Comments on: 09-07-01 http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/09-07-01/ Promoting Science and Critical Thinking Fri, 10 Feb 2012 21:04:16 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Sean Farrell http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/09-07-01/#comment-587 Sean Farrell Tue, 08 Sep 2009 12:59:51 +0000 http://www.skeptic.com/?p=1110#comment-587 total comedy. I think they both need a restraining order. Move on. There are far more important or interesting things the two of you could be wasting your intellect on. It seems that you have two choices, continue this pedantic bickering all over the internet and in any journal who will give you both the space, or...... here's the pitch..... Contact Dana White at the UFC, arrange for a history science cage match where the two of you fight, no holds barred for three five minute rounds. The academic left standing, regardless of their intellectual merits and or career accomplishments is declared the winner of the whiney professor pissing match!!! yeah!!! total comedy. I think they both need a restraining order. Move on. There are far more important or interesting things the two of you could be wasting your intellect on. It seems that you have two choices, continue this pedantic bickering all over the internet and in any journal who will give you both the space, or…… here’s the pitch….. Contact Dana White at the UFC, arrange for a history science cage match where the two of you fight, no holds barred for three five minute rounds. The academic left standing, regardless of their intellectual merits and or career accomplishments is declared the winner of the whiney professor pissing match!!! yeah!!!

]]> By: daniel gasman http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/09-07-01/#comment-279 daniel gasman Fri, 03 Jul 2009 10:57:20 +0000 http://www.skeptic.com/?p=1110#comment-279 Dear Bob, Many thanks for clearing up the mystery of the 'miscreant historian.' I always knew that you were not referring to me, and it's a relief to know that you had in mind a much more deserving person. As for the other parts of your letter, I think that your memory is being severely tested. Biological Theory, a publication of the Austrian Konrad Lorenz Institute, refused to publish any response I offered to your article on Haeckel's anti-Semitism, even after I agreed to delete any comments, the editor, Werner Callebaut, deemed to be unacceptable. From the start, the editorial board of the journal answered my request for space with derision and uncalled for attacks on my own writing which had nothing at all to do with the matter at hand -- the substance of your article. In what can only be described as academic gibberish, I was instructed by one of the editors that the contested issues could be readily cleared up by referencing a study on Haeckel by Emmanuel Radl written in 1909, a work that did not mention the problem of Haeckel's anti-Semitism. This certainly would have shed a bright light on the discussion. Another editor admitted that your article might be in error, but went on to say that you really didn't mean what you were saying; in retrospect he might have had a point. In general, the board of editors let it be known how proud they were to publish your article, even though it might have been fallacious -- so much for the scientific rigor being pursued at the Konrad Lorenz Institute. The fact that you were apparently being consulted about how the journal should respond to my request for a response was a violation of professional ethics and of standard procedures generally in place meant to insure objectivity in any legitimate acdemic journal. I was troubled to learn that the University of Chicago Press broke confidentiality when making you privy to the two reviews of your book that I sent them -- and, as you point out, totally unbeknownst to me. But rest assured, you were in sympathetic company because the reviews were posted at the same time on the Internet and the entire planet shares your pain. Since you take exception to my 'hyperbolically misleading' comments about your work I do wish that you would not continue to correct your manuscripts, without proper attribution, to reflect changes that I have suggested -- for example, in your altered discussion about the relationship of Haeckel and Adolf Stoecker. There are a number of other instances of your making use of my criticisms without the usual citations and I know that in the future you will be anxious to adhere to the rules of attribution. Looking forward to your as yet missing commentary on the substance of my criticisms of your writings on Haeckel, Sincerely, Daniel Gasman Dear Bob,

Many thanks for clearing up the mystery of the ‘miscreant historian.’ I always knew that you were not referring to me, and it’s a relief to know that you had in mind a much more deserving person. As for the other parts of your letter, I think that your memory is being severely tested. Biological Theory, a publication of the Austrian Konrad Lorenz Institute, refused to publish any response I offered to your article on Haeckel’s anti-Semitism, even after I agreed to delete any comments, the editor, Werner Callebaut, deemed to be unacceptable. From the start, the editorial board of the journal answered my request for space with derision and uncalled for attacks on my own writing which had nothing at all to do with the matter at hand — the substance of your article. In what can only be described as academic gibberish, I was instructed by one of the editors that the contested issues could be readily cleared up by referencing a study on Haeckel by Emmanuel Radl written in 1909, a work that did not mention the problem of Haeckel’s anti-Semitism. This certainly would have shed a bright light on the discussion. Another editor admitted that your article might be in error, but went on to say that you really didn’t mean what you were saying; in retrospect he might have had a point. In general, the board of editors let it be known how proud they were to publish your article, even though it might have been fallacious — so much for the scientific rigor being pursued at the Konrad Lorenz Institute. The fact that you were apparently being consulted about how the journal should respond to my request for a response was a violation of professional ethics and of standard procedures generally in place meant to insure objectivity in any legitimate acdemic journal.

I was troubled to learn that the University of Chicago Press broke confidentiality when making you privy to the two reviews of your book that I sent them — and, as you point out, totally unbeknownst to me. But rest assured, you were in sympathetic company because the reviews were posted at the same time on the Internet and the entire planet shares your pain.

Since you take exception to my ‘hyperbolically misleading’ comments about your work I do wish that you would not continue to correct your manuscripts, without proper attribution, to reflect changes that I have suggested — for example, in your altered discussion about the relationship of Haeckel and Adolf Stoecker. There are a number of other instances of your making use of my criticisms without the usual citations and I know that in the future you will be anxious to adhere to the rules of attribution.

Looking forward to your as yet missing commentary on the substance of my criticisms of your writings on Haeckel,

Sincerely,

Daniel Gasman

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