Dan, I appreciate your advice, and you may be right. In the past I have tried to finesse this issue and perhaps I should have kept doing it, but when TEPaul asked me to explain exactly where they have mislead people, and stated he wanted to explain "why," I answered honestly and frankly, giving but one of many possible examples.
The problem is not so much in their inability to substantively understand the deed. While their substantive conclusion is entirely unsupportable by any reasonable reading of the record, the real deception was in the procedure.
1. They were unsure of the meaning of the document on many different levels, but they nonetheless drastically overstated its significance.
2. They did not bother to check their assumptions even though doing so would have been relatively simple.
3. They refused to produce their source material.
4. They refused to answer questions or even explain their source material.
5. And they unfairly wielded their faulty conclusion as if it were infallible.
All these are entirely unacceptable in by any standard.
Am I wrong about this? I don't think so, but I'd like to hear where, if I am.
I am sorry if this makes you and others uncomfortable. It makes me uncomfortable as well. But it is the truth and I am not very good at evading or avoiding the truth, even if it uncomfortable.
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However, I do think we need to be careful and accurate here. You claim that Wayne has "shared the information (from the MCC minutes) with a wide group of people."
He has shared the CBM document with the entire world-wide-web, and TEPaul has shared much more of the source information with the entire world wide web. And they both have used this information rhetorically, first to try and cut the conversation short, and since that did not work TEPaul has been waxing philosophically about the documents every day. TEPaul is now even inviting certain posters to contact him via IM so he can share even more information with certain select people who have nothing to do with the group supposedly writing the IMO (or whatever it is now.)
How much must they use the source material before they start backing up their conclusions? I think they passed that point when they first posted the CBM letter. But even if that letter was a mistake and an oversite, TEPaul has gone well beyond this.
THEY CHOSE TO COME ON HERE AND MAKE CLAIMS, AND SO THEY OUGHT TO BE PREPARED TO BACK THEM UP.
Honestly Mike. If I had come on here and set out my conclusions, but then refused to share or answer questions about any of my source material, and instead just vaguely alluded to it, how would you have reacted?
One of the first things Wayne did after my essay came out was to request to see my sources, because critical peer review demanded it. I immediately obliged, because he was correct. Yet they have used the records rhetorically, but have refused to allow the information to be challenged.
I believe that it's unfair of you to imply that he's sharing this information widely or at all. The only thing he shared with me is the Sayers Scrapbook, but I thought you'd already seen that as a number of items in your IMO piece were from that document.
Trying to be fair to everyone, and because you complained t him, he's since taken away my access to those online documents, and I do understand that he's trying to do the right thing and do this in the proper way. I also know that he's told you this personally, so I do want you to know that I know nothing more than you at this point.
I complained to him? No. He called me on my cell phone, apparently to complain to me, call me a liar, and tell me my essay was poorly written and that 90% of it was wrong. While doing so told me that he had given you access to his Sayres information. Weeks ago he had indicated that I would be given access to his copies, and I reminded him of this. [Remember, I had already given him my copies.] Not sure why he cut you off from access to the documents. It was not at my request. Maybe it makes him feel better about failing to keep his word to me.
I also indicated to Wayne that I would lay off about their misuse of the documents if they would acknowledge that it was a mistake to have done so, and if he would
stop allowing this supposedly confidential source material to be used rhetorically until such a time when he was willing and able to submit his source material to the same scrutiny mine faced.
This is not an unreasonable request, it is the minimal requirement for proper research and analysis.
But Wayne and TEPaul are currently unwilling to abide even the most basic standards of peer review. If so, then he is finally doing the right thing. Until he is ready to submit the essay and source material to proper peer review, their conclusions and their "IMO" should never see the light of day.