Jim Fetzer & Conspiracies

The barium found in the fallout from a nuclear weapon comes from the decay of Cesium-137 which has a half-life of 30.06 years. If the dust was sampled 11 days after the event then only .07% of the Cs-137 had time to decay into barium, and if the barium accounted for 400 ppm of the dust, then you are faced with the ludicrous proposition that 58% of the dust was made of Cs-137!
 
Wolrab said:
I just looked at his Veterans Today (a peer reviewed journal of American Chiroptera Guano Psychosis) article on the Sandy Hook Massacre. How any sane person can come to his conclusions is beyond me, other than a sick way to generate cash from his peers.
Due to the membership agreement, I can't describe my thoughts, let alone if I was a parent of one of the slaughtered.
Hey Professor, look up the definition of SHAME.
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What a bizarre bit of "reasoning". (Italics in original, bolding mine.)

"Analogously, we know from past experience that the names, ages and sex of victims of crimes are almost invariably printed in newspaper accounts of crimes. In this case, however, the final reports coming from the Connecticut authorities did not include them. That is a very odd aspect of this event, but an attempt has been made to explain it away on the ground of preserving the privacy of the families of the victims. But if there were victims, their families already know they are dead. There is no evident benefit to the families, if it was real, but a major element of the cover up, if it was not."

Does he really think "protecting the privacy of the family" means "not telling the family their child is dead"? Or perhaps he's thinking of the case where names are not published until the family is notified, but is he seriously suggesting this is the only relevant privacy concern?

In all honesty, I find it hard to believe that a man can meaningfully contribute to philosophy of science, with its emphasis on drawing probable conclusions based on the evidence, and construct such ridiculous theories to explain current and recent events. I guess it's yet another cautionary tale that one can be reasonable in one sphere and not in another (like Alexander Abian). (NOTE: I have not read Fetzer's philosophical writings, so I am not endorsing them as reasonable. I simply presume that they are reasonable, absent evidence to the contrary.)
 
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Possibly the good doctor has not left the building.
Your point on his philosophical writings... I'm betting they're not much either.
 
I Ratant said:
Possibly the good doctor has not left the building.Your point on his philosophical writings... I'm betting they're not much either.
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I tried not to be insulting to the person. I suppose one might find it insulting where I wrote he was not reasonable in one sphere, but I intended that to be an evaluation of the arguments he has produced.

As far as his philosophical writings, I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt. He is published. Now, the peer review system isn't perfect -- in some ways, it isn't particularly good -- but I still tend to presume that arguments published in academic contexts are likely to be more reasonable than his conspiracy theories
 
Based on events, I think I've figured out what Fetzer had planned for this thread:

  1. engage in shameless self-puffery
  2. insist that a couple of degrees in the arts/humanities makes one an absolute authority on everything
  3. regurgitate some PRATT conspiracy baloney
  4. insult people
  5. ignore all reasonable challenges and rebuttals
  6. abandon the thread
  7. ???
  8. PROFIT!
See? You can never just assume that a person's contributions on JREF are pointless...
 
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I assume Fetzer's main objective in joining JREF was to activate the MA protection against the personal ridicule he so richly deserves. I don't think he anticipated getting completely demolished.
 
His problem is his words are out there for all to see. All he has for defense is apologetics since most of his work can't be backed up with evidence that relevant experts would deem credible. Which doesn't matter because he just ignores everything critical of his theories (lay definition,not scientific).
 
phiwum said:
What a bizarre bit of "reasoning". (Italics in original, bolding mine.)

"Analogously, we know from past experience that the names, ages and sex of victims of crimes are almost invariably printed in newspaper accounts of crimes. In this case, however, the final reports coming from the Connecticut authorities did not include them. That is a very odd aspect of this event, but an attempt has been made to explain it away on the ground of preserving the privacy of the families of the victims. But if there were victims, their families already know they are dead. There is no evident benefit to the families, if it was real, but a major element of the cover up, if it was not."

Does he really think "protecting the privacy of the family" means "not telling the family their child is dead"? Or perhaps he's thinking of the case where names are not published until the family is notified, but is he seriously suggesting this is the only relevant privacy concern?
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Addresses are withheld because of....
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/...rotest-newtown-victim-funeral-_n_2331880.html
Fetzer would be right at home at the protest by these crazies.
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In all honesty, I find it hard to believe that a man can meaningfully contribute to philosophy of science, with its emphasis on drawing probable conclusions based on the evidence, and construct such ridiculous theories to explain current and recent events. I guess it's yet another cautionary tale that one can be reasonable in one sphere and not in another (like Alexander Abian). (NOTE: I have not read Fetzer's philosophical writings, so I am not endorsing them as reasonable. I simply presume that they are reasonable, absent evidence to the contrary.)
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He does have a lot of publications out there. One might hope these are not as lunatic as his conspiracy delusions, but separating the fantasy from the real world... probably doesn't work out all that well.
 
trustbutverify said:
I assume Fetzer's main objective in joining JREF was to activate the MA protection against the personal ridicule he so richly deserves. I don't think he anticipated getting completely demolished.
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I doubt that. He's e never wrong in his own mind. He is here to sell books. This isn't the crowd that's gonna buy any so I assume he's moved on to greener pastures. IMO, of course.

