The Sinking of MS Estonia: Case Re-opened Part II

[Vixen]

You quoted Hikipedia as your source, so presumably you have checked out the citations and references already for that source. Why should it be up to others to check your sources for you?

Also, Hikipedia is a satire humour website. Why did you link to it as a source and why would you expect it to contain any useful sources or references for it's satirical content?

Why do you call it an "observation"? You assume that the author of an article on a website full of over-the-top absurd satire has based the reference on "his observation" that the bow door was compromised because nuclear material caused part of it to dissolve?

PRIVATE EYE is satirical but that's not to say it doesn't run serious articles and much of the tongue-in-cheek stuff is to protect itself from being sued for libel, as it is regularly. As I already explained I quoted the Hikipedia source as a Finnish expert engineer, Harri Ruotsalainen, who was ont he original team of investigators to the accident, presented to the Estonian riksdag on 10 Sept (= current affairs news) as part of a working party that the vehicles in the car deck should be checked against the consignment notes because of his apparent belief the crew may have opened the car ramp in order to hastily dispose of a vehicle. He told the Estonian riksdag that his aim was to 'rule out' that particular theory.

 

[Vixen]

You claimed to be a scientist.

Also please quote the post or posts where I or JayUtah stated that one had to be a scientist to discuss this topic.

Stop attempting to run away from your claim and for once support it.

You do realise that no one is buying this right?

In response to Jay Utah's jibe I was not a scientist. I am a practising business scientist.

 

[Vixen]

Because you brought it up as an attempt to claim some level of credibility.

Stop trying to pretend that your unambiguous statement that you are a scientist was anything other than an attempt to claim expertise to silence dissent.

Who do you think is buying your pathetic little games here Vixen?

No, I didn't bring it up. Jay Utah kept bringing it up. I note you and him don't attack anyone else. Only me.

 

[MarkCorrigan]

I have made no claims of expertise.

Ordinary BSc's or BA's don't need to do that part. So that is a key scientific part, whether you like it or not.

I have never claimed to have any expertise.

You are literally vacillating between stating you're not claiming expertise and then claiming you have some kind of scientific background in your education. In other words, a claim of expertise.

 

[MarkCorrigan]

In response to Jay Utah's jibe I was not a scientist. I am a practising business scientist.

It's not a jibe. It's clearly the truth. You are not a scientist. You do not understand how science is conducted or how scientists act, and yet you are making claims about science and scientists.

 

[MarkCorrigan]

No, I didn't bring it up. Jay Utah kept bringing it up. I note you and him don't attack anyone else. Only me.

Oh poor bullied me isn't an act that will fly here. I'm not "attacking" anyone else because no one else has been making claims they are clearly not equipped to make. It is not our fault your mouth is writing cheques your body can't cash, as the saying goes.

 

[Vixen]

Again, you do realise that people can just go back and read old posts in the thread right? I know you do because at some point you started deleting your own posts in a transparent attempt to hide what you had stated.

You have claimed knowledge of both metallurgy and the KGB in this thread. You've made statements that certain things match the KGB/replacement services actions and you therefore suspect that they might be involved. You've made claims regarding the KGB leadership which were utterly, utterly out of touch with reality.

If you didn't want your interlocutors to scrutinise your statements on subjects and demand that you show competence in them, stop making pronouncements about things to indicate knowledge in them!

Again to go back to my deliberately absurd hypothetical, imagine if I started a thread on Finland and said that something or other was suspicious because the Finns spoke Flemish. I imagine that you would rightly criticise my evident lack of knowledge in the Finnish people, and if I had made this as a pronouncement criticise my attempting to claim expert knowledge in Finland when I clearly had none.

No one is saying that you have to be a polymath to deal with this subject, but when you MAKE A CLAIM, you should have the relevant knowledge to be able to SUPPORT THAT CLAIM. This isn't difficult, nor is it especially onerous.

Stop attempting to gaslight people. Stop throwing hissy fits because your bluff has been called. Stop trying to use emotional arguments to try to get out of the corner you have painted yourself into. Answer the damn questions.

You are once again lying. Jay Utah was browbeating me as to what my scientific background was and I answered straightforwardly and frankly. At no time did I claim this was relevant to the topic. It is Jay Utah who keeps insisting it should be.

FWIW I am not an 18-year old or 20-something when qualifications from school or college are relevant. Once you have achieved entry level for the next level up, the earlier qualifications cease to mean anything. So once I became a business postgraduate, my previous qualifications mean nothing at all AFAIAC but it would be quite untrue to claim I have no scientific background as Jay Utah insists on doing.

