Update at the end of the post
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Members of the UCF know what I'm going to talk about this morning, God knows we've beaten the subject to death elsewhere for the last couple of days.
I want to talk about insanity.
Twenty years ago, when I was stationed on the island nation of Iceland, there was no off-base housing. So all of us single folks lived in the barracks. Iceland is a strange place, at least it was back then, and for a number of reasons - the endless winter darkness, the brutal cold, the surly hostility of the insular Icelanders, the confined quarters, the intense mission, the irregular and endless workload - it tended to exacerbate people's natural quirks and tics. Most folks could handle it, oh we drank a bit more, or lost our temper a bit more, or became a bit more prickly, or became a bit more withdrawn or outgoing than usual, but mostly we did OK.
But some people, well some people just went bugshit.
There was this guy, a enlisted Navy Journalist. He was one of the AFRTS (Armed Forces Radio/TV System) newscasters and was on the local base closed circuit TV news each day. He seemed normal enough, if canted towards the weird end of the human spectrum. But over a period of months he became more and more distant. He would do odd things, like roam the corridors late in the night, knocking on doors, or suddenly leaping up and changing the channel on the lounge TV without asking the people watching it for permission. Then, well, then he got the Jesus and was born again - and that's when things really started to go pear shaped. He'd rave, and mumble disjointed bible passages at people, he'd knock on my door at odd hours of the night and shout "He's the ONE!" when I opened the door. He ate alone, and talked to himself, and gradually it reached a point where you couldn't hold a coherent conversation with him at all, on any level. But, see, at work in front of the camera, he was perfectly normal. We'd see him, calm, collected, professional on the TV news - and then he'd come back to the barracks on the bus and he'd get off twitching, literally twitching.
The thing was, nobody was completely normal, isolation does strange things to people, and because I find extreme religious belief goofy under the best of circumstance, and because his descent into batshit craziness was so gradual, I just didn't recognize it for what it was.
Then, one day, during a live TV interview with a visiting Four Star Admiral at the base airport, he snapped.
It was bizarre, like a Bugs Bunny cartoon - the one where Bugs' ears go flat out, his eyes cross, and his whiskers suddenly become rigid and he starts making that ack ack! noise. One second the Journalist would be asking the admiral a normal question, and the next he'd starting twitching and making strange expressions and shout "He's the ONE!", then he'd be suddenly normal and resume the interview, and then it would happen again. We watched it unfold live on TV, and the admiral's perplexed expression was absolutely priceless. Welcome to the edge of the world, Admiral.
And then, like a wind-up clockwork mechanism suddenly tearing itself to pieces in a cloud of flying springs and cogs, the Journalist threw down his microphone, and ran away across the apron, tearing his clothes off in the subzero temperatures and screaming "He's the ONE! He's the ONE!" - live and in color on the evening news.
We all ran upstairs onto the roof to watch the spectacle in astounded fascination, drinking beer and shouting encouragement. It took a squad of MP's over an hour to catch him. It was utterly hysterical - a group of huge apes in camouflage and helmets, trying to catch one scrawny arm-waving naked guy running about on the tarmac like a demented chicken in a barnyard. Eventually the Marines cornered him and dogpiled on top. They brought him back to the barracks, wrapped in a blanket, kicking and struggling.
He wouldn't stop screaming.
Eventually the medics got a needle into his arm and pumped him full of sedatives. But, even sedated he wouldn't stop, the medics and the Marines kept trying to stuff him into a straightjacket, and he kept popping out and shouting for Jesus - it looked for all the world like a group of guys trying to fold a beach umbrella in a hurricane. Eventually he had the bad misfortune of landing a blow on the nose of a pissed off Jarhead. The Marine returned the favor, plus interest, with a fist the size of a Buick and the kid went limp and bloody. After that they had no trouble whatsoever putting the restraints on. That was the first time I'd ever actually seen a straightjacket, let alone somebody actually being put into one - but it wouldn't be the last. Then they took him away. What happened to him, I do not know. The Master-At-Arms cleaned out his room and packed his stuff into boxes and the movers came and took it away. He went out on the next transport plane, still wearing his spiffy coat with the zipper out of reach on the back, bound for the psychiatric care unit at Bethesda and how the hell he took a piss on that fourteen hour flight I'll never know and don't want to - and we never saw him again.
It wasn't until they pulled out the coat with the buckles and straps and long sleeves that I understood that I was actually looking at real batshit crazy. Certifiable, clinical, textbook, stark staring, barking at the moon mental illness.
And suddenly it stopped being funny, right there - and just became sad and pitiful. He was one of us, and somehow he just broke.
See, I had no experience with mental illness and just didn't recognize the signs. He just seemed, well, a little odd. Then a little odder. And then a little more. But the truth of the matter was that there was something fundamentally wrong in his brain, a structural defect, crossed wiring, a short circuit, a chemical imbalance, something, I don't know. He seemed like a normal if eccentric human being, but like that unchecked clicking sound in your transmission, it just kept getting worse, until one day BOOM!
Over the years, I've seen similar things happen. I've met many folks who suffer some form of mental issue. I've seen the VA waiting rooms full of guys with PTSD. I've seen guys jump off the fantail and try to swallow the ocean. I've seen guys drink themselves out of a marriage, a career, life. I've seen guys who talk to invisible friends and shout at imaginary enemies. I once saw a 2nd Class Electronics Technician tangle himself up in a communications cable on the pier in San Diego and thrash and thrash and thrash, shouting and squealing like a gut-shot pig, fighting invisible enemies, until he was completely hogtied - next to the Iceland episode, it was one of the damnedest things I've ever seen.
I don't pretend to be a psychologist, or a psychiatrist, or any other kind of mental health expert - but I will say that, to me, mental illness seems to fall into to two basic categories - people either know they're mentally ill, or they don't.
Take depression for example: a person suffering from depression may not realize that it's depression per se, but they generally know something's wrong. They look around and think, hell, how come everybody else is happy, and I'm not? They often seek help, sometimes in a bottle and sometimes in a doctor's office.
Then there's the other kind of mental illness, the kind where you look around and think, why am I happy and why is everybody else wrong? These people don't get help, they set out to fix the world in their own image - or create a world of their own making in which to live. They revel in their insanity, and feed it like a pet every day. They don't want to get better, because that fantasy world is all they have.
And over the course of the last couple of days I've come to believe that Walter L. Wagner is the later type of nuts.
See, just like with the journalist in the sea story above, at first I just didn't realize it. I thought he was your garden variety crank. A guy who is terribly afraid of being nobody, a guy that wants to be special and knows he's not, a guy that has told so many lies, and bullshitted so many people that he just can't keep it straight any more. A man who is desperate to be somebody, anybody, if only for a moment.
And while Walter L. Wagner may have started out that way - little by little, over time, he has come to believe in his own sad self-fabricated reality. In his mind, Walter Wagner is the ONE!
My friends in the UCF warned me, but I just didn't see it at first. But I've come to agree with them.
