The Unpersuadables: Adventures with the Enemies of Science (52 page)
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Authors: Will Storr
Tags: #BIO000000
204
Monckton responded by accusing Abraham:
‘Monckton: At Last, the Climate Extremists Try to Debate Us! (PJM Exclusive)’,
PJmedia.com
, 4 June 2010.
204
Our modern notion of ‘left’ and ‘right’ beliefs:
John T. Jost, ‘“Elective Affinities”: On the Psychological Bases of Left–Right Differences’,
Psychological Inquiry
20 (2009), pp. 129–41.
204
clinical psychologist and political strategist Professor Drew Westen:
Drew Westen,
The Political Brain
, Public Affairs, 2007, p. 82.
205
In
The Righteous Mind
, Haidt writes that genes account for:
Jonathan Haidt,
The Righteous Mind
, Allen Lane, 2012, p. 278.
205
An analysis of thirteen thousand Australians:
Jonathan Haidt,
The Righteous Mind
, Allen Lane, 2012, pp. 277–79.
206
In
The Political Brain
, Professor Westen writes:
Drew Westen,
The Political Brain
, Public Affairs, 2007, p. 146.
206
the political left and the right each has a ‘master narrative’:
Drew Westen,
The Political Brain
, Public Affairs, 2007, p. 158.
207
‘The data from political science are crystal clear’:
Drew Westen,
The Political Brain
, Public Affairs, 2007, p. 123.
207
‘shows much promise in curing everything from HIV to malaria to multiple sclerosis’:
The Lord Monckton Roadshow
, ABC Television, Sunday 17 July 2011.
208
this liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Broderers:
Who’s Who 2007
, p. 1599.
213
‘There is only one way to stop AIDS’:
‘AIDS: A British View’,
American Spectator
, January 1987, pp. 29–32.
216
‘a worldwide coup d’état by bureaucrats’:
Interview with Jacek Szkudlarek,
corbettreport.com
, December 2009, YouTube.
216
who seek to ‘impose a Communist world government on the world’:
Speech to an event sponsored by the Minnesota Free Market Institute, 14 October 2009.
217
he writes that moral reasoning ‘evolved not to help us find truth’:
Jonathan Haidt,
The Righteous Mind
, Allen Lane, 2012, p. 76.
13: ‘Backwards and forwards in the slime’
page
219
The assistant to Hitler’s ambassador:
‘Mrs Jaenelle Antas worked for David Irving from August 2008 to December 2011.’ According to David Irving’s website:
http://www.fpp.co.uk/docs/Irving/staff_Ja.html
.
220
Vienna’s Josefstadt prison:
Ruth Elkins, ‘Irving gets three years’ jail in Austria for Holocaust denial’,
Independent
, 21 February 2006.
221
In 1993 the American historian Professor Deborah Lipstadt wrote:
The Hon. Mr Justice Gray, Judgment, Tuesday 11 April 2000, Court 36, Royal Courts of Justice.
221
at one point accidentally calling the judge ‘Mein Führer’:
Christopher Hitchens, ‘The Strange Case of David Irving’,
Los Angeles Times
, 20 May 2001.
221
‘Irving has misstated historical evidence’:
The Hon. Mr Justice Gray, Judgment, Tuesday 11 April 2000, Court 36, Royal Courts of Justice.
221
Irving called the verdict ‘indescribable’ and ‘perverse’:
‘Unrepentant Irving blasts “perverse” judgment’,
Guardian
, 11 April 2000.
222
a similar one against the
Observer
:
‘David Irving v the Observer’,
Observer
, 16 April 2000.
223
‘All Irving’s historiographical “errors”’:
The Hon. Mr Justice Gray, Judgment, Tuesday 11 April 2000, Court 36, Royal Courts of Justice.
224
Irving ‘was clearly incensed’:
Richard J. Evans,
Telling Lies About Hitler
, Verso, 2002, p. 12.
224
‘Whether or not Lipstadt was correct to claim’:
Richard J. Evans,
Telling Lies About Hitler
, Verso, 2002, p. 8.
225
The
Daily Mail
quoted a spokesman for the Polish embassy:
‘Controversial historian David Irving to tour Nazi death camps in Poland’,
Daily Mail
, 8 September 2010.
