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

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.

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…

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? ; ) )

(or have I missed something somewhere? I couldn’t get onto Swift today).

“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.

Thank you for responding, Brandon. I’d like, for my part, to just say one more thing:

We’ll be running it through some text recognition software and publishing the relevant bits in their entirety.

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.

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.

Grazie,
- BKT

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

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.

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.

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?

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.

Thanks to Reed – this review features online: http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/exam/Dace_amazing3.htm

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

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.”