Those in the UCF, our closed on-line community, have all had run-ins with this pitiful little man, and with members of his deluded and paranoid following - themselves equally mentally defective or even more so (really, ignore Tankersley's post and read the comments, especially the ones claiming to be scientists). But for those of you who read this blog and are not members of the UCF and have not been following along, Walter L. Wagner is a Conspiracy Theorist of the worst kind (really, note the byline). He has filed suit in US Federal Court to halt activation of the Large Hadron Collider, the world's largest and highest-energy cyclonic particle accelerator, located and controlled by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Switzerland. Wagner feels that the LHC will create sustained and non-evaporating micro-black holes that will eventually devour the entire planet Earth. The case was dismissed on the grounds that the US has no jurisdiction in the matter. Wagner, according to his own words, is filing an appeal. He claims the LHC is unsound and he makes this claim based on "research" that only he can understand, because you see, Walter is a genius.
Yes, Walter L. Wagner fancies himself a true genius, a polymath of the highest caliber, a doctor of science and of the law. He proclaims himself a self-made scientist and has directly and publicly claimed superior expertise in physics, particle physics, nuclear physics, astrophysics, biology, botany, nuclear medicine, general medicine, advanced mathematics, and especially US Law. He has publicly claimed to be an attorney and a chess grand master. He claims to have made astounding scientific breakthroughs, and to have had the credit for those earth shaking discoveries snatched away by acclaimed Nobel Laureates. He claims to have published widely accepted scientific papers in peer reviewed journals.
He has made these claims online, in court, and in media interviews. He has made them repeatedly and frequently, and he has continued to do so, as recently as yesterday.
If true, Walter L. Wagner would be one of most celebrated geniuses the human race has ever produced.
Sadly, all of these claims are complete fabrications.
All of them.
I thought, at first, as I read each unbelievable claim, that Walter L. Wagner was a simple con-man, hoist on his petard. A contemptuous and contemptible liar, braggart, fraud, and charlatan. But, over the last few days I've come to realize something: Walter Wagner believes, truly believes, that he is indeed all of these things - and more.
I'm not good at recognizing the subtle signs, but I know outright lunacy when I see it running naked across the tarmac flapping its arms. In my admittedly layman's opinion, Walter L. Wagner is mentally ill.
Again, I am no mental health professional and I'll avoid the terminology of the profession, since from me it would be Wagnerian pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo at best. But, it is obvious, even to a layman, that like my little friend from Iceland, Walter Wagner has constructed a fragile bizarroland of his own making, and somewhere in the remaining rational portions of his mind he knows it. He actively and aggressively avoids anything that would challenge his little house of cards, constantly and consistently turning aside questions regarding his self-proclaimed expertise, and dismissing the inconsistencies in his elaborately constructed fantasy. Without fail, Walter L. Wagner turns any question of his credentials into a personal attack, and then transparently attempts to turn the question back on the questioner and always, always, always avoids answering the question directly.
UCF member, MWT has done an excellent job of summarizing the Refugees From the City comment thread on his own Blog of Siram. If you haven't been following this sad chicken chase from the rooftop, read MWT's post first before diving into Refugees. Refugees is a UCF member blog and where we all got actively involved as a group (though Wagner has appeared elsewhere within our community - and specifically emailed UCFer Janiece at Hot Chicks regarding some of her comments). The comments on Refugees are pushing around a hundred at the moment and it's a long and painful slog through the thread.
UCF member, John the Scientist, an actual scientist - a physical chemist to be precise - and a blogger at Refugees, has examined Walter L. Wagner's scientific credentials in detail here with the detached and detailed analysis he is known for. Additionally, UCF member, Eric, a practicing attorney and graduate of one of the top law schools in the country, takes Wagner's law credentials apart in detail in the original Delusional post comment thread - where you will also find the rest of the UCF comments regarding specific details of Walter Wagner and James Tankersley's (A deluded Wagnerite) comments.
If you are an accredited mental health professional or you happen to know one that would be interested in looking at the links, we in the UCF would love to hear your/their comments - understand, we'll probably check your credentials too, so come prepared.
Here's what we've managed to verify. With the single (possible) exception of a Bachelor's degree from Berkeley in 1973, Walter L. Wagner has no credentials at all. None.
His claims of being a lawyer are bogus, his law degree is a worthless piece of paper from an unaccredited diploma mill in Sacramento. And even though he did specifically claim that he worked as a lawyer representing clients, so far as we can determine he never took or passed a Bar exam in any state (unless it was, you know, a bartender exam). Yet he repeatedly introduces himself as a lawyer and as an attorney. The records are quite clear, Walter L. Wagner is not an attorney and never has been.
His claim of being a physicist of any kind is bogus. He minored in physics, that supposed BS degree from Berkeley, with a major in biology. That's it and that's all. No further education in physics at all - by his own admission. He did a stint as a minor lab tech while in school, which he has exaggerated into the epic scientific discovery of the century when it was really less than a forgotten footnote. He claims to have aced a grade school teacher's exam twenty or more years ago, and uses this as proof positive of his expertise in modern high energy, cutting edge particle physics. He wrote a letter to the editor of Scientific American, and claims that this is published scientific research in a peer reviewed and credible journal (Note: I have the highest regard for SciAm, but they'll be the first to tell you they ain't any peer reviewed journal of any kind). His so-called expertise in astrophysics comes from, God it pains me to say this, involvement with a kid's astronomy club. His claims of being a nuclear physicist come from a stint as a Radiation Safety Officer at the VA hospital - i.e. the guy who monitors the X-ray machine and makes sure the film badges are properly disposed of - note, he also uses this job to claim that he is a Doctor of Nuclear Medicine (though, he, ehem, doesn't practice).
He planted a garden in Hawaii, this makes him a Botanist. [see update below]
He plays a mean game of chess, this makes him Bobby Fisher - or Deep Blue.
And he believes it all and gets hostile and outraged when questioned. Again, I'm no shrink, but I knows 'em when I sees 'em.
So, why am I posting this? Wagner would accuse me (and probably will in the comments) of being mean and vicious and of engaging in ad hominem attacks on his honor and integrity - in a taunting the retard sort of way, I suppose. He and his adherents consistently resort to such tactics when challenged. They get angry and hurt and sullen. They could, of course, put me in my place and stop all such challenges by simply putting their cards on the table, i.e. naming the dates, places, institutions of their credentials and accomplishments.
They can't.
No more so then Elwood P. Dowd could produce Harvey the Giant White Rabbit upon demand (the difference being that in the end, evidence for Harvey's existence was shown to the audience, Wagner's hat trick has yet to produce a single bunny).
I'm posting this, one because I felt like definitively summarizing my opinion of this pitifully deluded quack and charlatan and two because it needs to be said, far and wide and as many times as necessary. Because the news media and those on the Internet consistently give this crazy bastard a platform without restraint or caveat or challenge.
Walter L. Wagner is nuts. He's a crank, and while his illness may not be his own fault, he's a crank nonetheless. He is costing you money in tax dollars and court cases. He has instigated fear and hysteria in the general population which in turn has caused death threats to the scientists at CERN. He is a raving nutcase and he needs to be called on it loudly and often and rebutted at every step along the way. He's used the power of the media and the Internet and the court to call attention to his particular brand of insanity, and I fully intend to use that same power to counter his false message at every turn.
His is not just a differing viewpoint: or rather it is, but it's the viewpoint of a madman, a deluded fake, and charlatan.
Join me.
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Note: I'm going to leave the comment thread unmoderated for the moment. Yes, I know that's like leaving the office unlocked in the Mental Ward.
I have my reasons.
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Updates:
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addendum 1: 10/20/08
Christ, this just keeps getting more and more bizarre. And frankly more than a little sad.
- That garden I mentioned up there in the post - well, there's an interesting story about that and Walter and a little fast shuffle with the accounting.
