I’m a little sad and embarrassed for the JREF Swift blog today… A Swift article implied Rupert Sheldrake was a ‘Bull**** artist’, for correctly citing a document they produced at TAM3…
Mostly, [Rupert] Sheldrake seems discomfited by a document passed out by Randi, Andrew Mayne, and Michael Shermer at The Amaz!ng Meeting 3, entitled “Communicating Skepticism To The Public.” We have no copies of this document. Perhaps you can help us.
I do have a copy of it. I attended the workshop at TAM3. From the JREF page for the Amazing Meeting 3:
Thursday Workshop: How to Communicate Skepticism to the Public
In addition to the weekend activities, a workshop is planned for Thursday afternoon from 1-4 PM. “How to Communicate Skepticism to the Public” is the topic and will feature Randi, Dr. Michael Shermer, Andrew Mayne and Jack Latona on how to get the message across. Attendance will be limited, so sign up early!
The reason why I remember it so clearly and kept all the notes? Because it was at this workshop that I met Michael McRae, who has become a great friend for many years and contributes to the Critical Teaching site.
This particular document was quoted in an article I wrote called ‘Forums for Skepticism’ (2007), published in The Australian Skeptic, 27(3) – and also directly influenced my writing for ‘What Do I Do Next?: Leading Skeptics Discuss 105 Practical Ways to Promote Science and Advance Skepticism.‘
Does the document say, as Sheldrake claims, that it’s “easy” to become a media skeptic? And what about this:
Becoming an expert is a pretty simple procedure; tell people you’re an expert. After you do that, all you have to do is maintain appearances and not give them a reason to believe you’re not.
Absolutely true. Really, Brandon K. Thorp, you should have checked… 
Quoting page five (which you can see in this picture):
Part Three: The Media Skeptic. Encouraging a Skeptical Media Attitude.
How to be a media authority
Becoming an expert is a pretty simple procedure; tell people you’re an expert. After you do that, all you have to do is maintain appearances and not give them a reason to believe you’re not. I could be one of the leading experts on 19th century Bavarian Monkey Chess up until the moment I say something that totally contradicts what you know about this noble and lost game of strategy.
Honestly? I’m more keen on working for qualifications, devoting years and studying before I start lecturing and presenting to the media on topics where I expect people to take me seriously. But maybe that’s just me… 
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Okay…. that was…. kind of really bad form.
I know (and I’m sure you know!) that Rupert Sheldrake has some rather odd beliefs and he’s done some weird research. But that was a really judgmental article that the JREF produced, without doing their own research beforehand. It did come across as a ’so who does this guy think he is and yet we can’t even verify it for ourselves and we produced it’.
On another note, what do you recommend for people who want to present to the media?
Egg-on-face time, JREF!! I hope they print an apology to Sheldrake, they really should have waited until the letter came out — did they even write to Sheldrake HIMSELF and ask for a copy? I mean, that is okay, isn’t it? Saying ‘hi, we’re interested, we’d love to comment back but we need your help to do it fairly?’ Or even just ask on the site WITHOUT calling Sheldrake a ‘bullshit artist’ (that really is quite rank)?
Yeah.
I’m kind of sad about it, the more I think about it.
As for advice – I’d suggest that you read the ‘What Do I Do Next?: Leading Skeptics Discuss 105 Practical Ways to Promote Science and Advance Skepticism’ document?
Last month I completed a Toastmasters Workshop on Public Speaking, in order to help myself with presenting at conferences, and it really, really helped. I mentioned to some friends at the last Dragon*Con how I felt ‘confident in front of a classroom, not so much with conferences’ and that I planned to do something about it. You can find Toastmasters courses world-wide and they really, really have some great ideas and advice for people. Well worth it.
He should have checked. Come on… I don’t think Rupert Sheldrake is the kind of guy who would simply made up stuff like that.
In fairness, the quote is not about how one *should* become an expert, but rather about how one *does* become an expert in the media’s eyes. (and thus, why we should be skeptical of media “experts”.) Your last paragraph is indeed how one *should* become an expert.
