"Dr. George O. Bizzigotti" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 21 Mar 2006 09:46:04 -0700, "khobar"
wrote:

"Dr. George O. Bizzigotti" wrote in message
. ..

My observation is that it is mostly Jones' fellow travelers making
the ex cathedra argument; if Jones himself is doing so he's certainly
being more subtle than TRUTH.

I guess I'd have to look deeper in Prof. Jones "work" on the subject,
though
I'm content to go with your evaluation.

My assertion is based on Jones' public statements that he's merely
offering a hypothesis and advocating further investigation. Jones
hasn't made any statements along the lines of "I'm a full professor of
physics at a major university, what other evidence do you need?"

George,

Do you remember Mike Rivero, one of the prime loons at the height of the
TWA800 wars here in ADA? He would do things like show a series of pictures
of a styrofoam glider in flight to "prove" something or other about the
plane's flightpath.

When critics started drilling on him, his response was "I was a NASA
scientist!" Well, that sounded pretty authoritative. But UseNet provided a
fair amount of information even back then, so I tracked down some of his
posts in other groups and his website where he listed himself as a "former
computer graphics artist for NASA" with the additional claim that he was
working on special effects for the then upcoming movie "Stargate."

NASA scientist, indeed. He never repeated that claim after I called him on
it.

There were some other strange things about him, too, like having more than
100 e-mail addresses located in or near where he lived (Seattle). This was
back in 1997 when it was unusual for anyone to have more than one or two
accounts traceable to them. But that's another story.

I agree with your observations about credentials and authority, but will
throw in the comment that some scientists, even biologists at universities,
believe in Intelligent Design, so go figure.

As to looking at the merits of an assertion and not the character of the
poster, that's certainly the ideal approach. However, if you don't know
enough about the field in question to make sound critical judgments about
the merits, the tendency is to look to some other information, such as the
trustworthiness of the poster. People with a priori positions tend to see
the poster as credible or dubious depending on whether they agree or
disagree. That's hardly dispositive on the merits, but most would feel
(rightly or wrongly) that it's better than nothing.

-- John Mazor
"The search for wisdom is asymptotic."

"Except for Internet newsgroups, where it is divergent..."
-- R J Carpenter