- Walter Wagner has done some some pretty crazy things with a Geiger counter and kitchen tiles.
Go here, read Eric's post. Or go here and read the original article about the tiles
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addendum 2: 10/21/08
Walter L. Wagner and his adherents claim the support of a "growing number of scientists." These scientists, as you might expect, are of the same cloth as Wagner himself. Some are outright frauds, nuts, and kooks. Some, while scientists, are on the fringe of actual science itself, or completely outside their area of expertise. None are actually qualified to evaluate Wagner's alarmist nonsense, and have jumped on the bandwagon largely for the same reason Wagner has. An excellent breakdown of these people can be found at the On-screen Scientist.
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addendum 3: 10/21/08
And again. The more we examine Walter L. Wagner, the more and more disturbed this man becomes. He is mental ill, and to a far greater degree than we had originally imagined. From Giant Midgets:
Mr. Wagner hasn't made this easy. According to Classmates.com, Mr. Wagner started at the McGeorge School Of Law, an accredited school, and finished at Lorenzo, an unaccredited school. So why didn't Mr. Wagner just come clean?
Why didn't Mr. Wagner just come clean? Well it seems he's a convicted and disturbed nutcase who stalked a fellow classmate, both in school and years later. Eric ran the whole sordid mess to ground and it can be found here, in an update at the end of the main post.
Walter L. Wagner is one sick silly son of a bitch, and that's putting it as nicely as I can.
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addendum: 10/23/2008
John, over on Chicago Boyz takes the media to task for their failure to do even a modicum of background checking on Walter Wagner.
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Wagner and his band of merry pranksters have been snooping around Stonekettle Station, and the various UCF member blogs. And while they were outspoken in their defense over on Refugees they've been remarkably quiet here. As I said in the post above and elsewhere, when confronted directly with the facts and when they have their nose rubbed in their own bullshit - they run away.
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Anyone who gives these people credence in any way should consider this simple fact: they've lied repeatedly about their past and their credentials, why would you believe their physics?
Posts
68 comments:
Modern-day news media in general has gotten pretty lax about making sure they have their facts straight. Makes me wonder what they teach in journalism schools these days.
Well, I guess that would depend on whether you've actually gone to a journalism school - or you know, just wrote the editor and claimed to be a journalist.
::snort
I knew a guy like that once... either he was trying to have the biggest laugh-over on all of Usenet and our university included, or he was batshit insane. Among the things he claimed to do was fly civilian versions of the F-14 into tornadoes to try to disrupt them (or fire missiles into them or some damn thing), programmed parts of a universal operating system that would work on any hardware ever (which included a built-in antivirus suite), and had a forthcoming fantasy trilogy from a major publisher.
In reality, he was a line-cook at Pietro's in Grand Rapids. (Fair-to-middling Italian, if you don't remember it.)
The funniest moment we had in trying to get this dude to face up to his lies was finding a thread in sci.meteorology or something like that where he made the "storm-chaser" line, and someone asked to see a pic of his plane (which he called a Markon 17 or something). He posted a pic of an A-10, after repeating the same hooey about it being a "civilian" F-14.
David, sounds like any episode of JAG...
I wonder if he'd get a kick out of being present when they start the collisions....
Well, in that case he'd be one of the first eaten by the black holes - which would give the rest of us no small measure of amused satisfaction, you know, briefly before the event horizon reached our side of the planet.
Still...
Y'know.
I'm suddenly feeling better about my own mental health.
Also.
Is this part of your "rules of civility"? Just curious. ;)
Rules of civility? I didn't shoot anybody, recently. What the hell else do you want?
And you're one of the sanest people I know (Don't get all shiny over that, I know a lot of weirdos O.o)
I dunno -- Michelle, that picture makes me wonder about your sanity... :-)
I resemble that remark. o.O
*walks past sipping a hazelnut coffee smoothie while listening to Peter Cetera*
Hey, someone came to my blog looking for your ideas of civility.
I was wondering if this was part of it.
mwt, it takes a lot more than Peter Cetera to make someone weird.
So you're JUST going to have to try harder.
And her color balance. NeuronDoc, you're just the girl I'm looking for. Know anybody wants to take a crack at a little analysis?
Michelle, yeah, he's here, right now. Howdy, Walter, what's shaking?
You don't like my picture?
I can always go back to the penguin.
I think he's ignoring you Jim.
Maybe he didn't know that you can see him through his internet collection.
Nice shirt dude.
Frankly that avatar gives me a headache. I liked the one of you madly smiling.
I don't think he likes my post, he's gone off to pout - or to read MWT.
Jeesh, no one ever likes my hair.
How about this picture? My brother with cheese.
What about this picture?
Um, yeah, that's better.
Is this one better?
I think Jim's rules of civility should involve Chocolate..and Jim thanks for not opening up the comment waiting room. Last time you did that we noticed it was poorly stocked..and dark. We don't like the dark precious, no we don't.
(wanders of to find brownies..cause Michelle is here and that means brownies)
Or maybe this one?
I seem to have lost contact with my own secret monitoring device, so I can't check whether he's over on mine or not. :(
I like the penguin best.
Stop it now, Michelle, the shear number of your micro-comments are failing to dissipate properly via hawking radiation as anticipated by theory and the resulting distortion of space/time is threatening our very survival - and frankly we've had quite enough of that lately, thank you very much.
No one never lets me have ANY fun damnit!
(oops! I said a potty-mouth word!)
Michelle, I like the first picture the best. I might give myself a 'do like that next Friday and scare the neighborhood kiddies. ;-) My five year-old will be a spider witch -- a far cry from last year's princess costume (yay, the princess phase is ending!!!)
Jim, ya know -- there really isn't anything more I can say about this personification of a Looney Tune. I don't think he is the kind to go apeshit crazy like that poor sailor you described. I treated people like that back in the day, and am ever grateful that my brain is on an even keel (most of the time...PMS doesn't count). It sounds like that sailor was the right age for a first psychotic break (in his 20's, right?) and the living situation just made it phenomenally severe...
Walter's delusions are sort of more real than bugs crawling or seeing Jesus. And he has the wherewithal to indulge them. Even a concerted smackdown by the UCF isn't enough to penetrate that sort of armor. And nothing I am saying is anything more than the rest of you have thought.
Crap -- it's almost 10:30. Gotta go pack and get some sleep. I'm off to sunny LA-LA Land on Wednesday. And don't ask why I am packing tonight (Husband thinks I'm weird without the help of anyone in UCF).
Later,
Neuron Doc (trying to remain semi-anonymous)
Have a great trip, Doc, and thanks for your observations.
I, as I mentioned, am a mere blogger - NeuronDoc on the other hand is an actual doctor who knows more than a thing or two about mental health.
Michelle, I loved the penguin.
GO BACK TO THE PENGUIN.
And thanks, Neuron Doc.
Well, you're stuck with this picture for awhile.
1) It's Halloweeney.
2) Most of my pictures are on my other computer. Which I turned off for the night.
Only here can there be 31 (with mine, 32) comments, most of them taken up with discussions of Michelle's avatar(s), which has nothing to do with the actual post.
Hijacking - it's a subtle art best practiced by experts.
And that's all I'm gonna say.
Man, am I so sorry I came in late to the party. And I've been trying to cut down on the number of sites I hit per day.
