A Pseudo-Skeptic Makes and Refuses To Provide Evidence of Claims While Proving He Can't Even Navigate a Sorted List of Publications

"My dear Kepler, what would you say of the learned here, who, replete with the pertinacity of the asp, have steadfastly refused to cast a glance through the telescope?  What shall we make of this?  Shall we laugh, or shall we cry?"


--Letter from Galileo Galilei to Johannes Kepler

Skeptic TankAugust 28, 2015 at 9:39 PM
Sparky, you have to be kidding. Sheldrake the Magnificent has 12 papers, including his pseudoscience. And you are impressed? Even when he was doing science, he published a grand total of 6 papers But you are absolutely correct that it is nowhere as impressive as this pseudonymous commentator. I have over 115 publications, more than 10 book chapters, 18 invited reviews, more than 5000 citations and a h factor of 39. I am by no means a star, but these are what constitute achievement in science. But you have consistently shown you know less than nothing about science. The fact that you are a groupie to a complete crackpot seals it.



The Thought CriminalAugust 28, 2015 at 11:24 PM
12? You counted the headings of the categories he divided his list of publications in, idiot. You have to click on them to find the citations. Yeah, I really, really believe what you said on the basis of that idiotic statement. I know you'll be reluctant to identify yourself but I really won't believe your claims without you doing that. Let me guess, it's in the so-called, social sciences. In which case tell me what's wrong with Jessica Utts' work.

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N.B. I don't know much about "h factors" they being a rather recent innovation which apparently was invented to try to rank physicists for things like granting tenure. etc. based on numbers of citations.  There are a lot of problems with them, one being that in a lot of fields the authors of papers (there can be dozens, scores and even hundreds of those named as "authors" of a scientific paper) are often listed according to the size of their contribution when some of those contributions are very little, indeed.  "h scores" don't take that into account so for some sciences boasting about your h score can mean very little.  While I'm not familiar with the system, I did find a reference to the application of that in various fields which makes me wonder if one of 39 in a pseudonymous blog troll who spends an awful lot of time gossiping on Eschaton is realistic.  I would welcome someone who can clarify that.  In glancing around the web, I found that pseudo-skeptic's idea of solid reliability, Wikipedia said about these "h" rankings.

Hirsch  [ the inventor of the system ]suggested (with large error bars) that, for physicists, a value for h of about 12 might be typical for advancement to tenure (associate professor) at major research universities. A value of about 18 could mean a full professorship, 15–20 could mean a fellowship in the American Physical Society, and 45 or higher could mean membership in the United States National Academy of Sciences

I wonder how someone as brilliant as "Skeptic Tank" claims to be couldn't understand the difference between the subjet headings in Rupert Sheldrake's publication list and the papers listed when you clicked on those.  Apparently he's such an experienced scientist that he doesn't even recognize the difference between a subject heading and a properly cited paper.  Other than that, I'd think large error bars would be a logical necessity for the system to have anything like validity.  Very large error bars.

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Skeptic TankAugust 29, 2015 at 11:51 AM
Tony, there is no fucking way I am ever going to identify myself to you. You are obviously a deeply disturbed man. We can all see that your condition is deteriorating as your life crumbles around you. Shortly, you will no longer be able to suppress the enormity of your life's failures. i certainly can not jeopardize my safety and that of my family by exposing myself to mayhem when you snap.
And you are completely wrong about me being a social scientist and on the low rungs. I am a full professor at a prestigious school in a hard science. I am internationally recognized in my field and people have invited me to more than 20 foreign countries to present my work. And I consult with journals, academic institutions, corporations and government agencies.
So tell us about your credentials. Oh, that's right. You have none whatsoever. Your failures are legendary and now you can barely feed yourself. I am certainly not going to accept the scientific opinions of a failed, hick piano teacher. 
Now go fuck off and go back to you conservative moralizing about sex and pornography. Maybe you should send your essays to Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee. They share your views on these topics.

OK, now that I've recovered from laughing my ass off over the attempted psyching out and trash talking,  note that the great and sciencey "skeptic" is asking me to take what would seem to be extraordinary claims - there being not that many people of such an elevated position and, I'd guess, fewer of those who have hours every day to loll around Eschaton gossiping and dishing with such bright lights as Steve Simels and Thunderboy - I'm supposed to take his claims on faith, with nothing to go on but his rather tall talking claims and he's outraged that I refuse to just believe him.

I'm supposed to take his claim on faith.  I will point out that I knew he'd never back it up with his real name and links to his CV and publications list, I made the challenge so I could point this out.

I could, furthermore, point out that he slammed a known scientist with decades of published research and some rather major faculty and other positions in science, Rupert Sheldrake, without being aware of or familiar with his published science not to mention that of Jessica Utts.

I will repeat what he said when I pointed him to Sheldrake's rather long publications list because it is just so funny.

.... you have to be kidding. Sheldrake the Magnificent has 12 papers, including his pseudoscience. And you are impressed?

What's unimpressive is an alleged scientist who characterizes another scientists' published work while being entirely ignorant of even what he's published.

I do know there are people supposedly in the sciences who do that kind of thing, being a student of pseudo-skepticism you see it there all the time.  As I've said several times, they are exactly like the medieval astronomy professors who taught the Ptolemaic cosmology who refused to even look at Galileo's evidence.  They are the very people they claim to despise (while misidentifying those folk as bishops and cardinals).    That such people, with scientific credentials and without those just replace knowing what the claims of the published science dealing with psychic phenomena with bald-faced lies is taken by the science and other media as the gold standard of reliability only shows that they'll buy and sell lies and hype as science reporting.

What have I said about materialism, atheism, pseudo-skepticism leading to a general decadence in everything those touch?

Update:  You know, after someone's told you they find your attempts at psyching-out and trash talking funny, continuing to substitute attempts at psyching-out and trash talking are only funnier.  I'd post those but I think the point is sufficiently made.

It's always those who entirely lack what it takes to make me feel condescended to who make the greatest effort to try to make me feel condescended to.