And it's such an entertaining story, to imagine an author creating a sock puppet to shill his book that would linger unsold otherwise.
Indeed, given this poster's indifference to the truth, why should he suddenly care whether stories told about him are true? Especially if we can make them so very
entertaining. My posts are nicely done, don't you think? Maybe Skeptic_UK should take a week to read each one. I guess it's only
sometimes okay to drag real people's reputations through the mud for entertainment value!
(Lest Skeptic_UK continue his flurry of indignance, I'll emphasize that all the foregoing is merely illustrative sarcasm and not meant to be taken literally.)
[T]hose in NASA and the aerospace industry don't like having random people call them liars with no evidence either.
But the U.S. aerospace industry is so very far away from Worcestershire, and populated by faceless people who don't "really" exist. What harm is there in telling a little ghost story at their expense?
That depends on who you talk to. I think most people who encounter this book are simply going to laugh at it and ignore it harmlessly. But if you should happen upon one of the people at whose expense the story is told, and you decide to praise and advocate the book, you can't be surprised by what you think is a disproportionate reaction, nor can you write off any criticism as overly sensitive.
If your garden club likes the book, so be it. But if you wander into a forum filled with relevant professionals, advocate a book that calls them liars, tell them you're not interested in whether its true -- asserting that no one could determine that: then you're in for a whole can of whoop-fanny. And you'd deserve every bit of it.
It's not as if there's
no evidence. The primary evidence is just absurd on its face. If someone says "The ghost of Pitt the Younger came to me while I was at the laundromat and told me that Otto von Bismarck was a cross-dresser," I really wouldn't care -- even if he swore up and down that it's true. The claim is, on its face, not credible or consequential. Few people would likely believe it or treat it as evidence, or care about its implications for history.
But in addition to handwaving about ghosts, Neil Burns also insinuates he has an understanding of space science and engineering superior to those of us here. From that alleged expertise he can tell us that Apollo in 1969 was impossible.
That is a testable claim, and it's one made in smug (yet cowardly) defiance of the audience here.
We can dismiss golf entirely, as well as accountancy and world travel. We can dismiss entertainment value as similarly irrelevant. Ghosts are not considered proof here, so that falls away too. I've said my piece about whether I think the book has literary appeal. My opinion is just as acceptable as Skeptic_UK's, and both are -- strictly speaking -- not relevant discussion in this forum. Hence they both get set aside.
Boiled down to its relevant essence, the book makes testable science and engineering propositions -- lately affirmed by the author -- that Burns says help prove his belief in a hoax. He has stepped into aerospace engineering territory, insulted its practitioners' competence, accused them of lying about their most laudable achievement, and has now apparently run off back to his counting-house to maintain the delusion that he can continue reaping profits by doing so, without due consequence. If Skeptic_UK wants to defend
that practice, let him try. If he wants to take up the mantle and argue the relevant sciences, let him try that too.
But no, I really don't feel like tolerating libelous claims against my profession simply because they are, to some people, "entertaining." And Skeptic_UK apparently wouldn't tolerate it either.