After I graduated from Northwestern, I spent a couple of years working in the Library, and along the way discovered the nutcases in the Holocaust Didn't Happen group. Fascinating how they managed to use the trappings of scholarly research to all cite their buddies' crap and build up impressive references in the back of each and every paper.
Dr. Wagner isn't even in their league. Piker.
Thanks guys! I'll mention y'all tomorrow in my Physics classes as an LHC update.
Dr. Phil
Uh oh, you're all in trouble now, Dr Phil is a real physicist.
To be fair, I do my Physics work in teaching Physics, and in Science Literacy issues, plus my SF writing. I don't do peer-reviewed research, by choice.
I knew a guy in college who had a civilian version of an F-14. It had about a four-foot wingspan and a ducted fan motor which failed in flight. As befits a naval fighter jet, albeit a model, it crashed in the lagoon at Northwestern, just off of Lake Michigan.
I still say we should've built the accompanying carrier...
Dr. Phil
Nice parallel, Jim.
Whether the emperor's lack of clothing is literal or figurative, the fact remains that he's butt-naked.
Michelle, I too am a fan of the penguin. :)
I still say we should've built the accompanying carrier...
Probably would have been better off with CH-3 rescue helicopter model in ready alert.
the fact remains that he's butt-naked. and flapping his arms like a chicken.
He's even crazier than I first thought, check out Eric's discovery on Giant Midgets, there a link in the post update.
LOGICALLY, of COURSE he'd want to be nowhere near CERN when it starts the collisions. But it still feels right to me that he might get a kick out of being there, win or lose... sort of Standing Next to Fame. Dunno....
Please note that real scientists state their qualifications clearly, and do not claim to have greater skills than would come from their education and research.
So I went upstairs yesterday evening after adding my comment. I mention to Husband that the UCF caught a "live one", and what do I find him watching? Some TV special about LHC and it had just mentioned WLW. What a weird coincidence, eh?
I still like the blue-hair avatar the best.
Neuron Doc -- a real neurologist, never played one on TV, next best thing to a psychiatrist in this case...
guess what guys
one of the crackpot merry folks, Jtankers is back and he has irrumping in one recent essay made by Ethan Siegel
http://startswithabang.com/?p=1277#comment-61551
in wich he just take a quote made it n oct 19, form a guy who works at law at some pesky organization
can be found here
is some http://www.eejlaw.com/
hes name is Eric E. Jhonson
oh, guess what, wlater wagner is right, and his targetting good old Ethan Siegel
http://startswithabang.com/?p=1277#comments
Jim I don't find you credible and I don't find your argument at all compelling, just angry, vicious and libelous.
I'm assume you made an excellent soldier, that is important, but your work attacking Walter Wagner is counter productive.
Competition of ideas is necessary for healthy debate. Even and sometimes especially minority opinions. Recall that Dr. Einstein was an inexperienced patent clerk and a strongly opposed minority of one when he proposed that physics needed a major correction. Try to comprehend this concept.
I find Walter Wager extremely credible, clearly a genius (his perfect score on the CBEST test, the only perfect score in the state of California that year alone qualifies him for the common academic definition of genius, top 1/2 of one percent of the population).
Your comments are libelous, biased and counter productive.
Tankersley,
You just don't learn, do you?
There's nothing libelous about it. Everything I've said is backed up by fact. School records, court records, the California and Hawaii bar records, media archives. It's all there and available as public information if you know where to look and do a little legwork. Wagner knows it, he's been by, he's read the post - and has no comment. Funny that.
We given him more than fair chance to prove us at the UCF wrong. We've asked repeatedly for his credentials. We've asked for the dates and schools. We've asked for the date he passed the bar, in any state. He dodges, he dissembles, he runs away. You know, Tankersley, you were there. Open your eyes.
Wagner depends on the fact that most people wouldn't do the amount of digging into his past that we have. And he depends on fools like you - especially you, Tankersley. What you find credible or genius is a con. Wagner is a deliberate fraud, a convicted criminal, a liar, and a charlatan. He's a nut. His physics are no more credible than yours.
Now, go away Tankersley. I won't entertain your bullshit here. Any further comment from you will be deleted out of hand.
All - James Tankersley, AKA JTankers, two comments above, left a message earlier claiming to speak for his idol, Walter L. Wagner.
Tankersley stated that if I did not immediately retract my previous statement calling Wagner a 'convicted criminal,' he [Wagner] could sue me for 'Federal Civil Libel,' and Tankersley implied that Wagner had stated that he would do exactly that.
I will not retract the statement at this time: Instead I will refer you all to this People Magazine article - which clearly describes Wagner's 1977 conviction for stalking a woman named Gail Morton, for which he spent time in jail. The story doesn't end there, and in fact continues well on into 2007. You can find out the rest of this sordid tale by following the links in the post updates above.
Now, it is possible that the conviction was vacated, in which case my assertion that Wagner is a convicted criminal is in error. If so, I will retract it and apologize. However, the circumstances surrounding the case and the information available via public data indicates that the conviction was NOT vacated.
Members of the UCF are currently researching the situation. This is an old post, months old now. Wagner and Tankersley could have left this alone. But apparently, Wagner wasn't satisfied with our efforts to date and would like us to take an even closer look at his life. So we will. If Wagner isn't serious about his threat, well, he can thank James Tankersley for the attention.
Updates to follow.
Walter Wagner contacted me this morning via email. He directly threatened to sue me for libel.
Specifically he takes exception to my previous comment calling him a convicted criminal.
This is an excerpt from his letter:
For your information, the 'conviction' circa 1977 for misdemeanor contempt of court was by a single Municipal Court trial judge. It was reversed by a unanimous Sacramento Superior Court Appellate Tribunal circa 1978. [note: California has since consolidated the Municipal and Superior Courts into a single Superior Court] Not satisfied with that result, Ms. Morton sought conviction of civil contempt, and such finding was obtained by a single Superior Court Judge. That civil contempt finding was likewise reversed by a unanimous Third District Court of Appeals decision circa 1978. Not satisfied with that result, Ms. Morton relocated to my home community circa 2000, and presented a false assertion to the local district attorney that she had an injunctive order existent against me. She did not. Based on that false assertion, I was again charged with misdemeanor contempt for having left my business card at her newly-relocated office. That charge was subsequently dismissed when it was determined by the court that there was no injunctive order. A civil suit initiated by Ms. Morton against myself resulted in a unanimous appellate [6th D.C.A.] decision adverse to her. Please note that Ms. Morton engaged in extensive libel. Should you repeat that libel, you will be subject to suit. Please note that there are no witnesses who have supported any of her libelous statements.
I have reviewed a number of the court documents from this case and don't believe that they agree with Wagner's assessment - However, I will have those document reviewed by actual attorney's. I will also be contacting the California Court. I will also contact Ms. Morton.
Now, since I cannot take action until Monday morning:
I hereby temporarily retract the statement that Wagner is a convicted criminal.
Now, if follow up review of court records by legal professionals support Wagner's statement. I will formally apologize for my statement and permanently retract it.
However, if review shows that Wagner was convicted of a crime, in this case or any other including his current ongoing legal troubles - then the statement will stand.
Those who are interested in a detailed history of Mr. Wagner's interactions with Ms. Gail Morton are directed to the following document:
www.websupp.org/data/NDCA/3:05-cv-02863-15-NDCA.pdf
This document contains a recitation of facts as found by the United States District Court for the Northern District Of California, United States District Judge Jeffrey S. White presiding.
