Craig Weiler

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==TED trolling==
 
==TED trolling==
In January 2013 the parapsychologist [[Rupert Sheldrake]] and the pseudohistorian [[Graham Hancock]] gave lectures at the TEDxWhitechapel in East London. In his lecture Sheldrake attacked modern [[science]] which he claimed is based on ten materialistic "dogmas" that are assumptions without evidence. He also supported a [[conspiracy theory]] that the scientific community have ignored and suppressed evidence for [[psychic]] phenomena and other [[woo]] topics because they are materialists. A video of the Sheldrake lecture was published on the TEDx [[YouTube]] channel which later received criticism from various scientists for promoting [[pseudoscience]]. In response the TED staff issued an official statement claiming that TED's scientific advisers have questioned whether Sheldrake's list "is a fair description of scientific assumptions" and "there is little evidence for some of Sheldrake’s more radical claims, such as his theory of [[morphic resonance]]". The advisors recommended that the talk "should not be distributed without being framed with caution".<ref>[http://blog.ted.com/2013/03/19/the-debate-about-rupert-sheldrakes-talk/ The debate about Rupert Sheldrake’s talk]</ref>  
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In January 2013, the parapsychologist [[Rupert Sheldrake]] and the pseudohistorian [[Graham Hancock]] gave lectures at the TEDxWhitechapel in East London. In his lecture Sheldrake attacked modern [[science]] which he claimed is based on ten materialistic "dogmas" that are assumptions without evidence. He also supported a [[conspiracy theory]] that the scientific community have ignored and suppressed evidence for [[psychic]] phenomena and other [[woo]] topics because they are materialists. A video of the Sheldrake lecture was published on the TEDx [[YouTube]] channel which later received criticism from various scientists for promoting [[pseudoscience]]. In response the TED staff issued an official statement claiming that TED's scientific advisers have questioned whether Sheldrake's list "is a fair description of scientific assumptions" and "there is little evidence for some of Sheldrake’s more radical claims, such as his theory of [[morphic resonance]]". The advisors recommended that the talk "should not be distributed without being framed with caution".<ref>[http://blog.ted.com/2013/03/19/the-debate-about-rupert-sheldrakes-talk/ The debate about Rupert Sheldrake’s talk]</ref>  
  
The video of the talk was moved from the TEDx YouTube channel to the TED blog accompanied by framing language and a cautionary introduction. This led woo-meisters such as Weiler to accuse TED of "censorship" and invoke conspiracy theories that the scientific community are suppressing Sheldrake ideas. Weiler has been a major troll involved in stirring up the TED controversy all over the internet on various blogs and forums. In his blog post on March, 2013 [http://weilerpsiblog.wordpress.com/2013/03/09/the-psi-wars-come-to-ted/ "The Psi Wars Come To TED"] he accused the TED staff of being atheists and deliberately censoring Sheldrake. In reality TED never censored the Sheldrake video and never planned to, it was never deleted. The TED staff responded to the false allegations of censorship "The reason people are upset is because they think there has been censorship. But it’s simply not true. Both talks are up on our website."<ref>[http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/ted-conference-censorship-row-8563105.html TED conference censorship row]</ref>
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The video of the talk was moved from the TEDx YouTube channel to the TED blog accompanied by framing language and a cautionary introduction. This led woo-meisters such as Weiler to accuse TED of "censorship" and invoke conspiracy theories that the scientific community are suppressing Sheldrake's ideas. Weiler has been a major troll involved in stirring up the TED controversy all over the internet on various blogs and forums. In his blog post on March, 2013 [http://weilerpsiblog.wordpress.com/2013/03/09/the-psi-wars-come-to-ted/ "The Psi Wars Come To TED"] he accused the TED staff of being atheists and deliberately censoring Sheldrake. In reality TED never censored the Sheldrake video and never planned to, it was never deleted. The TED staff responded to the false allegations of censorship "The reason people are upset is because they think there has been censorship. But it’s simply not true. Both talks are up on our website."<ref>[http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/ted-conference-censorship-row-8563105.html TED conference censorship row]</ref>
  
