.[16]

MMR vaccine
Despite a scientific consensus that there is no link between the MMR
vaccine and autism,[17] Phillips has repeatedly questioned the safety
of the vaccine,[18][19][20][21] insisting that "urgent questions about
the vaccine’s safety remain unanswered."[18] Science writer and
physician Ben Goldacre has called Phillips "the MMR sceptic who just
doesn't understand science".[22]

Global warming
Phillips has said of global warming that the current "warm spell is
well within the normal cyclical fluctuations in temperature from
century to century",[23] that blaming "warming on mankind’s activities
in producing carbon dioxide" is "utter garbage",[24] and that the
campaign to stop man-made global warming is like a "witch-hunt"[25]
and is “one of the greatest scientific scams of the modern age”.[26]
She has criticised John McCain for his environmental policies: "Anyone
who endorses, as he does, the man-made global warming scam displays an
alarming absence of judgment and common sense"[27]

George Monbiot has accused her of "scientific illiteracy" and says she
is aligned with a "denial industry" funded by oil and tobacco
companies.[28]

She was interviewed by the journalist Jackie Ashley about her book
Londonistan, and Ashley also argues that Phillips aims to stifle
discussion. In response to a comment that some of Phillips` views are
a bit "bonkers", Phillips argues that, "If the response to the kind of
things I'm saying is to pretend that it's not happening, and worse, to
characterise people like me as paranoid, hysterical, mad, this is
first of all nasty stuff, it's vicious, but it is aimed at shutting
down discussion of this completely. It's the tactics used by Stalin to
call political opponents mad. But it does have echoes of the 1930s
because the Jews then tried to draw attention to what was going on in
Germany, and they too were told they were hysterical and paranoid."
Ashley contends that "Phillips is quick to take offence. That she has
just compared a gentle, quizzical interviewer to a complacent pre-Nazi-
era German and to Stalin might - just might - have struck others as
potentially offensive. That she finds a continuum between law-abiding,
peaceful Muslim fellow citizens and terrorists might - just might -
strike others as potentially "inflammatory". That her newspaper, the
Daily Mail, pursues anyone who dares criticise it by vilifying them
for years afterwards might - just might - strike her as an example of
the intellectual bullying she attacks. And perhaps her emailing my
editor before I have even sat down at the keyboard to write this
article is, at the very least, unusually defensive behaviour."[33]