Dana Ullman attacks James Randi on Huffpo

Eddie Dane said:
I thought HuffPo was a reasonably respected publication.
Do they usually provide a platform for cooks?
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Huff Po is just terrible when it comes to science and medicine. The thing that makes me the most mad is they say things that are flat out lies - regarding vaccines, chemotherapy, etc. I don't just mean things that are unproven woo, things that are demonstrable lies. For instance, they would say "such and such university did such a such a study, and the results were that (whatever modern medicine they are railing against) is ineffective. But then I'd actually look up the study, and it just didn't say that at all. I would then post that information and the link to the actual study on HuffPo, only to have my comment deleted. I stopped even going there because 9 times out of 10 when I'd put a factual statement - something that was for example just a quote from a study with links, they would delete it.

I think they also have been instrumental in the spread of the anti-vax movement in the States, one of the big causes they have championed over the years.

Almo said:
The guy isn't perfect, and you've excercised critical thinking in determining he's wrong about this one. Works for me.
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Yeah, you're right. It's not fair to say someone should lose respect just for messing up one thing. I just was so surprised to see such a talented debunker accept something that was so easily debunked!
 
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Roboramma said:
The author of that piece doesn't know the meaning of ad hominem. "Please know that this review and critique of Mr. Randi and Ms. Brown is not an ad hominem attack on these two individuals." She then goes on to say things like:
"James Randi is not just a homeopathic and alternative medicine skeptic, he is also a climate change denier"
....
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Dana Ullman is a "he": http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Dana_Ullman
 
Schrodinger's Cat said:
Wow, i have to say, I never knew that James Randi was a climate change denier before this Huff Po article. I assumed that they were simply lying (as HuffPo does so pretty regularly when talking about science or medicine), but then I found this article by Randi in which he does in fact deny climate change:

http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/805-agw-revisited.html
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Of course, what Ullman would like you not to see is the follow-up article Randi posted on this issue:


http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/806-i-am-not-qdenyingq-anything.html
 
meow said:
utterly disgusting the level of deceit.... any of you care to comment????
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Yes it is disgusting that homeopaths and similar quacks deceive people with their useless pseudo-medicines.
 
Deetee said:
I see Dana Ullman, promoter of self and of quackery in every form, particularly homeopathy, has attacked Randi in an ad hom fashion about his perceptive and effective criticisms of homeopathy.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dana-ullman/disinformation-homeopathy_b_969627.html

I guess if you can't argue against the message, attack the messenger.
What a maroon.
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The thread has a new one, though: as well as "quantum mechanics, therefore homoeopathy works", they've managed to introduce "quasicrystals, therefore homoeopathy works".

And, of course, complaining that "reports indicate that [the discoverer of quasicrystals] came under long ridicule for his ideas" by those nasty closed-minded scientists. I wonder if they noticed who was doing the ridiculing:
"People just laughed at me," Shechtman recalled in an interview this year with Israeli newspaper Haaretz, noting how Linus Pauling, a colossus of science and double Nobel laureate, mounted a frightening "crusade" against him, saying: "There is no such thing as quasicrystals, only quasi-scientists."
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Mojo said:
The thread has a new one, though: as well as "quantum mechanics, therefore homoeopathy works", they've managed to introduce "quasicrystals, therefore homoeopathy works".

And, of course, complaining that "reports indicate that [the discoverer of quasicrystals] came under long ridicule for his ideas" by those nasty closed-minded scientists. I wonder if they noticed who was doing the ridiculing:
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yeah but....




http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378437103000475



Thermoluminescence of ultra-high dilutions of lithium chloride and sodium chloride

Louis Rey Corresponding Author Contact Information, E-mail The Corresponding Author
Purchase
Chemin de Verdonnet 2, 1010 Lausanne, Switzerland

Received 10 December 2002; Available online 28 February 2003.
Abstract

Ultra-high dilutions of lithium chloride and sodium chloride View the MathML source have been irradiated by X- and γ-rays at View the MathML source, then progressively rewarmed to room temperature. During that phase, their thermoluminescence has been studied and it was found that, despite their dilution beyond the Avogadro number, the emitted light was specific of the original salts dissolved initially.
 
it's quantum folks, QUANTUM!!!!!!

WHERE'S ROLFE BEEN HIDING?
 
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From Ullman:

When Professor Ennis was ultimately sent the protocol, she was shocked at what she received. This protocol was not her experiment (Ennis, 2004). In fact, it was clearly a study that was a set-up to disprove homeopathy.
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Trying to see if a concept can be disproven is precisely one of the things that science does. If the concept survives the attempt to falsify it, the concept is fortified. Orac explains this better in his blog post at Respectful Insolence dealing with this case. After quoting the same paragraph that I did, he writes:

Well, not exactly. Science and scientific experiments are designed primarily to falsify, not to prove, hypotheses. That's where Ullman gets it wrong. He wants an experiment to "prove" homeopathy. That's not science. Trying to falsify the key concepts behind homeopathy is. If homeopathy can stand up to such hypothesis testing, then that's an indication that the hypotheses that represent the central concepts of homeopathy might have some validity. They didn't.
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http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2011/10/the_architects_of_a_disinformation_campa.php
 
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meow said:
yeah but....




http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378437103000475



Thermoluminescence of ultra-high dilutions of lithium chloride and sodium chloride