 
Weiler has ignored the statements from the TED staff and has written a bunch of crazy comments about the TED talk such as claiming "The materialists are increasingly outnumbered everywhere, as they are at TED", "What we're seeing playing out at TED is only the beginning" "The fact is, we cannot allow children to be taught materialistic science."<ref>[http://rmforall.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/the-real-meaning-behind-ted-controversy.html Craig Weiler's crackpot comments about TED]</ref>
 
Weiler has ignored the statements from the TED staff and has written a bunch of crazy comments about the TED talk such as claiming "The materialists are increasingly outnumbered everywhere, as they are at TED", "What we're seeing playing out at TED is only the beginning" "The fact is, we cannot allow children to be taught materialistic science."<ref>[http://rmforall.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/the-real-meaning-behind-ted-controversy.html Craig Weiler's crackpot comments about TED]</ref>
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In September 2013, Weiler posted on his blog that he is writing a book on the "TED controversy" which will be released in 2014.<ref>[http://weilerpsiblog.wordpress.com/the-big-ted-controversy-of-2013-part-1/ The Big TED Controversy of 2013]</ref>
  
 
==Spreading disinformation and deleting corrections on his blog==
 
==Spreading disinformation and deleting corrections on his blog==

Revision as of 12:53, 10 October 2013

Can such things be?

Paranormal

Icon ghost.svg
The Twilight Zone

Craig Weiler is an American psychic, prominent blogger and internet troll. He describes himself as a "psychic healer".[1][2]

Contents

Psychic woo claims

Weiler claims on his blog that psi and all kinds of woo have been scientifically proven.[3] He ignores most of the skeptical literature on psi.[4]

Weiler has not written on the supposed mechanism of psi, but supports dualism which he says explains psi as mind and matter are separate.[5] He ignores scientific studies which have contradicted dualism.[6] According to a description of himself on his blog:

I, myself am an older white guy who is psychic, but don’t do it professionally. I am currently in transition from being in construction to a career in speaking and writing and I am working on my first book. If you are psychic too, I want you to know: you are not alone.[7]

He has supported the bogus mediumship experiments of the fraud parapsychologist Gary Schwartz.[8] Weiler is well known for posting rants against skeptics accusing them of being atheists, materialists and "pseudoskeptics" if they disagree with him.[9] Weiler has no education or qualifications in science. His current occupation is working as a handyman.[10]

Weiler has lectured on parapsychology.[11] He also posts conspiracy theories that the scientific community are suppressing psi on the Mind-Energy forum.

TED trolling

In January 2013, the parapsychologist Rupert Sheldrake and the pseudohistorian Graham Hancock gave lectures at the TEDxWhitechapel in East London. In his lecture Sheldrake attacked modern science which he claimed is based on ten materialistic "dogmas" that are assumptions without evidence. He also supported a conspiracy theory that the scientific community have ignored and suppressed evidence for psychic phenomena and other woo topics because they are materialists. A video of the Sheldrake lecture was published on the TEDx YouTube channel which later received criticism from various scientists for promoting pseudoscience. In response the TED staff issued an official statement claiming that TED's scientific advisers have questioned whether Sheldrake's list "is a fair description of scientific assumptions" and "there is little evidence for some of Sheldrake’s more radical claims, such as his theory of morphic resonance". The advisors recommended that the talk "should not be distributed without being framed with caution".[12]

The video of the talk was moved from the TEDx YouTube channel to the TED blog accompanied by framing language and a cautionary introduction. This led woo-meisters such as Weiler to accuse TED of "censorship" and invoke conspiracy theories that the scientific community are suppressing Sheldrake's ideas. Weiler has been a major troll involved in stirring up the TED controversy all over the internet on various blogs and forums. In his blog post on March, 2013 "The Psi Wars Come To TED" he accused the TED staff of being atheists and deliberately censoring Sheldrake. In reality TED never censored the Sheldrake video and never planned to, it was never deleted. The TED staff responded to the false allegations of censorship "The reason people are upset is because they think there has been censorship. But it’s simply not true. Both talks are up on our website."[13]

Weiler has ignored the statements from the TED staff and has written a bunch of crazy comments about the TED talk such as claiming "The materialists are increasingly outnumbered everywhere, as they are at TED", "What we're seeing playing out at TED is only the beginning" "The fact is, we cannot allow children to be taught materialistic science."[14]