And yes, one part of being an expert is to actually evaluate the claim rather than to shoot from the hip. “If Sheldrake said it, it must be wrong”, while a useful general rule, is not the response an expert should give. What is the actual evidence regarding what Sheldrake said? Wait, what? He accurately quoted us? Did he get the context right? Did we actually say that?
Finally… kudos to you, Podblack, on your organizational skills. I was also at that seminar (I had not yet, at that point, met you, so there was no reason for me to say hi), and I am 100% certain I have a copy of that paper. Somewhere in my office. I could probably narrow it down to… well, somewhere in my office. Given several weeks with nothing else to do, I might even be able to locate it.
My (faulty) memory tells me that it may not have been written by Randi, or at least not by him alone; as your program says, the seminar was not his alone. Also, (again from my poor memory), this was one of two seminars going on simultaneously, so it is quite possible for people to have attended TAM3 and not known about this paper. (That was years ago, so I may be thinking of some other portion of the program, I admit.)
I am wondering what the context of the instruction in the document is, if it was taken out of context?
Cuttlefish mentions that it is. To quote, ” In fairness, the quote is not about how one *should* become an expert, but rather about how one *does* become an expert in the media’s eyes. (and thus, why we should be skeptical of media “experts”.)”
This sounds like what I was imagining, that they aren’t telling anyone to actually do this, but that this is what happens, and thus…. well, Cuttlefish already covers the rest.
“…so it is quite possible for people to have attended TAM3 and not known about this paper. “
For Randi himself not to know, however?
To not look over the TAM3 page (which I link to) and is indeed on their own site that shows that yes, a workshop was held? For the organisers not to remember that they have some record, somewhere, that Randi, Shermer, Mayne and Latona did speak? I’d have stopped posting a blog-post on it first… but maybe that’s just me, and let’s face it – no one is infallible. :/
I will correct you – the two seminars that were held ’simultaneously’ were in fact the same thing? Because there were two ‘teams’ of presenters (and a lot of people attending), so they split the event into two groups. They then ‘tag-teamed’ the presenters, by devoting half the time to one and then swapping over. They essentially gave the same presentation, just in a different sequence (A-B and B-A, if that makes sense). I met Mike McRae in my group (perhaps you were in the other?)
I’ve quoted the relevant part, Carey – and indeed, it could be out of context, sure – You can see the picture yourself for the rest of what is said, including the element where they list what does make an expert? I’d say that perhaps there’s an ‘ironic tone’ in the document is perhaps something that Sheldrake did not pick up on? Yet calling Sheldrake is a ‘BS Artist’ is still out of line, in my opinion. But maybe just me… :/
Well, that improves matters a bit!
I would be willing to see what Sheldrake writes (and if he missed the additional context), but he did quote that element correctly. Did Randi really write it or was it Shermer or Mayne? I’m surprised that no one kept copies of this, particularly when such resources should be kept for people in the future interested in skepticism. Good work tracking it down!
I now have issues with this:
“‘As the head of your local skeptic club, you’re entitled to call yourself an authority”?
Really? I’d like to know who wrote that myself. Was it Randi? Because it’s not much of a qualification, when you think of it. I could be one of three people in my town who are in the club and that makes me the ‘authority’?
Oh my.
I must duplicate and rephrase some comments which are important enough to repeat:
- more giant kudos go to Kylie for keeping handouts, referencing them in writings (and keeping the items she cites), and speaking out when things are a bit slippery ethically.
- I am saddened and embarrassed for JREF for 3 reasons: 1) they did not have a copy of a document which was handed out at their meeting only 5 years ago and was probably produced by someone in their organization; 2) they criticized someone confidently when the only evidence they had was “I can’t believe one of us would say this”; and 3) in doing so, they’ve pretty much admitted that the behavior Sheldrake criticized is something which should be criticized.
And I’d like to add my opinion about the quote. Most of us frame ourselves to maximize those features we think will increase the likelihood people will listen to us. It would be a lie to say otherwise and I do not think there is anything particularly wrong with self-promotion. I do think there is something seriously wrong with encouraging people to mangle the truth and with holding a workshop which teaches them that this the the way to meet one’s goals.