Louis Rey Corresponding Author Contact Information, E-mail The Corresponding Author
Purchase
Chemin de Verdonnet 2, 1010 Lausanne, Switzerland

Received 10 December 2002; Available online 28 February 2003.
Abstract

Ultra-high dilutions of lithium chloride and sodium chloride View the MathML source have been irradiated by X- and γ-rays at View the MathML source, then progressively rewarmed to room temperature. During that phase, their thermoluminescence has been studied and it was found that, despite their dilution beyond the Avogadro number, the emitted light was specific of the original salts dissolved initially.
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No but...

http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/homeop.html

Changes in the thermoluminescence of ice produced from ultra-diluted water have been noted but can be explained by remaining trace amounts of material (due to poor mixing, impurities, absorption, nanobubbles (that is, nanocavities) or other causes) being concentrated between ice crystals; an explanation supported by later work.
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meow said:
utterly disgusting the level of deceit.... any of you care to comment????


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dana-ullman/disinformation-homeopathy_b_969627.html?ref=tw
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Yes you are right, not only did Ullman try to smear two people with ad hominem attacks, he got a lot of the ad hominem completely wrong. He has continually avoided answering to any of the evidence to show he is wrong and just launched off on yet more ad hominem attacks. Poor chap, all he has left I suppose.

Schrodinger's Cat said:
Wow, i have to say, I never knew that James Randi was a climate change denier before this Huff Po article. I assumed that they were simply lying (as HuffPo does so pretty regularly when talking about science or medicine), but then I found this article by Randi in which he does in fact deny climate change:

http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/805-agw-revisited.html
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He denies that he is, others will know more of the details but I get the impression he has admitted he was critical but was wrong. Strange Ullman has never admitted that, but then he would be continually apologising.


Chris Haynes said:
Dana Ullman is a "he": http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Dana_Ullman
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That comment was from a female adherent of homeopathy.
 
Wow, seems I'm in good company. This is, unfortunately, Dana Ullmann's standard modus operandi. I have been the target on one of his entirely unfounded ad hominem attacks in the past, because I dared to post on a homoeopathy forum and question homoeopathy. To this day, if you google my real name, his derogative attack comes up. His method is simply to try to intimidate people who speak up against homoeopathy.

So sad.

Hans
 
MRC_Hans said:
Wow, seems I'm in good company. This is, unfortunately, Dana Ullmann's standard modus operandi. I have been the target on one of his entirely unfounded ad hominem attacks in the past, because I dared to post on a homoeopathy forum and question homoeopathy. To this day, if you google my real name, his derogative attack comes up. His method is simply to try to intimidate people who speak up against homoeopathy.

So sad.

Hans
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Well he hasn't succeeded in intimidating anybody that I can see.

A lot of all this is for his choir, but even one brave homeopath has spoken up against him.
 
Randi receives a lot of press because of his $1 million "challenge" to anyone who claims to provide hard evidence for homeopathic medicine or other "paranormal" phenomena. Although few serious researchers have taken Randi and his "prize" seriously, I participated in an experiment with which Randi was connected in 2003, and this experience taught me much about him. I should first say that I had no expressed desire to win his prize, and even if this experiment had a positive result, I would not have received any monetary award.
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Too good to be true.
 
MRC_Hans said:
Wow, seems I'm in good company. This is, unfortunately, Dana Ullmann's standard modus operandi. I have been the target on one of his entirely unfounded ad hominem attacks in the past, because I dared to post on a homoeopathy forum and question homoeopathy. To this day, if you google my real name, his derogative attack comes up. His method is simply to try to intimidate people who speak up against homoeopathy.

So sad.

Hans
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Is he heading the way of David Mabus?
 
Acleron said:
Yes you are right, not only did Ullman try to smear two people with ad hominem attacks, he got a lot of the ad hominem completely wrong. He has continually avoided answering to any of the evidence to show he is wrong and just launched off on yet more ad hominem attacks. Poor chap, all he has left I suppose.


He denies that he is, others will know more of the details but I get the impression he has admitted he was critical but was wrong. Strange Ullman has never admitted that, but then he would be continually apologising. .
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He has some libertarian friends in the skeptic movement. These people do tend to have a higher than normal quotient of climate denialism. Randi was bullied by them when he initially said he was a believer in Global Warming, wondered what was going on with the 'evidence' they presented him, then came to the conclusion that he would defer to the experts, which is the rational course of action for a skeptic when they do not understand the details of the science, which would be most of us.
 
a_unique_person said:
He has some libertarian friends in the skeptic movement. These people do tend to have a higher than normal quotient of climate denialism. Randi was bullied by them when he initially said he was a believer in Global Warming, wondered what was going on with the 'evidence' they presented him, then came to the conclusion that he would defer to the experts, which is the rational course of action for a skeptic when they do not understand the details of the science, which would be most of us.
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I was shocked myself when it first happened, but Randi responded exactly as one would expect.

As to "This isn't an ad hominem, but he's a climate-change denier, you know", that's just perfect. Homeopaths have brought on themselves the Wrath of the Tea-Party. Damn' hippies.
 
"People just laughed at me," Shechtman recalled in an interview this year with Israeli newspaper Haaretz, noting how Linus Pauling, a colossus of science and double Nobel laureate, mounted a frightening "crusade" against him, saying: "There is no such thing as quasicrystals, only quasi-scientists."
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Was this an offhand remark, or did Pauling really devote effort to a crusade (never cheap or easy) against Schechtman? I favour the former.
 
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