The readers' attention is drawn to the fact that the Honorable Judge White dismissed a lawsuit Mr. Wagner filed after the prosecution against him was dismissed on technical grounds--the effective dates of certain restraining orders taken out by Ms. Morton and subsequently dropped by consent.
Among the facts found by Judge White, many of them agreed to by Mr. Wagner in his complaint:
* Mr. Wagner pursued fellow law-student Gail Morton in an "erratic and persistent" manner: "he lurked in the hallway of her apartment building, jumped out of bushes at her, and delivered all manner of objects to her by
placing them in and around her car. He sought court orders to prohibit Ms. Morton from living with men over the age of 14 and to require her to read books on sexual reproduction. He was found on campus wearing a wig and carrying a knife. As a result of his threatening behavior, the
law school provided Ms. Morton with a 24-hour security guard to protect her until she completed the
bar exam in 1978."
* Even after the 1977 permanent injunction issued, Mr. Wagner continued to attempt to contact Ms. Morton. He "kept Ms. Morton's parents' home in Santa Clara County under surveillance"; sent her letters; went to courtrooms she was scheduled to appear in; he followed her out to her car on at least one occasion;
* In 2001, Mr. Wagner visited Ms. Morton's parents' home and identified himself as "Zahaenya Wagner; he visited the courthouse again and asked baliffs about Ms. Morton; he left his card at a shopkeeper next to Ms. Morton's office and asked the shopkeeper to deliver the card on his behalf--lest one think all of these things were invited, Judge White found that Ms. Morton was frightened and contacted the police;
*The police, acting on Ms. Morton's complaint, arrested Mr. Wagner on or about November 10, 2001, and the police arrested Mr. Wagner "in possession of several knives and a list containing the names of all of Ms. Morton’s coworkers."
At this time, Mr. Wagner was prosecuted for violating Ms. Morton's restraining order. This case was indeed dismissed on the grounds that the restraining order was apparently no longer valid. Mr. Wagner then unsuccessfully attempted to sue the prosecutor and municipality for violating his civil rights. Judge White dismissed Wagner's case on the grounds that the defendants were immune from suit; a critical thing for the reader to understand at this point is that Mr. Wagner would have overcome the prosecutors' immunity had he been able to show the prosecutors acted in bad faith--Judge White indeed found: "all of Defendants’ conduct which Plaintiff alleges violated his constitutional rights, was squarely within a prosecutor’s duties to initiate a prosecution and to present the State’s case."
Mr. Wagner's statement that he has not been convicted of a crime is technically correct. As for the significance of Mr. Wagner's actions, as recited in the findings of fact by Judge White, the reader is invited to draw his or her own conditions. If Mr. Wagner wishes to contest the findings of the Honorable Judge White, he is invited to send Judge White an e-mail threatening to sue him for libel.
In light of the previous comment made by Eric, who is an actual practicing attorney:
I retract the statement the Wagner is a convicted criminal. But only the specific term Convicted Criminal.
I do not apologize for making the statement at this time, as our investigation into the situation is not complete. I will continue to investigate this, and other legal issues brought against Wagner. If any of them can be shown to have resulted in a conviction: I will reinstate my original comment.
________________________________
HOWEVER, I do want to point out a number of very, very critical discrepancies in Wagner's statement: To wit, Wagner stated "Morton relocated to my community circa 2000." This is a bald faced lie, Wagner hunted her down - which Wagner himself admitted in court under oath according to court documents.
Also, at no time, ever, was Morton accused of libel. Period. And in fact Wagner admitted, again under oath, that her version of events was correct. This is irrefutable. The court documents are freely available via public information. Links are provided in Eric's comment, and in the post updates above. Again, Wagner himself admitted this under oath. Yet, now, here, claims otherwise. There are two, and only two, possible interpretations: Wagner deliberately perjured himself under oath, or he's lying here. Period.
I will be in contact with Morton on Monday.
Updates to follow.
Thank you, Eric.
The personal attacks by Mr. Wright on Walter Wagner are distasteful and distorted as are many of his comments.
The injunction was not "apparently void" as Mr. Wright asserts, is was purposefully voided by Ms. Morton herself a quarter century ago. From the ruling:
"the 1977 permanent injunction had been voided by a mutual release entered into by Plaintiff and Ms. Morton in 1981. The 1981 civil action arose out of an injurious newspaper article, and in the mutual release, Ms. Morton
agreed to “dismiss forthwith, with prejudice, any action pending,” and “to not make derogatory,
untruthful, or unfriendly remarks” about Plaintiff. Defendants’ case against Plaintiff was dismissed with prejudice on July 14, 2004 by Judge Maldonado of the Monterey County Appellate Division of the Superior Court of California."
Sorry, Eric that writes "apparently no longer valid".
Again Jim Wright is confused.
How can Jim assert "Wagner deliberately perjured himself under oath" when the complaint reads
"The Court finds this matter
suitable for disposition without oral argument."
Get it straight.
Tankersley, you are pissing me off.
I did not say that Wagner deliberately perjured himself, read my comment again.
What I said is quite clear: Wagner said to me directly and without equivocation "Morton relocated to my community circa 2000." That is completely incorrect, and Wagner knows it and admitted as much in court. He didn't happen across Morton, he stalked her. He went to her parent's house, he went to her place of business, he followed her in the court room. He deliberately sought her out. He admitted this under oath.
The difference between his testimony in court and his statement to me is mutually exclusive. Leaving only two possibilities, either he lied in court or he lied to me. That's what I said. Personally I don't give a rat's ass either way.
Also, Tankersley, if you wish to argue interpretation of legal documents with Eric, an actual attorney, you are an even bigger idiot than you already appear to be.
Now, I'm sick of your bullshit. I'm sick of your continued nonsense and obvious attempts to derail the original observation, i.e. Wagner is NOT who he says he is. I'm sick of your transparent, juvenile, weak minded attempts to turn the this into a personal attack on me. And I'm sick and tired of your little butt-monkey sycophantic defense of Wagner. You two should get a hotel room.
Now, for the last time Tankersely, fuck off. Do NOT post here again.
::Willow voice::
Bored now.
Just ban the little fucker already.
What a tool.
"Jim I don't find you credible and I don't find your argument at all compelling, just angry, vicious and libelous."
No, we're all tired of Wagner's claiming to be something he isn't. And when he comes back again and again to dispute minutae while never answering a direct question, when he produces no equations or papers of his own, relying on Rossler's and Plaga's output for his arguments, and telling that he's qualified to ascertain the veracity of those arguments, he goads us into digging further into his past to see if he really is credible. What happens then? All this court record floats to the top. The credibility problem is Wagner's.
Here's a free whack with a clue bat, JT: when you say "I don't find you credible" when arguing something like this, the word "because" needs to follow.
In this case Jim says Wagner isn't credible, and then points to a lack of actual credentials and a sordid history, which, as Eric points out, Wagner himself does not dispute the main behavioral points of, only the legal status by which he can be classified. Give us a "because" as to why Jim isn't credible.
"Competition of ideas is necessary for healthy debate. Even and sometimes especially minority opinions. Recall that Dr. Einstein was an inexperienced patent clerk and a strongly opposed minority of one when he proposed that physics needed a major correction. Try to comprehend this concept."
