Avery W3AVE wrote:
[snip]
Some very smart people believe very strange
things. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, he of the Sherlock Holmes tales and
obviously a writer who understood logic and reason, believed in
fairies with little wings, like Tinker Bell. It was because
of a hoax by two children who planted fake photos of winged
nymphs outdoors where he could see them, but not close enough
to inspect.

World-famous scientists have been taken in by "mindreading," mental
spoonbending, and other stage fakery that is part of any good
magician's trick bag.

Totally rational, intelligent people subscribe to aura therapy, which
involves passing the hands around the "patient's" body without
touching it, even though an experiment by a 9-year-old girl
completely disproved its validity a couple of years ago.

How about we stick to the pros and cons and not make personal attacks?
We're way OT as it is.

One of the co-inventors of the transistor was famous for another reason:
he espoused his opinions about Africans being inferior because he said
their brains were small. World-famous scientists, or authors, or anybody
else with training in a specialized discipline, should be questioned
just like the greenest college student when they speak outside their
area of expertise.

There are, sad to say, cases where ad hominem attacks are warranted, and
this is one of them. The original post is off-topic, but that's a minor
offense on Usenet. However, the claims _ARE_ laughable, and anyone who
champions such nonsense deserves to be offered a discount on a bridge:
if nothing else, it's a chastening reminder that, in the future, those
who were disposed to believe them should drop a gold brick on the ground
before negotiating a purchase.

Paraphrasing Richard Pryor: "Your dignity will heal a lot faster than
your bank account balance".

William
P.S. I would set the followups, but I can't think of a group where this
discussion belongs.

--
A little learning is a dang'rous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring;
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.
-- Alexander Pope, Essay on Criticism