 

[MarkCorrigan]

You clearly do not have a scientific background any more than I have a background in French because of my GCSE.

Only one person is lying here Vixen. The one who has at times attempted to go back and erase their own posts to hide what they have said. You.

 

[Vixen]

You are literally vacillating between stating you're not claiming expertise and then claiming you have some kind of scientific background in your education. In other words, a claim of expertise.

I am straightforwardly responding to questions from posters. If a poster were to ask me whether I was familiar with the Baltic area and I answered politely yes, that is not me bragging about anything, it is because someone demanded I answer that question and so I did. That is not 'claiming expertise'.

 

[Vixen]

It's not a jibe. It's clearly the truth. You are not a scientist. You do not understand how science is conducted or how scientists act, and yet you are making claims about science and scientists.

Yeah and my Daddy is bigger than your Daddy.

 

[Vixen]

You clearly do not have a scientific background any more than I have a background in French because of my GCSE.

Only one person is lying here Vixen. The one who has at times attempted to go back and erase their own posts to hide what they have said. You.

If Jay Utah were to insist on knowing what level of French you studied and you truthfully told him, that is you politely answering his question not you bragging.

 

[JayUtah]

Incorrect. It is you and 'Mark Corrigan' who brought up the idea that one has to be a scientist to discuss this topic.

No. Out of the blue you wrote:

However, the experts to whom they referred the bow visor samples to are wholly independent academic scientists who do things empirically and as observed by demonstrable tests in a scientific laboratory, in tests that can be replicated by any other scientist in the same field to achieve the same results.

A scientist will use the term 'compatible with' because they use statistical probability to evaluate their results and thus use confidence intervals and ANOVA to calculate the odds on getting their results completely randomly, so it always will be X%/100% as there will always be a degree of freedom.

You're clearly attempting to school other readers about how scientists do their work. The second paragraph is especially irrelevant to microscopic metallurgy, which is more comparative than quantitative. More importantly, you got very wrong what for me is an important point: why we write forensic reports using specific language elements. Reading and writing such reports is a big part of my bread and butter. When we write, "This observation is consistent with these particular causes," it's not a statistical argument. It serves to disavow any conclusion as to ultimate cause, regardless of the mode of reasoning that was employed.

Yes one must have some sort of experiential basis to speak from what appears to be experience. I feel like this is a concept you don't seem to understand fully. The problem is that when you were challenged for that basis, you didn't say anything like, "I've read about it," or "My spouse is a scientist," or "This is common knowledge." No, you flat-out said, "I'm a scientist." You were given an opportunity to accurately clarify the basis for your declarations, but instead you doubled-down on the bluff. Now you're just angry because your behavior had appropriate consequences that are unpleasant to you.

I have never said I had a baccalaureate. I have a bachelor of science honours degree.

That's a fair cop. I looked it up just now and it turns out there's a difference between American and British usage. As Americans use the term, "baccalaureate" is synonymous with a "bachelor's" degree. But it looks like it means something else in the U.K. that I didn't intend. So replace every time I used the word "baccalareate" with "bachelor's" and we'll be on the same page.

What field was your bachelor of science degree in?

I am also a fully-qualified professional chartered accountant (equivalent to CPA in the US).

Yes, I know. That's a fine achievement for which you should feel legitimately proud. It also has nothing to do with science, which was the point at hand. No one is questioning your qualifications or expertise in what you are actually an expert in. They're questioning the basis of other declarations you make that don't seem to have any such basis.

 

[JayUtah]

If Jay Utah...

You can stop obsessing over me now. More credible people than you have tried to poison the well, and it hasn't worked for them either.

 

[LondonJohn]

By the way, does anyone know exactly which parts of the bow visor were examined in this recent investigation?

Were they, for example, parts of the bottom lock? Or parts of the metal skin of the visor itself? Or parts of the reinforcing struts etc?

The answer to this question has obvious implications in terms of figuring out what actually happened that night.

 

[Vixen]

No. Out of the blue you wrote:

​

You're clearly attempting to school other readers about how scientists do their work. The second paragraph is especially irrelevant to microscopic metallurgy, which is more comparative than quantitative. More importantly, you got very wrong what for me is an important point: why we write forensic reports using specific language elements. Reading and writing such reports is a big part of my bread and butter. When we write, "This observation is consistent with these particular causes," it's not a statistical argument. It serves to disavow any conclusion as to ultimate cause, regardless of the mode of reasoning that was employed.