Fuck you. Even competitions have an entry criterion. You can't just walk on to the Olympic team without a tryout, and Wagenr wants to compete on Olympic level science. If we entertained every crackpot theory from every dipshit with an axe to grind we'd never get any real science done at all. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Otherwise, go study graduate-level physics for 5 or 6 years and come back to argue this with us.
And stop with the bullshit arguments. Einstein was a Ph.D candidate who had not yet defended his thesis when he worked in the patent office. He didn't do that work untrained. He had, you know, passed a graduate physics class or two (or 5 or 6), something Wagner has not managed to do in 30 years.
Even in Einstein's day a talented amateur had almost no chance of fundamentally changing physics. Want to know why? It takes a long term of intense study to get to that level. If you have the drive to do that, you have the drive to get a degree, and why wouldn't you get that degree as a union card and go work in the field? I'll lay money that anyone, including and especially Wagner, who claims that they've done the study but can't be bothered to get the degree is talking out of their ass.
I asked Wagner point blank which graduate classes he passed. No answer. I'll once again lay money did not pass even the first graduate physics class at Berkeley.
"I find Walter Wager extremely credible, clearly a genius (his perfect score on the CBEST test, the only perfect score in the state of California that year alone qualifies him for the common academic definition of genius, top 1/2 of one percent of the population)."
Once again, fuck you and go learn something before you spout uneducated shit on the Internet. Learn what the term validated instrument means for a start. There's a reason that Mensa accepts pre-change GREs and SATs as evidence for qualification, but not the CBEST or ASVAB - success at speed calculating on simple math problems does not a genius make. Ever heard of the term "idiot savant"?
If I bothered, my perfect score on the Analytical Reasoning portion of the GRE test I took would get me into MENSA. but I consider most of that crew to be, like Wagner, pointing to success on a test or two as evidence of superiority, when in actual fact, most of the human race points to what you've done as evidence of genius. But at least a MENSA member is pointing to a validated instrument (please, please go look that term up so you stop spouting uninformed bullshit all over the Net) when claiming membership some sort of mental country club.
It is assumed here that Walter Wagner’s concern about colliders was a bad thing. I am writing to suggest that it was a good thing, and that Wagner had good reasons for concern.
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I should note that I did not get involved in the collider issue because of Wagner.
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The issue is not that colliders WILL destroy the world, but that there is a small chance that they might do so. A small chance that earth might be destroyed is not a good thing. We want good safety factors. Collider advocates have proposed several safety factors, but rapidly developing physics has raised questions about all but the most recent.
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In 1999 Wagner suggested, in a letter to the editor published in Scientific American, that the upcoming Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven might make black holes. His own math, he said, made that seem unlikely, but he thought that others should carefully check this out. In a response to Wagner’s letter, published in the same issue, Frank Wilczeck agreed that black holes were impossible and said that strangelets were of greater concern, but then said that strangelets were impossible also. This exchange started a media flap. Brookhaven responded to the flap with a safety study by physicists involved in the project. This study said that black hole production required energy beyond the reach of any collider, and that a collection of strangelets would be electrically positive on its surface and not attract normal matter. [1] These “safety factors” sounded definitive, and put an end to the media flap.
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Within months, developing physics eroded the “safety factor” that colliders could not make black holes. In a new development in physics, unrelated to the collider flap, several string theorists began publishing papers, based on new theory, predicting that colliders would make black holes. [2] [3]
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In 2000, the Brookhaven collider was started without incident. Dr. John H. Marburger, Director of Brookhaven, who commissioned the study that put out the flap, was appointed Science Advisor to President Bush, and tasked with defending controversial Bush administration scientific policies.
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CERN had an even larger collider in the works, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). In 2003, CERN published a safety report. [4] This report anticipated black hole production, touting the great science that could be done if black holes were available for study. Black hole production would be safe, the report said, because they would dissipate instantly in a burst of Hawking radiation. [5]
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At about the same time, and unrelated to the collider controversy, physicists published papers questioning the fundamental theory behind Hawking radiation, a radiation that has never been seen. [6] [7]
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Another safety factor mentioned by both studies was the claim that a collection of strangelets would be electrically positive on their surface and not attract normal matter. In 2006, a paper was published predicting that a collection of strangelets would be electrically negative on their surface. [8]
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Another safety factor was the claim that an analogy between colliders and cosmic rays demonstrated collider safety. However, collider opponents pointed out ways in which the two were not analogous.
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Finally, I think because of the erosion of safety factors, because of pressure from collider opponents, and because of some contact between the two sides, CERN was persuaded to do another safety study. [9] Collider advocates tout the fact that they did three studies, who could ask for more? Actually, the three studies were a sign of weakness. The second two were necessary because safety factors confidently asserted by the first two eroded. This raises questions about whether physics in this area is stable enough to produce definitive safety factors.
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Michelangelo Mangano of CERN was a lead participant in the third study. In my opinion, he did a good job, carefully exploring many of the concerns of collider opponents. In an associated paper, Giddings and Mangano agreed that the cosmic ray analogy was not definitive when applied to earth, and so extended it to neutron stars and white dwarf stars. [10] This may save the analogy, but it also validates the claim of collider opponents that the analogy was not definitive as originally proposed. The third study is not totally definitive since scientists have proposed somewhat speculative theories that may yet again invalidate its safety factors. [11] [12]
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I think that Mangano did a good job. He reduced my personal subjective estimate of the risk by an order of magnitude or two. Considering that the risk is a risk to earth, it is legitimate to ask whether that is good enough. However, the point here is a defense of Wagner. I think I have demonstrated that, during most of the time that Wagner was involved with the issue, “safety factors” proposed by collider advocates were inadequate. Later studies had to find new safety factors. Pointing out that safety factors are inadequate is a positive service.
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As a parable, consider a ride with a reckless bush pilot. As you get in the airplane for a flight over tough country, you ask, “have you completed the checklist?” “Another bureaucrat!” he grumps, then grabs a clipboard and pointedly circles the plane, looking at every tire and checking the dipstick in every oil reservoir. “See, nothing wrong!” he exclaims as he guns the plane down the runway. The philosophical question: is the plane safer now? In fact, there was nothing wrong. However, I would much rather fly after the checklist is completed. Running the checklist was a good thing. The subjective probability of trouble is lower.
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Estimates of the probability of collider disaster have ranged from 0.75 to 10^-40. Considering that the physics enabling disaster is rather speculative, I think that 0.75 is too high. Considering that physics is in flux, that physics contains several speculative theories enabling disaster, and that several safety factors evaporated, I think that 10^-40 is too low. As a very rough guesstimate, consider that the subjective probability of disaster may have been 1/10,000 before the Mangano report, and 1/100,000 afterward. It is standard decision theory to compute expected value, that is, to multiply the probability of something times what is gained or lost if that probability is actualized. In this case the prospective loss is the entire population of earth, 6.5 billion lives, to say nothing of the lives of those yet unborn. Using this standard calculation, the expected value in lives lost in the first case is 1/10,000 x 6,500,000,000 lives = 650,000 lives, and in the second case 65,000 lives. This means that from point of view of the bush pilot parable, in expected value terms, the Mangano report might be thought to have changed subjective probabilities in a way worth saving 650,000-65,0000 = 585,000 lives. Few heroes of legend have saved more lives than that. Of course, there were not exactly 585,000 lives saved, but in a before-the-fact calculation, this is the value of the postulated reduction in the probability of disaster. The Mangano report would not have been done without pressure from Wagner and other collider opponents. I submit that Wagner’s efforts were a good thing, and that he had good reasons for making those efforts.
