From: altar@beaufort.sfu.ca (Ted Wayn Altar)
Subject: Re: Calcium/Magnesium
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 09:42:55 GMT

Ted Wayn Altar writes:
>>It seems to be yours as you don't bother to cite your references
>>but simply burden the reader to take your word for it.

Steve Dyer replies:

>That's because everything I've said is part of the general
literature.

This is a convenient evasion.  If one questions or asks for
documentation of your factual claims, then you simply proclaim
them ignorant of the "general literature".  Hence, we are not
supposed to ask you to cite where you have read what you claim to
be conventional wisdom, less we be castigated as ignorant.

Well, this presumption of shared knowledge might be fine if this
were truly a conference of only specialized experts on vitamin D,
but it is not.  The people here are by and large simply
intelligent laypersons interested in nutrition.  I would think it
more apposite to the situation, and more respectful of these
intelligent laypersons, to at least make a little more effort to
simply reference your claims from the "general literature".
Since you presume to know it so well, than this should be quite
easy for your to do.


>There's nothing esoteric here; read any reference on vitamin, calcium
>and steroid metabolism.  Extraordinary claims require extraordinary
>references; common knowledge does not.  As I've said before, it isn't
>my job to tutor your out of your base ignorance;

Then I would like to know what are you here for?  Are you here to
be helpful or insulting, are you here to edify or belittle, are
you here to teach or pontificate?


>ignorance seemingly
>sufficient to make any claim, however dumb, to sound plausible, especially
>if it's repeated to you by someone who sounds authoritative.

Exactly!  That's why your extraordinary vilification of professor
Moon as a "crank" requires extraordinary documentation.  I have
yet to see this documentation but I have seen you repeatedly
vilify and slander professor Moon.



>Moon's opinion of vitamin D supplementation is decidedly out of the
>mainstream,

Of course!  What do you think is the purpose of primary
scientific journals?  That's right, to forwarded new knowledge
claims, claims which are not yet part of the mainstream.

By your idiosyncratic criterion any new knowledge claims that
challenge extant mainstream opinion is to be considered the
opinions of a mere "crank".  By this same criterion Einstein
would have been called a "crank" when he published his paper on
special relativity theory.  This criterion of yours is a 
prescription for scientific ossification and the entrenchment
of a rigid priesthood of "conventional wisdom".


> and his evidence for supplementation's deleterious effects,
>such as it is, is presently very tenuous.  No one with any critical
>faculties would accept his comments at face value.

It is quite apparent that you are factually wrong because
Professor Moon has successfully passed peer review of his paper
in order to get it published in a respectable journal.



>>As it turns out, arguments from authority do have validity if the
>>authority is credible, and certainly such arguments carry more
>>weight than the always fallacious `AD HOMINEM' arguments of the
>>abusive variety (like name-calling Professor Moon as a
"crank").

>My goodness, you'd think that substantive points hadn't been addressed
>as well in this tiresome exchange.  Perhaps your failing memory is
>early neurological evidence of B12 deficiency, Ted.

Is this the best you can do?  Mere insults and derisive remarks.

>The point is, Ted, that Moon is a community of one on this issue.

If you are referring to Moon's recommendations regarding the
current practice of adding calciferol to the general food
supply, then this is simply incorrect.  Read my posting of Moon's
conclusions where he clearly cites OTHER authorities sharing 
and supporting the warrantability of his conclusions.

>The reason we should be cautious about accepting Moon's comments as
>authoritative is precisely because they're out of step with tens, if
>not hundreds of other "authorities".

Again, you are not recognizing the role of scientific articles
to forward new knowledge and the role of reportage to cite those
articles for their intrinsic interest and possible relevance.


>>>I have a masters degree in software engineering and a bachelor's in
>>>biology, but I have 20 years of study in pharmacology, which has always
>>>been an interest of mine.
>>So, all you have is a BSc in biology.  That hardly makes you an
>>expert on "vitamin" D, and it certainly does not make you an
>>accomplished expert like Professor Moon.

>It means that I have the critical facilities to know when I should
>trust an assertion from an "expert", and when to be skeptical.

Does it?  Then you should be able to evince that critical
capacity of yours by making appeal to discursive argument and
referenced fact rather than by resorting to vilifying Professor
Moon as a "crank".  



>>Ok, so you've had a 20 year interest in pharmacology, but I take
>>it that you don't actually have any degree of any kind in
>>pharmacology?  Is that right?

>No degree.  Three courses at Harvard Medical School, which I took out
>of my own interest.  So what?

Indeed, so what?  A mere 3 undergraduate courses at Harvard
Medical School really does not make you an medical expert, nor
an expert on vitamin D, nor does it even remotely compare with 
Professor Moon's credentials, yet you had the cheek to rudely 
belittle him as a mere "crank", even before you've read his
article!


>>Certainly, you don't have PhD as
>>does Dr. Moon, nor do you have a teaching/research position at an
>>university, nor have you published any papers in this area.

This is irrelevant because I am not claiming to be a greater
authority on calciferol than Dr. Moon.  Apparently, you are by so
slandering him as a "crank".



....
>Ted, all of that doesn't mean that his opinions on this matter
>mean beans if they're false, or delivered with some sort of
>axe to grind,

It seems to me that it is you who carries the hatchet.  Why else
this unprovoked vilification of an accredited professor and
researcher as a "crank"?



> something we should be quite suspicious of if
>he blithely uses the phrase "anabolic steroid" when discussing
>vitamin D with people like you and with other students and faculty at
>the school (people who might not know what a crock that is), yet
>he omits this phrase in his paper because it's simply incorrect.

He omits this phrase because the usage of this term is not
univocal.  Admittedly, endocrinologists use the term more
restrictively than do biochemistist and toxicologists.  But that
by itself doesn't legislate against am expanded usage by a competent
authority like Dr. Moon.



>>Look, I don't intend to belittle or demean your background, but

>Snort.

Your choice.



>>really, a little HUMILITY is in order before you go around
>>calling just anybody a "crank"

>Chortle.

Have it your way.



>>and putting down readers on the
>>net for simply and sincerely reporting what they have read from
>>accomplished researchers publishing in respectable journals.

>Ted, you deserve every putdown you've worked so hard for.
>You're ignorant of what you purport to push, and when you
>you are challenged, hipdeep as you are in rote regurgitation,
>you resort to self-serving histrionics.  Your time would be
>better spent learning a little about nutrition and human
>metabolism, and less retyping of meaningless excerpts from
>textbooks.  Try READING instead of transcribing.  Take a
>few biology courses first, however.

Again, you here have only resorted to mere insults and thereby
evinced a sorry absence of discursive argument and referenced
fact.  You seem to expect us to genuflect to your self-proclaimed
authority but what kind of authority is this that would beat down
those he would disagree with by mere insults and derisive
belittling?  Forsooth, you should know better  ;-)