linuxmafia.com 2016/linuxmafia.com.tar/linuxmafia.com/pub/skeptic/files-to-classify/hansen.txt

Text File | 1996-02-19 | 8KB | 161 lines

(A follow-up netmail, continuing from my earlier cross-post:)

Date:   Sat Feb 05 1994  14:00:12
From:   Rick Moen of 1:125/27
To:     Don Allen of 1:3623/18
Subj:   Hansen's article on CSICOP
Attr:   privileged crash sent
fidonet                        -------------------------------

In a msg on <Feb 04 23:09>, Don Allen of 1:3623/[e-mail] writes:

 DA> ...could I have your permission to post your netmail response
 DA> in an area I *do* know [Bob Dunn] reads...MufoNet ? Pete Theer
 DA> has already given Bob the go-ahead (provided Bob has indeed,
 DA> gotten the requisite permissions to post the article from both
 DA> JASPR and Hansen) to post the _entire_ article on MufoNet.

Don, sorry about the delay in getting back to you.  I've been pulling
literally 18-hour days at work, reconstructing a 14Gb NetWare server
onto three alternative servers, at my company, in addition to the
usual emergencies.

Of course you are welcome to repost my earlier netmail (and this one,
too) to MUFONet or any other forum you consider appropriate.  I've
already reposted it, myself, to Paranet and to the FidoNet SKEPTIC
echo, where it has met with no reaction at all -- probably in part
because protracted ad-hominem articles attacking skeptics' motives (as
opposed to their work considered on its specific merits) are nothing
new.

In fact, Richard Broughton, Jerome Clark, Marcello Truzzi, and others
-- many of them thanked as sources by Hansen -- have made this
something of a cottage industry for almost two decades.  They crib
from one another so extensively that you get a sense of what one might
call "deja lu" ;->  -- and they never seem to get the point: that
lambasting skeptics' allegedly disreputable motives, methods, etc., is
a meaningless sideshow, casting no light whatsoever on whether they're
_correct_ on _particular claims of testable fact_.  Frankly, when the
articles consist of little else, one suspects it tells us more about
the writers than about the subjects.

However, Hansen's article holds interest for the three reasons I cited
in my earlier netmail piece, and I'd truly like to be able to
*legally* distribute it in electronic form -- as I also would with
Dennis Rawlins's "sTARBABY" article from _Fate_ magazine.
Unfortunately, this requires _my_ getting signed, dated reprint
permission _on paper_ from the copyright holder -- in the case of
Hansen's piece, the _Journal of the American Society for Psychical
Research_.  A third party's claim in forwarded echomail that such
permission has been granted globally does NOT suffice.  With the
numerous threats and lawsuits against my and other skeptics'
organisations (some of which have been participated in by people
Hansen thanks as sources), I'm obliged to maintain a strict standard
of legality, including where copyright infringement is concerned.

If and only if I get the necessary permission, I will be quite pleased
to distribute my electronic copy of Hansen's piece -- a more complete
and error-free copy than Bob Dunn's -- for free to the public, via my
BBS, Internet e-mail account, and on FTP sites.

One could spend a week taking apart the innuendo in Hansen's piece,
since, as I mentioned, it's an almost miraculously complete compendium
of all the traditional ad-hominem slurs from the prior two decades --
which is what makes it so valuable.  I mentioned at least one (I
think) in my prior netmail.  Here's another:  Without specifically
saying so, Hansen insinuates that the brief note in the Spring '82
issue ("Policy on Sponsoring Research: Testing Individual Claims, and
Conducting Investigations of Alleged Paranormal Powers and Phenomena),
clarifying that CSICOP would not itself be carrying out research until
it had resources to do so, was some sort of "fallout" from Dennis
Rawlins's confused charges of "a Watergate-style cover-up" in the Mars
Effect tests that Stanford statistician Marvin Zelen (mostly) carried
out and published in _Skeptical Inquirer_.  Hansen does not bother to
cite the obvious reason -- cited plain as day in the "Policy" piece --
that CSICOP simply had a ridiculously tiny staff and almost no money.
(Of course, Hansen copies his line of appeal pretty much verbatim from
Rawlins, except removing the original's rather fevered tone.)

Further, Hansen goes on to draw some of his typical sweeping
inferences about this, in the "Abstract":

    Despite the name of the organization, actual research is a
    very low priority of the Committee.  In fact, CSICOP instituted
    a policy against doing research itself.

First, this is, of course, not quite correct:  As it clearly specified
in the very brief piece he refers to, CSICOP clearly did not _at that
time_ have the money or staffing to do meaningful scientific research,
but specifically did not "preclude more active involvement of CSICOP
in research in the future, if resources become more abundant."  CSICOP
had nothing against it _doing research_, just against doing research
it couldn't hope -- at that time -- to staff or fund.

Second, there's the "despite the name of the organization" bit.  This
is a perennial favourite.  I remember the way the thumb-suckers on the
CompuServe Paranormal Issues forum had a field day when Richard
Broughton trotted this one out, there.  "What, they _don't do
research_?  How dare they call themselves a committee for scientific
investigation?"  They were having such a good time, I didn't have the
heart to insert a reality check.

For, you see, the American Association for the Advancement of Science
(publisher of _Science_ magazine) ALSO doesn't do research.  For that
matter, neither does the Parapsychological Association (an affiliate
member of the AAAS, and likewise a publisher).  Of course, committee
_members_ of both organisations do carry out research, and both groups
publish research carried out by their members and others.

My point?  _The same is true of CSICOP._  Further, that fact was ALSO
present, plain as day, in the brief "Policy" piece Hansen told his
readers about, but he didn't see fit to include it.  For that matter,
any reader taking the time to _think_ about Hansen's "despite the
name" sentence will see that it doesn't make sense.  CSICOP's name
says it's a committee FOR (in favour of, advocating) scientific
examination of claims of the paranormal.  Hansen goes out of his way
to misunderstand the group's title, and then uses his misunderstanding
to imply that the name is dishonest.

For someone new to the topic, this would be an understandable error.
However, it's a VERY OLD bit of anti-CSICOP rhetoric, that I've been
hearing for about two decades, and expect to hear for many more.
Hansen (and Broughton, author of the similarly polemical book
_Parapsychology, the Controversial Science_, for that matter)
certainly should know better.  However, the problem with picking apart
this sort of insinuation is that you could spend a week doing it,
because Hansen's piece is packed chock-full of this sort of stuff.

In fact, the shots only get cheaper as you go along.  Hansen finds
space to talk about philosopher Corliss Lamont and scientist J.B.S.
Haldane as "detractors of early scientific research" as part of a
slur-by-association effort with earlier, unrelated groups.  However,
he's not content to stop there:  He also throws in a totally
gratuitous footnote to the effect that those two were "promoters of
the Stalinist U.S.S.R."

Great!  So, now, we've established in suitably pseudo-academic
language, through innuendo, that CSICOP is associated with Stalinism.
That's just a bit juvenile, don't you think?

And so it goes.  However, probably most of Hansen's intended
readership either cannot or will not distinguish between innuendo and
relevant criticisms, so they'll be happy with it.  Given appropriate
reprint rights, I'll be glad to help make them happy.  Others would,
after all, also find the piece interesting for somewhat better
reasons.

If you repost my earlier netmail, please indulge my writer's vanity by
fixing two blunders I made because I was tired:  I misspelled
"aficionado" about six or seven paragraphs from the end, and later
wrote "who's" instead of the correct term, "whose", about three
paragraphs from the end.  Thanks!

Cheers,
Rick Moen
Member, Board of Directors
Bay Area Skeptics
(but not purporting to speak for anyone but himself)