What’s more, this goes far beyond framing real credentials to fabricating them – as CC pointed out, the leader of a skeptics club is not an authority on anything except how to get a couple of people to agree to form a club.
The biggest problem I have with it, though, is the way that these suggestions impede our efforts. If our goals are to promote skepticism and science, and part of those goals is to teach people that there are no authorities in knowledge acquisition and evaluation…
It seems to me that JREF’s purpose has always been to expose slight of hand, not promote its use outside of entertainment. A workshop on how to expose the shinola promoters of pseudoscience put on could have included material like this.
It is this kind of hypocrisy that makes me think twice about every meeting. TAM is large enough that it covers spectrum from the best to the worst and this kind of thing is not on the “best” end.
Kylie is awesome and brave. That is all.
Revising my comment – I can see a point that this may very well have been meant to show how one should be skeptical of media rather than how to present one’s self, however, the way it is mixed in with “how to manage the media” and other statements clearly intended to teach the audience to promote their ideas makes the whole thing questionable.
If the quote is taken out of context, the context is not very clear. While they handout’s authors may not have meant to suggest unethical behavior, they’ve kind of set themselves up for Sheldrake’s criticism.
I’m not surprised the JREF doesn’t have a copy of the material. Hard copies may have been filed somewhere and forgotten or perhaps the document was not thought to be so important that it should be preserved. If a copy was kept on a computer in the belief that it would last, the electronic copy may have been destroyed – or simply not easily found on a computer with hundreds of thousands of files on it. Anyone want to volunteer to review the JREF’s document handling practices?
Thorp certainly didn’t choose an appropriate heading, but there is absolutely no doubt that Sheldrake is a bullshit artist; no apology needed. I wish the JREF printed Shekdrake’s letter in full; if Sheldrake is upset about what was written in that document, that’s his problem – what was written remains true.
Kylie, having attended this seminar, do you recall anyone advocating the deception of reporters and journalists? Did you keep notes yourself?
I ask, because it would have really pissed me off to hear any skeptic in a leadership/spokesperson position advocate such deception. It’s not who we are.
But I agree that the reaction to Sheldrake’s criticism was ill-conceived.
I recall one bit of advice: if you organize, such that you can write to a paper and sign your letter “President, Coastal Skeptics” [or whatever group], you gain perceived authority, even if “Coastal Skeptics” happens to be you and two friends.
It’s not technically a lie, although it may be deception, and it is practiced by people on myriad issues all the time (my brother did this for his environmental group, which initially had just 2 members; Donohue does this for his Catholic group; a local taxpayers-rights “group” could hold meetings in a subcompact car).
It was quite some time ago, but the context as I recall it was “look, these are the tricks that everybody uses; if they can, you can.”
“Anyone want to volunteer to review the JREF’s document handling practices?”
YES, if they’re calling themselves an ‘Educational Foundation’! Are you kidding? They’re running conferences and it says ‘Randi, Shermer, Mayne’ as being the ones who did this! Would you let your own business or science institution get away with ‘oh, but we don’t have a copy on file from 2003 when we wrote it and handed it out as being something we think’?
Would you give them a pass with documents regarding the Million Dollar Challenge? When it comes to something they supposedly pride themselves upon, I’d say that outreach is absolutely something they should be keeping track of – the fact that Sheldrake got a hold of it indicates that it’s a concern to know what’s going out under their authorisation – they said themselves, ‘we have NO RECORD’, not just ‘we can’t find a copy’!
Especially, as it seems to show, that the person running their most regular public-arm (the blog) thinks that they can just insult people because ‘oh, he’s got a bad reputation as a parapsychologist and therefore we can immediately judge him before even READING the document WE created!’
I think you’ve let your own bias hang you there, MadScientist! :p
Er, calm down, CC… I am honestly not that surprised that a ‘volunteer-run’ organisation does mess up sometimes, like anyone can. But I do agree with the overall gist about how they present themselves with the label of ‘educational’. But I’ve said comments about that before. :/
Thanks to Reed – this review features online: http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/exam/Dace_amazing3.htm
I note that you say the article changed so it’s difficult to assess it with regard to your concerns here. As I read your photo document, it seems that JREF were being somewhat sarcastic about becoming an expert by the simplistic method quoted above.