Yes one must have some sort of experiential basis to speak from what appears to be experience. I feel like this is a concept you don't seem to understand fully. The problem is that when you were challenged for that basis, you didn't say anything like, "I've read about it," or "My spouse is a scientist," or "This is common knowledge." No, you flat-out said, "I'm a scientist." You were given an opportunity to accurately clarify the basis for your declarations, but instead you doubled-down on the bluff. Now you're just angry because your behavior had appropriate consequences that are unpleasant to you.



That's a fair cop. I looked it up just now and it turns out there's a difference between American and British usage. As Americans use the term, "baccalaureate" is synonymous with a "bachelor's" degree. But it looks like it means something else in the U.K. that I didn't intend. So replace every time I used the word "baccalareate" with "bachelor's" and we'll be on the same page.

What field was your bachelor of science degree in?



Yes, I know. That's a fine achievement for which you should feel legitimately proud. It also has nothing to do with science, which was the point at hand. No one is questioning your qualifications or expertise in what you are actually an expert in. They're questioning the basis of other declarations you make that don't seem to have any such basis.

That was in response to LondonJohn claiming that Westermann didn't say it was 100% certain it was a detonation and I explained that is not how scientists present their results.

As I said earlier, early qualifications mean little once you have got entry into your chosen profession. At that stage, everything you did in the past ceases to matter and you get judged on what you do now on an equal level with all other entry level newbies. Thus, one of my bosses who was one of the highest paid partners in insolvency practice in the city accountancy firm I once worked for, had no qualifications and left school at sixteen. However, once he got his foot in the door (in the days when you didn't need to pass the JIB exams, which are actually quite tough!) and became an expert merely through experience and talent. Were he to be in this thread, you would write him off as he has no formal paper qualifications. Yet he has already earned more in a couple of years than most people do in twenty years.

 

[MarkCorrigan]

If Jay Utah were to insist on knowing what level of French you studied and you truthfully told him, that is you politely answering his question not you bragging.

Except this is a terrible parallel.

Also, who said anything about bragging?

 

[JayUtah]

Jay Utah was browbeating me as to what my scientific background was...

I was conducting an appropriate voire dire for a claim that was presented as a representation of personal knowledge.

and I answered straightforwardly and frankly.

No, you evaded the question. You're still evading the question.

At no time did I claim this was relevant to the topic.

If you're trying to tell people how scientists do their jobs, it presumes you know how scientists do their jobs. Insisting that you explain how you know that is not out of order. And since you got the wrong answer on the point you brought up, it's not unreasonable, given your past behavior, to presume that you're bluffing until you can show otherwise.

It is Jay Utah who keeps insisting it should be.

No, it's life that insists people know what they're talking about in order for their statements to be credible. You seem to think that it's common and acceptable for people to just bluff their way along when the topic at hand requires specialized understanding that not everyone is presumed to have.

...but it would be quite untrue to claim I have no scientific background as Jay Utah insists on doing.

You flat-out claimed, "I'm a scientist."

 

[MarkCorrigan]

When you said you are a scientist what did you mean y that? What does the statement "I am a scientist" mean to you?

Yeah and my Daddy is bigger than your Daddy.

Again, pathetic.

 

[JayUtah]

That was in response to LondonJohn claiming that Westermann didn't say it was 100% certain it was a detonation and I explained that is not how scientists present their results.

The question is what scientists mean by "is consistent with." You got the wrong answer. It is not a statistical argument.

 

[Vixen]

I was conducting an appropriate voire dire for a claim that was presented as a representation of personal knowledge.



No, you evaded the question. You're still evading the question.



If you're trying to tell people how scientists do their jobs, it presumes you know how scientists do their jobs. Insisting that you explain how you know that is not out of order. And since you got the wrong answer on the point you brought up, it's not unreasonable, given your past behavior, to presume that you're bluffing until you can show otherwise.



No, it's life that insists people know what they're talking about in order for their statements to be credible. You seem to think that it's common and acceptable for people to just bluff their way along when the topic at hand requires specialized understanding that not everyone is presumed to have.



You flat-out claimed, "I'm a scientist."

Again, you are judging people by your own standards. I do not bluff. Everything I write is in good faith. Your claim that it is not, is perhaps you projecting your own standards onto others.