hey tell everyone why you have to become an expert in a few days!
It's cable people! And let's face it, she's going to look good.
Rebecca,
Don't you think it's very irresponsible of you to pass yourself off as an expert on this for a national television program?
G6
That's the equivalent of me saying that I have a wide breadth of knowledge about history in the Middle East (which I do) and then I try to pass myself off as an expert in the area on a program about it on the radio or on TV. I would never do that. Why? Because I'm NOT an expert.
Yes, I have something constructive to add. I have a couple of questions on the table. Why ignore them? They are valid questions.
Asking for help from forumites to gain knowledge on a particular topics is one thing, but passing yourself off as an expert on this is another.
So, what is it, Rebecca? Why not answer my questions and put this to rest?
Answer the question and maybe you will find me apologizing to you for some misinformation that I may have come across. It's really simple.
G6
Aaaand the mystery has been solved.
A few days ago, a producer contacted me asking if I'd do an interview about the myths we build up around the ocean, for a show about ghost ships. We spoke at length, and I detailed for her the areas of my expertise on the subject. She asked what I knew about ghost ships in particular, and I told her about the Mary Celeste, the Doyle story, and other fun facts about that incident. I told her I could discuss generalities of the Queen Mary "hauntings" and the fairly recent case of the High Aim 6, but I wasn't at the moment overly familiar with the details of those or some other "ghost ships." She thanked me and asked if I could brush up on a few points like that in time for an interview within the following few days. I answered in the affirmative, telling her I'd spend the next few days cramming, confident that I could consult my library, the Internet, and most importantly, a community of people who would be knowledgeable on the subject.
I mentioned the interview on the JREF chat room, where kittynh was chatting. I asked for some help finding info, and we all joked a bit about how I had to become an expert on ghost ships in three days. Of course this wasn't literal truth - it's just the way I operate. When I do something, I really like to be prepared. It's why sometimes my blog entries take forever to write, because as I research I jump from topic to topic. (
I briefly talked about this once.)
I posted the request for help here, on the forum of the James Randi Educational Foundation. I think this forum's greatest strength is that it collects an incredible diversity of knowledgeable and helpful people together in one place. I knew there would be some people here who had studied ghost ships and other bits of info I could absorb, to make sure that I contributed as much skeptical information as possible, and that the producer really got what she needed to make a great show. Because I didn't yet have plane tickets et. al. and therefore things weren't definite yet, I didn't post the details about the interview.
I just found out that Kittynh in her enthusiasm took from my few lines of text in the chat room and posted (on MySpace and elsewhere) that I was about to be interviewed on television as an expert on ghost ships, yet knew nothing about ghost ships.
Upon reading Kittynh's interpretation of events, Girl 6 immediately took it upon herself to
email me and ask for clarification find this thread and post a public message accusing me of misrepresenting myself to get on television. She then insisted that I defend myself against her spurious and (from my perspective, and that of 99.99% of readers) completely out-of-left-field accusation based on "information [she] may have come across."
In my previous post I said I'd ignore future off-topic posts, but I just wanted to get all that out while it is fresh. I think it makes for a very interesting study on how easily the Internet version of the game "telephone" works even on people who fancy themselves critical thinkers. Additionally, it illustrates that no matter how hard we all work to make this forum (and others like it) a place where skeptics can receive support and information, it will still always be an open forum on the Internet, where any clown with an agenda can crash right in, attack someone, and derail a thread - not just any thread, but one which was set up for the specific and very direct purpose of helping someone communicate science and skepticism to a large audience.
Anyway, this certainly illustrates my point about how I get lost in research. I started out by researching ghost ships, and now I've spent the past hour marveling at what I find to be a very interesting sociological issue, which I may turn into an essay at some point in the near future. So despite the rather ludicrous hassle, overall the thread has still been a net gain.
...especially, thanks to all the great links and book recommendations (like bruto's suggestion to read Maryat's Phantom Ship - happily, I actually already have that! It's by my side at this very moment waiting to be digested). I'm still not sure if the interview is actually happening or not, but one thing's for sure, I'm going to be damned knowledgeable on ghost ships before the weekend is over.