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References:
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[1] J.-P. Blaizot, J. Iliopoulos, J. Madsen, G.G. Ross, P. Sonderegger, and H.-J. Specht, "Study Of Potentially Dangerous Events During Heavy-Ion Collisions At The LHC: Report Of The LHC Safety Study Group" CERN, 2003
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[2] Steven Giddings and Scott Thomas, "High energy colliders as black hole factories: the end of short-distance physics," Physical Review D 65(5) (2002) 056010.
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[3] Savas Dimopoulos and Greg Landsberg, "Black holes at the Large Hadron Collider," Physical Review Letters, 87(16) 161602, (2001).
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[4]J.-P. Blaizot, J. Iliopoulos, J. Madsen, G.G. Ross, P. Sonderegger, and H.-J. Specht, "Study Of Potentially Dangerous Events During Heavy-Ion Collisions At The LHC: Report Of The LHC Safety Study Group" CERN, 2003
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[5] Ibid, pg 12. “Thermal processes” in this context means Hawking radiation.
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[6] Adam D. Helfer, "Do black holes radiate?" Reports on Progress in Physics. Vol. 66 No. 6 (2003) pp. 943-1008.
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[7] William G. Unruh and Ralf Schützhold, "On the Universality of the Hawking Effect," Physics Review D 71(2005) 024028.
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[8] G. X. Peng, X. J. Wen, Y. D. Chen, New solutions for the color-Favor locked strangelets Physics Letters B 633 (2006) 314-318.
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[9] John Ellis, Gian Giudice, Michelangelo Mangano, Igor Tkachev, and Urs Wiedemann, (Large Hadron Collider Safety Assessment Group(LSAG)) "Review of the Safety of LHC Collisions," CERN June 2008.
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[10] Steven B. Giddings and Michelangelo L. Mangano, "Astrophysical implications of hypothetical stable TeV-scale black holes, Physical Review D, 78, 035009 (2008)
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[11] Otto. E. Rössler, "Abraham-Solution to Schwarzschild Metric Implies That CERN Miniblack Holes Pose a Planetary Risk"Get PDF version
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[12] Rainer Plaga, "On the potential catastrophic risk from metastable quantum black holes produced at particle colliders," arXiv 08081415v1, Aug 10, 2008.
James Bloggett, your analogy regarding the bush pilot is rather simplistic, given the subject. However, I'm willing to entertain it for the moment. Let's follow it the rest of the way shall we?
Say the pilot does run the standard FAA checklist, finds a few discrepancies and fixes them.
Then one of the passengers pipes up "Hey, I took a couple of correspondence classes so I'm a pilot too even though I've never actually flown a real plane and I want to add a few things to the checklist!" He manages to instill fear and doubt in a handful of other passengers, some of whom also suddenly decide they are pilots too - even though none of them actually are, including the first one. All begin clammering for attention and demanding that their concerns be put on the checklist, and that the airline spend money to examine each and every single concern by each and every single person, qualified or not to raise such concerns. Soon the checklist is hundreds of thousands of items long, and no matter what is checked the passengers are not satisfied and keep coming up with more and more and more hennypenny concerns - because there is a .75 to 10^-40 chance that there might be some risk to flying.
The plane, Mr. Bloggett, will never get off the ground.
I agree that there are legitimate concerns about safety. Those concerns have been addressed by actual qualified scientists. Neither Wagner nor Tankersley are qualified in any way to challenge those issues. Neither are scientists, neither are physicists, and neither are involved in the development, operation, or review of actual colliders - despite their protestations to the contrary. All they've done, and you for that matter, is instill fear in the general populous and cost the tax payer money in frivolous lawsuits. First it was Brookhaven, and when the world didn't end, it was the LHC, and when the world doesn't end, it'll be the next collider, and the one after that. None of you will ever be satisfied. Ever. Because this is all you have. Walter Wagner gets fame and attention and the adoration of twits like Tankersley. Tankersley gets to feel like somebody, riding along on Wagner's coattails, instead of the miserable little nobody he actually is. And it's the same with the rest of you.
In the mean time, the rest of us paying passengers are stuck on the tarmac listening to your nonsense.
Okay, the bush pilot analogy might start a good discussion. So let’s tune it up to make it analogous to the Large Hadron Collider. The LHC has never run collisions (they did run protons in one direction) so let’s make it a test flight. Suppose the company making the plane says that it has a safety autopilot, an automatic parachute to bring the plane to earth, and redundant controls. Then suppose the autopilot doesn’t switch on, the parachute is missing, and only one set of controls works. Would you want to fly that plane? Suppose that some non-pilot grease monkey told you that the parachute is missing. Does his lack of status make the plane safe? Okay, perhaps you are a brave pilot and are willing to take a chance. Is it right to put the entire earth on that plane?
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Many CERN safety factors have evaporated. To get the full flavor of this, read my post two posts up.
Wagner has informed me that if I also retract my previous statement saying that he either lied under oath, or that he lied to me he would be satisfied and NOT sue me for libel. He offered supporting statements to describe his version of the situation - that version is diametrically opposed to Ms Morton's version, and the court's version. I think that once in front of a Judge, Wagner would have a very difficult time proving his case, HOWEVER I don't consider the matter worth arguing about. As I said above, personally, I don't give a rat's ass either way. Therefore:
I retract the statement that Wagner lied under oath, or lied to me.
I'm a man of my word, and expect Wagner to uphold his word as well and I will maintain his correspondence as evidence of verbal contract.
Two things:
1) Please note that Walter Wagner didn't require me to retract.
2) Go read Eric's latest post on Giant Midgets.
Walter's left you a little message over at Giant Midgets.
I'm sure you'll be so pleased to read it, seeing as how you're such a poser and all.
::snort::
Jim Wright you inspire me. The science research team in Switzerland-France officially suggested before the next even larger collider is built a safety study should be conducted, but not now.
Think what this means?
Scientists and explorers traditionally take risks, but when they endanger the neighborhood such as a retired scientist continuing doing cold, approaching absolute zero, temperature research from his home, the community stops him from continuing. With colliders the earth is their neighborhood.
Anyway many explorers and their hired help died trying to get to the south and north pole first, and many cold approaching absolute zero research assistants lost their eyesight from exploding test tubes as their boss rushed to try to freeze hydrogen or helium first, not the Nobel prize seeker.
Anyway a very plausible future is for scientists to suddenly think the research is too dangerous and wonder whether a mini black hole had already been created and most likely spend the rest of their life dealing with dirty looks and hate, conceivably even prosecution like those who some way or other assisted in the Holocaust did.
We so far don't as a species fear eathacide the way we learned to fear genocide but likely in our own lifetime we will.
By the way if a mini Black Hole is very stable, the danger is more likely later not sooner since it starts out smaller than an atomic particle and less magnetic pull that every particle on earth has.
By the way according to our present, not future morality, fearing spending the rest of ones life with others hating one is greater than fearing helping the earth eventually disappear, and may postpone the start up until at least an elevator is installed surrounding the experiment and a rocket ship is on the ground above, or another planet or star.
Good luck our fellow hairless monkeys. Let's hope we last.
see,
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/cont/node/11416
Comments at Capitol Hill Blue never close, I would appreciate some more.