In September 2013, Weiler posted on his blog that he is writing a book on the "TED controversy" which will be released in 2014.[15]

Spreading disinformation and deleting corrections on his blog

In October 2013 Weiler published a blog post titled "The Wikipedia Battle for Rupert Sheldrake’s Biography" in an attempt to stir up a controversy over Rupert Sheldrake's Wikipedia article. In the post he demonstrated a decided lack of comprehension with regard to basic Wikipedia policies, which do not allow the promotion of pseudoscience on Wikipedia. He also drew upon several conspiracy theories about how Sheldrake is supposedly being oppressed by skeptics. Weiler believes all kinds of woo should be included on Wikipedia without critical or skeptical coverage.

Among the conspiracy theories was one that was immediately debunked just by looking at the source. He claimed that there was a "Wikipedia mafia" that had attempted to intimidate him on Wikipedia. He provided quotes from his Wikipedia user page as evidence. However a simple check of the page reveals that no such intimidation occurred. On the page he was simply asked to look at Wikipedia's "real name" policy because he was using the name "Craig Weiler" on Wikipedia. The policy's purpose is to prevent impersonators, and everyone using a real name should follow the policy (for example linking from his blog to his Wikipedia page would satisfy the policy). Furthermore, his user page on Wikipedia reveals that he acknowledged and thanked those who brought the policy to his attention. A comment was posted on his blog describing this state of affairs (screenshot), which was approved and appeared on his blog for a few hours, before he deleted it.

His blog post contains countless errors. Weiler describes CSICOP as a "radical atheist pressure group" and in the same article refers to Martin Gardner (a founding member of CSICOP) but Gardner was not an atheist. His article on Sheldrake has been copied onto various new age woo websites.[16] The spiritualist crank Robert McLuhan has supported Weiler's conspiracy theories about skeptics highjacking Sheldrake's Wikipedia article.[17]

See also

External links

Footnotes

  1. Biography for Craig Weiler Also see Biographical information at Reality Sandwich
  2. In October 2013, he warned someone on Wikipedia: "if you ever attach the word -psychic- to my name you are to never put it into quotations. That is a personal insult, it is bigotry and I will not tolerate it."
  3. The Scientific Evidence for Psi Weiler's Wordpress blog
  4. Weiler does not mention notable publications which have debunked psi claims such as C. E. M. Hansel. ESP: A Scientific Evaluation. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1966. Rev. ed. as ESP and Parapsychology: A Critical Re-evaluation. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus, 1980. Leonard Zusne, Warren H. Jones. (1989). Anomalistic Psychology: A Study of Magical Thinking. Psychology Press. Terence Hines (2002). Pseudoscience and the Paranormal (2nd ed. ed.). Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books. Jonathan Smith. (2009). Pseudoscience and Extraordinary Claims of the Paranormal: A Critical Thinker's Toolkit. Wiley-Blackwell.
  5. Which theory may explain PSI?
  6. Wilson, D. L. (1999). Mind-brain interaction and the violation of physical laws. In B. Libet, A. Freeman, & K. Sutherland (Eds.). The Volitional Brain (pp. 185-200). Thorverton, UK: Imprint Academic. Mohrhoff, U. (1999). The Physics of Interaction. In B. Libet, A. Freeman, & K. Sutherland (Eds.). The Volitional Brain (pp. 165-184). Thorverton, UK: Imprint Academic.
  7. About The Weiler Psi
  8. Evidence for the Afterlife
  9. A Critical Look at CSI, (formerly CSICOP), a Pseudo-Scientific Skeptic Organization
  10. Craig Weiler "Occupation: the favorite profession of drunks, drug addicts and serial killers."
  11. Craig Weiler at Brother, Can You Spare a Paradigm?
  12. The debate about Rupert Sheldrake’s talk
  13. TED conference censorship row
  14. Craig Weiler's crackpot comments about TED
  15. The Big TED Controversy of 2013
  16. The Wikipedia Battle for Rupert Sheldrake's Biography on a woo website
  17. Sheldrake and Wikipedia
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