Has he been active on the internet since his last postings here? Maybe he's just on a nice vacation somewhere. :)
 
Justin39640 said:
I doubt that. He's e never wrong in his own mind. He is here to sell books. This isn't the crowd that's gonna buy any so I assume he's moved on to greener pastures. IMO, of course.
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I can't imagine he had any serious expectations for book sales here- but I guess anything's possible.
 
jfetzer hasn't posted in 92 posts.

I hope you guys going to are finished bombarding him with questions, at least for now.

It's all good, interesting stuff, and some great points are being made, but the man can't be expected to reply to everyone who is barraging him with questions. So don't be surprised if he "ignores" your post.

Cheers.

[Post brought to you by your Friendly Neighbourhood Thread Police]
police_zps91ce246a.gif~original

:)
 
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Orphia Nay said:
jfetzer hasn't posted in 92 posts.

I hope you guys going to are finished bombarding him with questions, at least for now.

It's all good, interesting stuff, and some great points are being made, but the man can't be expected to reply to everyone who is barraging him with questions. So don't be surprised if he "ignores" your post.

Cheers.

[Post brought to you by your Friendly Neighbourhood Thread Police]
http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w194/orphia/Smileys/police_zps91ce246a.gif~original
:)
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He hasn't been on the forum since the 7th, I suspect he realises that damn few people here are gullible enough to contribute to his income stream and has departed.
 
Redwood said:
Yes. One last effort on VT to try and keep the Sandy Hook Truthers going. With Wolfgang Halbig having flown the coop with the cash, it'll be quite the task.

(http://www.veteranstoday.com/2014/07/10/thinking-about-sandy-hook-was-it-reality-or-an-illusion/)
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From that article (the very first line of it):
"When one hypothesis makes the evidence more probable than the other, it is more likely to be true and the alternative false”–the author
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Is there anything more backward to the idea of science than to say that the evidence is made "probable" by the hypothesis, rather than the evidence making the hypothesis likely? If this is Fetzer's starting point, it's no wonder he goes so far off the rails- deciding what evidence is "probable" on the basis of the hypothesis is exactly what makes creationism the opposite of science.
 
"When one hypothesis makes the evidence more probable than the other, it is more likely to be true and the alternative false”–the author
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Funny, I read that as "When one hypothesis makes the evidence more profitable..." Appropriate for Fetzer's ultimate goal, I s'pose.

Fred
 
Nowhere Man said:
Funny, I read that as "When one hypothesis makes the evidence more profitable..." Appropriate for Fetzer's ultimate goal, I s'pose.

Fred
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My personal opinion is that Fetzer's ultimate goal is the profit to his ego; selling books along the way is a benefit, but I don't get the sense that it's really the point. I think his delusions about the various "conspiracies" he sees are sincere, but they're bottomed on an equally-sincere delusion of grandeur about himself. There's a poster named Paul Bethke, in the "Religion and Philosophy" section here, whose every post (especially in the thread "The END") breathes a self-satisfied sense of "I'm special! I'm a saint!" I get the same feeling from Fetzer; each are equally deluded, in being each equally attached to a religious idea for which they are the prophet- the religion is overt in Bethke's case, and implied in Fetzer's tautological methodology.

Of course, I don't know the man personally, and I'm no psychologist; all this is just blue-sky, non-specialist opinion based only on reading his contributions here, and his articles (and his responses to comments on them) at the VT site. But it's a hypothesis; and you know what they say:
When one hypothesis makes the evidence more probable than the other, it is more likely to be true and the alternative false.
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Any evidence to the contrary will be deemed improbable (and probably faaaaake!).
 
"Giraffes are made of cement and a chimpanzee's diet consists of jellyfish and soup" -The author.

See, it's easy to do Fetzerisms.

ComfySlippers has a PhD in the philosophy of waffleology and has been awarded the useless title of "Numnuts Victorious". He has written 92 pieces of utter garbage and likes to cite them because that makes the garbage undeniably true.


...it's quite easy when you get into the swing of it.

I fully expect that it will not be long before we see Uncle Fetzer with underpants on his head, a pencil up each nostril, and simply saying "Wibble".
 
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ComfySlippers said:
"Giraffes are made of cement and a chimpanzee's diet consists of jellyfish and soup" -The author.

See, it's easy to do Fetzerisms.

ComfySlippers has a PhD in the philosophy of waffleology and has been awarded the useless title of "Numnuts Victorious". He has written 92 pieces of utter garbage and likes to cite them because that makes the garbage undeniably true.


...it's quite easy when you get into the swing of it.

I fully expect that it will not be long before we see Uncle Fetzer with underpants on his head, a pencil up each nostril, and simply saying "Wibble".
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We will then hear about the Wisdom of Wibble from his followers.
 
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