Hi there, I wonder whether there are any reactions to Alcock's reply to Bem's reply, published on CSI on the 21st of December.
A few things strike me as odd and somewhat disappointing:
(1) CSI only published Bem's reply to Alcock together with Alcock's counter; the webmaster even post-dates Bem's reply (21st) when it was really written and published some days (1) earlier. This doesn't seem to me to be a fair way of a debate. It wouldn't have hurt (and would have been correct) to leave Bem's reply there even before Alcock coined his reply. People should be intelligent enough to come to their own conclusions without the skeptic-in-the-house explaining to them what to believe.
This may be just a formality, but still, such matters count, too, to me at least, and I guess to numerous others, too.
(2) As far as contend is concerned: Alcock's reply to Bem, I find, frankly, quite disappointing. If you read Alcock's summary of Bem's reply first, and then turn to Bem's reply, you may well think that Alcock read a totally different paper.
E.g. he claimes that Bem "yells like hell", argues ad hominem, etc. - but I really wonder where Bem really does all of this. Alcock calls Bem's comments an "angry defence", but at least on this side of the monitor, if I compare Bem's and Alcock's replies, I wonder who is angry and defensive here. Which is sad, for it would really be nice to read a serious debate about Bem's paper.
wl
(1) In the first unedited version of this post, it said "a few weeks", my mistake, now corrected.
A few things strike me as odd and somewhat disappointing:
(1) CSI only published Bem's reply to Alcock together with Alcock's counter; the webmaster even post-dates Bem's reply (21st) when it was really written and published some days (1) earlier. This doesn't seem to me to be a fair way of a debate. It wouldn't have hurt (and would have been correct) to leave Bem's reply there even before Alcock coined his reply. People should be intelligent enough to come to their own conclusions without the skeptic-in-the-house explaining to them what to believe.
This may be just a formality, but still, such matters count, too, to me at least, and I guess to numerous others, too.
(2) As far as contend is concerned: Alcock's reply to Bem, I find, frankly, quite disappointing. If you read Alcock's summary of Bem's reply first, and then turn to Bem's reply, you may well think that Alcock read a totally different paper.
E.g. he claimes that Bem "yells like hell", argues ad hominem, etc. - but I really wonder where Bem really does all of this. Alcock calls Bem's comments an "angry defence", but at least on this side of the monitor, if I compare Bem's and Alcock's replies, I wonder who is angry and defensive here. Which is sad, for it would really be nice to read a serious debate about Bem's paper.
wl
(1) In the first unedited version of this post, it said "a few weeks", my mistake, now corrected.
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