From: Michael.Corbin@p0.f428.n104.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Michael Corbin)
Newsgroups: alt.alien.visitors
Subject: Debunkeritis:  A Partial List
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Date: 26 Dec 92 06:21:02 GMT
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THE VARIETIES OF DEBUNKERITIS:  A PARTIAL LIST

Compiled by Jerome Clark, December 1992.

Reprinted with permission on ParaNet Information Services

DEBUNKERITIS:   The  inability  of  some  leading  self-described
"skeptics" to bring rational discourse to the debate on UFOs  and
other anomalous claims.

McCarthy's disease:  An irresistible compulsion to intimate  that
ufologists may be harming America by doing things that  America's
enemies also seek to accomplish, such as make the extraordinarily
irresponsible  claim that "our government cannot be trusted"  and
that  it  sometimes "lies" and "falsifies," just  as  the  Soviet
Union  has  charged.  Further symptoms call for the  sufferer  to
express his outrage "as a patriotic citizen" and to speak of Nazi
Party meetings in discussions of meetings of ufologists, as if to
imply  the  two were somehow comparable.  The sufferer  may  also
threaten to sue when someone reveals that sufferer has  expressed
such sentiments; see bully's disease below.

Snooper's   disease:    A  helpless  inability  to   resist   (1)
investigating the personal lives of those with whom the  sufferer
disagrees;  or (2) encouraging others to do so; or  (3)  bringing
personal  matters  otherwise deemed irrelevant  into  debates  on
issues related to UFOs or like phenomena.

Apocalyptist's  disease:  The strange view that popular  interest
in anomalies and the paranormal threatens not only science, which
most would regard as hugely powerful entity in any modern society
which  depends  on  sophisticated  technology  for  its  economic
survival,  but also the continued existence of  civilization  and
democracy.   Further  symptom:  the belief that  those  who  hold
unconventional  views  comprise such a clear and  present  danger
that  hundreds of thousands of dollars must be raised as  rapidly
as  possible  to  construct  a Taj  Mahal  of  debunkeritis  near
Buffalo, New York.

Party-Line disease:  Utter failure to understand that "scientific
investigation  of claims of the paranormal" - or anything else  -
requires  vigorous internal debate, criticism, and policing,  not
just  the bashing of persons who perversely hold views  one  does
not like; nor does it require emotional and desperate defenses of
allies  even in the face of brazen, occasionally  even  criminal,
misconduct.   Within  the  UFO-debunking  subcult,  for  example,
sufferers compete to see who can express more absolute  agreement
than the next with the dictates of the subcult's leader, even (or
particularly)  when  he  is  exhibiting  symptoms  of  McCarthy's
disease,  snooper's  disease, or other  afflictions.   A  related
symptom:    Sometimes,  when  the  dictate  in  question  is   so
outrageous  that it cannot be specifically defended,  either  the
sufferer's allies will stonewall rather than dissent or they will
attack,  typically without mentioning the dictate at  issue,  the
individual  who  has  complained  about  it;  see,  for  example,
Skeptical Inquirer, Summer 1987, p. 334.

Crackpot's  disease:   Inability to  write  without  significant,
sometimes  total, recourse to bold or enhanced type and  italics,
underlined, or capitalized words, or - frequently -  combinations
thereof in the same phrase or sentence.

Bully's  disease:   Tendency  to threaten  those  with  whom  one
disagrees  with legal suits when all else fails to silence  them.
One  prominent  debunkeritis  sufferer hurls  or  hints  at  such
threats so often that the total may be impossible to calculate.

Demonologist's disease:  The conviction that those who  criticize
an  organization with which you are associated are "evil."   This
last  word  is  not a paraphrase.  It is an exact  quote  from  a
pronouncement of a leading debunkeritis sufferer.

Stroker's   disease:    The  pathetic  need  to  belong   to   an
organization whose purpose is to continually assure its  members,
associates, and subscribers of how rational they are.

END

PARANET FILENAME:  DEBUNK.TXT

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