RichardKanePA
Actually there may be something wrong with me because I am looking forward to an angry or sarcastic comment from Jim Wright. This is how I think truth advances.
And yet another mental patient with a network connection. Wonderful.
_____________________________
Richard - can I call you Dick? - Look, Dick, I'd be more than happy to grant your wish and give you a good sarcastic response, if only I had any idea what it was that you're babbling on about.
You are right about one thing though - there is something wrong with you. Seriously.
_______________________________
All, if you must follow the link in the above comment, do it with with caution, the Capital Hill Blue site is a bizarre little conspiracy rag. Written by our new crazy friend, Dick is also pretty much the only reader and commenter on the site. At first blush it's amusing to watch a crazy person talk to himself, but after while it just becomes sad and pathetic.
This my friends, is the Anti-LHC crowd, right here. Fakes, nuts, pompous asses, and mental patients.
You're all welcome to believe what you like, but my money is on the real scientists.
This was all a very interesting read as I had never heard of Walter Wagner before today. After reading it all I'm certainly not convinced that he's even close to qualified to make judgments on the safety or feasibility of a particle accelerator or really any advanced physics project. I'm sure there are plenty of legitimate physicists who are part of the Anti-LHC group and are able to voice their concerns without the help of quacks or wannabes touting themselves as experts.
None of this is relevant to the reason I'm posting though. I'm actually curious how a JD doesn't qualify as a doctorate degree in the minds of the various commentors. Please bear in mind that I'm not intimately familiar with the graduate school system and I am asking this out of pure curiosity since everything I can find regarding JD's (which I had also never heard of before today) indicates that they are in fact legitimate doctoral degrees, if not the most widely recognized. Does anyone care to enlighten me on this semi-related question?
Actually, Halr, there are NO legitimate mainstream particle physicists who are part of the Anti-LHC crowd, and damned few actual and accredited scientists of any stripe. And those few actual scientists, like Plaga, are far, far from their areas of expertise - and in Plaga's case he doesn't even work in science any more and has not for some time. No single mainstream physicist, of any type, gives any credence whatsoever to this nonsense.
As to your JD question, I've asked an expert, my friend Eric the attorney, to answer that. He'll be along in a bit.
Thanks for your reply. I haven't exactly looked for them but I do find it difficult to believe that there are no dissenters at all in the scientific community. I suppose it's really of little consequence either way. One certainly does not need to disagree with something to closely examine and question it which apparently James was a bit confused about.
Being a frightened, uneducated civilian does not lend any credibility to the scrutiny of a subject far beyond one's level of education merely because there happens to be a potential (however unlikely) for disaster that does need to be (and has been) closely considered by highly educated individuals. I think your airplane analogy nailed that perfectly.
I look forward to Eric's response regarding the JD question.
Haldr,
I had forgotten, Eric is under certain self-imposed restrictions and I shouldn't have asked him to post on this thread.
He has detailed the reasons why a JD doesn't entitle one to the honorific "Dr" elsewhere in direct response to Wagner and his supporters - and in fact that conversation is part of what dragged me into this festering mess. You can find those conversations in the links in the above post.
So I'll do my best to answer your question, and if I get it wrong there are enough Ph.D's around here, one them will likely correct me:
Basically there's a distinction between professional and research doctorates, where a professional doctorate such as a JD is awarded as a terminal degree in a particular profession, i.e. Law, Music, Divinity, Pharmacy, and to a certain extent Medicine. Traditional doctorates are awarded in a field of academic research, i.e. in the pursuit of knowledge itself as opposed to a profession - even if ultimately that doctorate ends up working in his/her given field as a profession instead of academia. (Note, this is for American doctorates, European doctorial accreditation is a bit different and can be much more complex).
Basically the difference is that a JD requires significantly less academic study than a research Ph.D in say physics or chemistry or genetics. A research doctorate also includes extensive lab work in a variety of fields, usually, and development and defense of a dissertation (again, usually), prior to which there is years of graduate and post-grad work in the candidate's chosen field, mentoring, internship and experience. At the end of which, the awardee is essentially a scientist certified in his/her given field and experienced in a portion of the research. It is a long, rigorous, and fairly well defined process before a research doctorate can call himself "Doctor" without somebody snickering.
Professional Doctorates are different. An MD for example is usually considered a "first professional degree" since they are often only the first of several degrees towards a specialty. Additionally, a newly minted MD is facing years of internship, training, experience, testing, certification and development before anybody really calls them "Doctor" out of respect instead of just courtesy.
JD's on the other hand, are a terminal professional degree. A law degree doesn't make you a lawyer, passing the bar exam does - of course, you normally need the JD to be eligible for the bar. Once you've passed the bar you are essentially a lawyer, and can hang out your shingle. Of course, there are many, many paths to further professional development as an attorney - joining a law firm for example, and specializing in a particular area such as environmental or corporate law. But the bottom line is that a JD requires far less academic accomplishment than a research doctorate (this is not to diminish a law degree in any way, it is a significant accomplishment and is usually worthy of some respect, as is passing the bar) and nearly any lawyer worth his briefcase will tell you that.
To quote an actual lawyer: "while a JD is a terminal degree with "doctor" in the name, the level of actual academic study (three to four years) is more comparable to the level attained by a Master's candidate (e.g. an MA, MS, MFA or MBA). A lawyer who calls himself "doctor" is at best putting on airs and at worst trying to mislead his or her audience about his or her level of competence and expertise."
And in fact, a number of state bar associations, such as that of South Carolina, have made it a breach of professional ethics for one their members to refer to themselves as "doctor" without either an advanced medical degree or a research doctorate.
In Walter Wagner's case, we believe Wagner graduated from a non-accredited law school in California as I noted in the post and elsewhere - note that Wagner does not dispute this, despite his threats to sue me for a trivial statement regarding some of his past legal trouble. Because Wagner received his degree from non-accredited school he is even less entitled to the honorific "doctor," if such a thing is possible. Now, it is possible for a graduate of such an institution to become a lawyer in California, but prior to being allowed to take the bar examination, he would have to take the First Year Law Students Examination (the Baby Bar) and pass. There is no record whatsoever of Wagner having taken either, or of his having taken the bar exam in any state, or his passing and certification by the state bar.
Wagner uses the honorific "Doctor" and declares himself both a lawyer and a physicist with the obvious implication that he is a research doctorate. That simply isn't true so far as I can tell. I have asked him repeatedly to provide supporting information, he refuses.
You may draw your own conclusion.
Hope that answers your question.
Ooops. It has been pointed out to me that the link above labeled "South Carolina" should, in point of fact, actually say "NORTH Carolina."
This is a particularly egregious error on my part in that South Carolina is a place where it is apparently OK to marry your sister and call yourself a doctor if you have a JD.
Apologies, North Carolinians.
I see, that does clear that up quite well. I appreciate you taking the time to explain that to me. I apparently didn't read into it quite enough. I'm doing this from work so I unfortunately can't spend too much time running down the details.
I hope to pursue a Ph.D myself some day though I'm a long way off yet. Even so, it's good to know the difference between the Ph.D and a professional degree (both of which have a Computer Science program). It's certainly disappointing to see him blindly identified by such an honorable title by the mainstream media but that is becoming the unfortunate norm these days. It's impossible to take any of it at face value. Not that any of it should be accepted blindly anyway but one would think there should be some level of trust there.
Such is life, no?
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