linuxmafia.com 2016/linuxmafia.com.tar/linuxmafia.com/pub/skeptic/files-to-classify/hansen2.txt

Text File | 1996-02-19 | 8KB | 157 lines

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


MSGID: 1:125/27 3b5be7d9

REPLY: 1:3623/[e-mail] 11964d09
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 has
 DA> already given Bob the go-ahead (provided Bob has indeed, gotten
 DA> the requisite permissions to post the article from both JASPR and
 DA> 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)