Indeed they suggest having a “legitimate reason” reason for holding an opinion and go on to list authors, professors, spokespersons for groups and survivors as likely “talking heads”. Admittedly they do finish by suggesting a group of three is still a group worthy of being an authority.
Reading the SWIFT article as it is now, I can’t fathom what their headline is supposed to mean – even with the question mark. I guess it has a history to it but the casual reader (me) wouldn’t know that.
As for “how to become a media authority”, we could just ask Jenny McCarthy if she thinks the TAM author was right.
“I’d say that perhaps there’s an ‘ironic tone’ in the document is perhaps something that Sheldrake did not pick up on? Yet calling Sheldrake is a ‘BS Artist’ is still out of line, in my opinion. But maybe just me”
No, I agree with these statements also.
First, I actually assumed an ironic tone, now with looking into it further I see that it wasn’t quite that way. Still too ambiguous to come to a conclusion with.
Second, I don’t like the name calling either. There are rules against that and profanity on the forum, so that kids can access it from school. Why not the same rules in the Swift blog, the FIRST thing people see when going to the site?
The other odd thing is that the article is in response to a presumably not-yet-published comment so just as Brandon questions Sheldrake’s honesty about a seemingly unverifiable document, we are reading a harsh dismissal of something we can’t yet see.
Is this an example of the pre-emptive retaliation we learnt about in school?
Jeff Wagg has now asked if you gave Brandon a copy of the document.
Maybe I’m wrong, AndyD, but the original article I saw on Swift appeared to have more content… more than willing to say that perhaps I misread, since I can’t find a cached copy.
I see no apology to Sheldrake featured and I have a copy clearly photographed on my site and someone else apparently wrote it out on full on the (as mentioned, censored for non-existent children who go there!) JREF forum. Yes, hypocritical.
I’m certain Jeff Wagg knows where he can put himself.
Greetings.
Thanks for reading and replying, and for researching the issue.
My article wasn’t meant to imply that such a document doesn’t exist, or that it doesn’t say what Sheldrake claims it says. We were simply looking for somebody with a copy of the thing because we didn’t have one. (There is no place at the JREF where we store old workshop materials. We have a large and comprehensive filing system, but workshop materials are not necessarily to be found there.) You wrote: “Really, Brandon K. Thorp, you should have checked.” That was the purpose of the story. To check. And to that end, the story was successful — a friend of the JREF has scanned her copy of the document and sent it to Randi. We’ll be running it through some text recognition software and publishing the relevant bits in their entirety.
As to the title of my article, please consider the possibility that the author is not a gratuitously nasty person. The title has several possible meanings. The phrase “bull**** expert” could mean “an expert in bull****” or it could mean “a false expert,” depending on whether the expletive is meant as a noun or an adjective. I thought it was clever: depending on whether the document existed or not, either Rupert Sheldrake was a “bull*** (n) expert” or we had published a document about “bull**** (a) experts.”
Perhaps less thought should go into subsequent titles. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
- BKT
. . . oh, sorry. I see you’ve posted a new comment. The only change I made to the document after publication was the correction of the word “believe,” which had initially been spelled “beleive.” There may have been another typo, too, but I don’t think so.
Grazie,
- BKT
“As to the title of my article, please consider the possibility that the author is not a gratuitously nasty person.”
YOU REPRESENT JREF by doing the blog, no?
Either way, it’s offensive. It’s offensive in terms of what it means – and let’s face it, you were saying ’shit’ and that’s what the asterisks mean. Shit. Why on earth you think people would want to be helpful when you’re willing to insult people on the first-page of your site in regards to people raising questions about your group? Okay – he’s a parapsychologist, his research has been dubious and he’s clearly not looked upon kindly. But this? Bad move, JREF. Bad move.
As for clever – no. Not for an ‘educational foundation’. Really, lift your game.
I’m going to start blocking comments from this site if people start fights. Watch it, CC. Take it to JREF site if you have a problem with them, not mine.
