Canadian_watcher » Thu Jul 04, 2013 4:21 pm wrote:
James Randi. Faded Magic Man whose skepticism about psychics (which, for the most part, I share) got a wee bit of traction and was then pounced on by 'skeptics' of all stripes who really aren't skeptics but just people who like to make fun of other people; OR
willful and willing host of the 'lets make fun of everyone who doesn't lock step with the mainstream' club?
or something else, maybe?
I don't really know all that much about him. He doesn't really provide any services I'm likely to be needing. I think of Quackwatch as a more representative skeptic site. It's got a bias. (Downside.) But (upside) the bias is self-evident on a caveat-lector basis, because they play by the straitlaced acknowledge-and-disclose-the-opposing-argument's-case rules. So if they're ranking on it as more specious than it is, it shows.
The debunkers of Quackwatch's debunkings, on the other hand, circulate information suggesting that the guy who runs it -- cue music for villain's entrance -- psychiatrist Stephen Barrett is affiliated with and/or on the payroll of all kinds of Big-Pharma-esque companies that he actually has jack to do with and frequently don't bother telling you where it came from.
The source for it turned out to be something like: he was (or maybe is) listed as an advisory member of some vast non-profit-y pro-science organization for which he wasn't paid and appeared to have done virtually nothing. Didn't work there. No close personal, professional or financial ties. It was just a pretty routine semi-honorary-type gig, where the person who had it would maybe pitch in with advice or opinion in his area, occasionally.
And that organization (whatever it was) had completely other and unrelated associations via other people with the companies Barrett was said to be shilling for.
Took me a while to even figure it out, IIRC. That's an approximate precis, though. I don't remember the details.
Anyway. I don't really read that on a regular basis either. So I might not know all there is to know. But fwiw, I'd say there's a bias. But as such things go, it's a clean one. Also, the stuff there tends to be on the dry/dull side. And (caveat lector) it usually hasn't been evil, in my experience Just limited value.
