At 04:39 AM 9/30/2009, Dr. Mitchell Swartz wrote:
Rothwell (admitting he edits papers): "Swartz's assertions are
crazy nonsense. I would never demand to edit papers......
(but then in the next paragraph)
When I am preparing papers for a proceedings, that's another matter. ...."
Embarrassing. Dr. Swartz is playing "gotcha," and rather badly here.
"Preparing papers for a proceedings" is entirely different from
editing papers uploaded to lenr-canr.org without author permission,
which itself is different from mere reformatting. The context would
be editing papers that were provided, so what Swartz has done is to
juxtapose the two different situations to make it look like a comment
about one is about the other. Perhaps he believes this, and is merely
inattentive.
Rothwell (admitting he censors papers): "Ed and I have on rare
occasions turned down papers altogether. Maybe 3 to 5 times. These
papers were off-topic, crazy, utterly incomprehensible, or
handwritten and illegible. Generally speaking though, if you can
get a paper published in a proceedings or journal anywhere, and it
has some connection to cold fusion, we'll take it. We never turn
down papers because we disagree with them. On the contrary, for
years I have been trying to get more of the skeptics to contribute papers.
- Jed"
Refusing to place a document in a library is a librarian's judgment
and is not exactly censorship. And the topic wasn't papers on, say,
biological transformation, but rather specific papers specifically
about cold fusion, by a notable proponent, Swartz. And not the kind
of allegedly wild-eyed speculation or dangerously and obviously
idiosyncratic papers that Rothwell is talking about. Again, it's a gotcha.
What is nonsense is that Jed Rothwell is disingenuous.
Merely the postings on vortex corroborate the assertions.
Rothwell is about as straight-out as they come, for better or for
worse. He's not exactly "politic," himself. The truth is that
communication is ambiguous, and a general truth still stands even
when there are unstated exceptions. It merely needs qualification,
but tendentious argument will attack a general truth based on the
existence of exceptions.
Jed previously explained why he censors at his site.
At 10:45 AM 8/23/2004, Jed Rothwell admitted to censoring, but then
purported it is for
"political reasons", such as not to upset some of his "critics" (ROTFLOL)
so he will not get hit with by "a baseball bat (given) to Robert Park".
Rothwell: "I will not hand a baseball bat to Robert Park and ask him
to please hit me over the head with it! It is a shame that CF is
so political,
but it is, and we must pay attention to politics, image and public relations."
That's right. Now, we might disagree with some of Rothwell's
decisions, but the principle is sound. The library isn't a completely
indiscriminate collection of resources; if it were, it would be less
useful. However, there is a problem, for sure, where material is
excluded merely because of its political implications, and I
immediately think of Vyosotskii. I've seen the political implications
from this, playing out, for the discussion of Vyosotskii in discussed
in Storms (2007) is used against Storms by some of the critics. And
then that Vyosotskii once wrote a paper on "water memory," is used
against Vyosotskii.
Rothwell could set up an advisory board to which he would refer any
disputes over inclusion. Or he could continue has he has, making the
decisions himself. He's putting in the work, he has the right. If
someone else wants to create a "library of rejected submissions to
lenr-canr.org," they could, and my guess is that Rothwell would link
to it... Basically, he's stated his motive, and it is not censorship.
It's protective of the reputation of lenr-canr.org, which is
considerable, and in which there is a great deal invested.
What is also interesting is the following from the late
Dr. Eugene Mallove (discussed on vortex previously) with regards to the
website (Jed's) in question and what Jed and Gene called
"political censorship".
Date: 2004年3月29日
Subject: Storms/Rothwell censorship
From: "Eugene F. Mallove" <[email protected]>
To: Mitchell Swartz <[email protected]>
"Mitch,
FYI -- this was a message that Rothwell posted to Vortex about a month ago:
"At LENR-CANR.org we have censored out some of the controversial claims
related to CF, such as transmuting macroscopic amounts of gold, or
biological transmutations, along with some of the extremely unconventional
theories. This is not because we (Storms and Rothwell) oppose these claims,
or because we are upset by them. It is for political reasons only. The goal
of LENR-CANR is to convince mainstream scientists that CF is real. This
goal would be hampered by presenting such extreme views. Actually, I have
no opinion about most theories, and I could not care less how weird the
data may seem. At the Scientific American and the APS they feel hostility
toward such things. They have a sense that publishing such data will harm
their readers and sully the traditions and reputation of academic science.
I am not a member of the congregation at the Church of Academic Science,
and I could not care less about the Goddess Academia's Sacred Reputation. I
don't publish because of politics and limited web space.
Yes. And that's quite old. Storms clearly made a different decision
with his book, because he covers Vyosotskii. He also went further,
and vrey briefly speculated on spontaneous human consumption; if ever
there would have been a place for restraint for political reasons,
that would have been it! In any case, lenr-canr.org does now host a
few papers by Vyosotskii, including one on biological transmutation,
and also one that appears to be on what is elsewhere called "water
memory." I hadn't noticed the latter, before.
That said, I support, and in the past have supported, Jed and Ed in most
of their efforts, and however they want to run their site. It is
their choice.
Dr. Swartz, ow about dealing straightly with the situation that came
up? Upload your paper(s) to the site, or if that doesn't work for
you, send them to someone you'd trust to handle the matter.