Thank you for responding, Brandon. I’d like, for my part, to just say one more thing:
For what my advice is worth (probably not much at all), I think that you should perhaps publish the entire page, as I have heard someone else has already written it out in full anyway on the JREF forums, rather than ’selective’? You can see a photograph of it on this post, which is in fact readable when you click on it. In case others are wondering, no, I do not have a reliable scanner and could not access one over the past two days as I usually use one at work when I do, and I have not gone into the office. But as I said, I think it’s moot anyway.
I have just got another sequence of comments, so until people calm down, I’m closing comments on this blog for a day.
Brandon wrote:
“As to the title of my article, please consider the possibility that the author is not a gratuitously nasty person. The title has several possible meanings. The phrase “bull**** expert” could mean “an expert in bull****” or it could mean “a false expert,” depending on whether the expletive is meant as a noun or an adjective. I thought it was clever: depending on whether the document existed or not, either Rupert Sheldrake was a “bull*** (n) expert” or we had published a document about “bull**** (a) experts.””
The problem with this argument is that the blog post is titled “Bull**** Artist?”, not “Bull**** Expert?”. I’m not sure how your explanation works with the actual title, rather than the one you give?
I also don’t understand how Sheldrake is said to be quoting out of context. Yes, there is an ironic tone about what constitutes a media ‘expert’, but it seems to then go on to tell skeptics to take advantage of this.
Just to clarify, PB, I wasn’t taking issue with your article about the other article about the unpublished article. I was questioning the other article wondering about things being taken out of context when we didn’t get to see the unpublished article in order to establish any context at all.
(or have I missed something somewhere? I couldn’t get onto Swift today).
The title of this blog post, Machine Elf is “Rupert Sheldrake Correctly Quotes JREF Document – No Bull”?
If you mean my first sentence, then I’d say that in Australia, one is more likely called an ‘artist’ than ‘expert’ with the prefix – it’s pretty much interchangeable? Either way, seems like that one way or another, it’s still being criticised as being rude? It can be interpreted either way, there’s criticism about the keeping of documents being raised and so on and so forth and so on and so forth and so on and…
(…was it a mistake to open up comments again? ; ) )
This Rupert guy is indeed a bullshit artist for taking quotes of context (seeing the following sentence makes it clear that it was a tongue-in-cheek critique of the gullibility of media). Brandon on the other hand is just silly trying to weasel out from his screw-up, obvious in the tone of the article. No, it was not a misunderstanding or miscommunication on his part. It’s just the usual “sceptical asshole” attitude (mentioning Randi’s “grumpiness” in the article is an euphemism and also hints that he half-realizes his fault and attempt to project it).
I miss the good old times when Randi was actually posting SWIFT articles and heading JREF instead of delegating to his young inferiors. But time goes on…
Having overeager little guys of the Brandon type (and the frustrated Wagg, too) fill up the front page of JREF with their half-informed righteous assaults is a sure way for JREF to gain some bad publicity. At the very least, Randi ought to edit those articles before they get published and perhaps share some of his PR wisdom with his helpers.
Posted on behalf of ‘Machine Elf’, who wished to clarify what they wrote:
“My comment was not directed at this blog at all, it was in reference to the JREF blog entry. The author of that post commented here explaining why he titled it “Bull**** Expert?”; I was simply pointing out that the actual title of his post was “Bull**** Artist?”.
Thanks to all contributors – there have been some who have not gone through who are being really very inappropriate (hence closing comments), but thanks to everyone regardless for caring enough about the issue to write. I’d suggest taking some feedback over to the site in question, since it’s more often than not that it will be acted upon if raised with the people involved directly? It might help in future.
As skeptics, we MUST hold outselves to a standard, as best we can, so that nothing we say can be shown to be demonstrably wrong. Philosophical enemies will use any opportunity to claim bias, faith, or deception on our parts. Even if this was truly meant to get a copy of the document as Thorp claimed in these comments, the perception that he was calling Sheldrake a liar in unmissable, and as far as I can see inexcusable. Good work Kylie.
I hope thorp takes a moment to consider either taking a red pill and checking out how skepticism was rewarded in the old testament or taking a blue pill and commenting on if even the most basic scientific concept must be represented truthfully in science fiction
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