06-03-2008, 10:41 PM
Don Dresden Wrote:So try to focus on the issue. Neilist is making a good case, both factually and logically, for the proposition that Quinn is dishonest in academic issues. Either the Harris paper was reviewed by Quinn's "closed list" as he claims or it wasn't. He said it was reviewed, but won't say by whom. He admits he is responsible for the journal's behavior. If the paper had obvious errors and the errors weren't detected, the review was either incompetent or biased, or it was not reviewed at all. Nelist has Quinn in a logical box from which Quinn can't escape.
Quinn, the more you try to bullshit your way out of this, the more ridiculous you look. So why not just admit you fucked up? We are all human, we all make mistakes. Nobody holds it against you. I doubt anyone really thinks you are a perv because Neilist says so, but they do think you are a pompous idiot for not very artfully trying to dodge the obvious.
Neilist is making a good case? No -- he's just repeating himself. Sure I made a huge mistake in ever dipping my toe into this whole Harris bullshit in the first place -- this I have already openly admitted on sci.math. As errors in judgment go -- it was a real boner, to be sure.
But to have it said that I am 'intellectually dishonest' as a result of this whole cruft is a pile of horseshit, and you know it. If two people on the list had not said they read the paper and that it was worthy of publication, I would not have chimed in on sci.math and said so. You know that ... or you don't know anything about me at all. I don't always say stuff people agree with -- but when I say something, I say it in good faith. Andrew Beckwith -- eccentric as he is -- came out and confessed to being one of the two. Neilist knows that. Beckwith's PhDs are in physics and mathematics, I believe ... can't recall from where. Yes -- he's quite the character -- but there's one. A whack of published papers behind 'm if recollection serves me right.
So essentially this is all about my not revealing the name of the second math person who read the paper and said it stood. If you belong to a group, and one of the rules of membership is that other members' info is to be kept confidential -- it is unethical to reveal that information.
So don't tell me about ethics or dishonesty. Beckwith (and another fellow -- a non-mathematician) self-identified on sci.math. The other fellow did not elect to do so -- so his name ain't coming from me. Just because Neilist's nonsense skips like an old disco record doesn't make it so. Just because he is trying to extort me into doing things his way or the highway ... well ... I'm a stubborn fuck when it comes to doing what people tell me just because they tell me.