228
a 2009 article from the
Daily Mail
:
Jason Lewis, ‘Hitler historian David Irving and the beautiful blonde on the rifle range’,
Daily Mail
, 20 December 2009. Antas responds to this piece on her blog, ‘Make Lemonade’, 4 April 2001.
http://www.alternativeright.com/main/blogs/exit-strategies/make-lemonade/
.
228
‘a neo-Nazi pin-up’:
Jason Lewis, ‘Hitler historian David Irving and the beautiful blonde on the rifle range’,
Daily Mail
, 20 December 2009.
228
On the website of an obscure publishing group:
Alex Kurtagic, ‘Interview with Jaenelle Antas’, 9 January 2011, Wermod and Wermod Publishing Group.
229
he ‘believed that there had been something like a Holocaust’:
Speech, Calgary, Alberta, 29 September 1991, quoted in libel judgment.
229
His denial came in 1989:
D. D. Guttenplan,
The Holocaust on Trial
, Granta, 2001, p. 53.
229
flawed study by a man named Fred Leuchter:
Deborah E. Lipstadt,
History on Trial
, Harper Perennial, 2005, p. 35.
230
‘the biggest calibre shell that has yet hit the battleship Auschwitz’:
Deborah E. Lipstadt,
History on Trial
, Harper Perennial, 2005, p. 83.
230
In 1991 he reissued his most lauded book:
Deborah E. Lipstadt,
History on Trial
, Harper Perennial, 2005, p. 84.
230
He had some advice for the Jewish people:
[Irving’s website]:
http://www.fpp.co.uk/docs/ADL/ADLQandA.html
.
230
he was fined 3,000 marks in Germany for ‘defaming the memory’:
Michael Shermer,
Why People Believe Weird Things
, Souvenir Press, 1997, p. 196.
230
‘never adopted the narrow-minded approach’:
Michael Shermer,
Why People Believe Weird Things
, Souvenir Press, 1997, p. 195.
230
The following year he told an Australian radio host:
Michael Shermer,
Why People Believe Weird Things
, Souvenir Press, 1997, p. 195.
230
In 1996 he admitted some Jews
were
systematically killed:
Ron Rosenbaum,
Explaining Hitler
, Faber and Faber, 1998, p. 238.
230
Over the same period, he was banned from Germany:
[Irving’s website]:
http://www.fpp.co.uk/Germany/docs/index.html
.
230
and Australia:
[Irving’s website]:
http://www.fpp.co.uk/Australia/index.html
.
230
deported from Canada:
[Irving’s website]:
http://www.fpp.co.uk/Canada/Legal/NiagFallsAdjudication.html
.
230
spent a short period in a Munich prison:
Ron Rosenbaum,
Explaining Hitler
, Faber and Faber, 1998, p. 224.
230
dropped by his publishers in Britain and the US:
D. D. Guttenplan,
The Holocaust on Trial
, Granta, 2001, pp. 54, 55.
230
his ‘life has come under a gradually mounting attack’:
Robert J. Van Pelt,
The Case for Auschwitz: Evidence from the Irving Trial
, Indiana University Press, 2002, p. 56.
231
he had a long-standing offer of $1,000:
Michael Shermer,
Why People Believe Weird Things
, Souvenir Press, 1997, p. 195.
231
After all, he comes from a patriotic British military family:
Miscellaneous biographical details from interview with author.
231
need to be an ‘ambassador to Hitler’:
Richard J. Evans,
Telling Lies About Hitler
, Verso, 2002, p. 48.
232
It was 1955, and the seventeen-year-old was told:
Interview with author.
232
one issue of which was said to contain a tribute to Hitler’s Germany:
Rosie Waterhouse, ‘From Brentwood to Berchtesgaden. Rosie Waterhouse traces the disturbing story of the “revisionist” David Irving’,
Independent
, 11 July 1992.
232
to the
Daily Mail
, in comments he has since denied making:
[Irving’s website]
http://www.fpp.co.uk/docs/Irving/cesspit/mild/fascist.html
.
232
saw the fascist Sir Oswald Mosley speak at a rally:
D. D. Guttenplan,
The Holocaust on Trial
, Granta, 2001, p. 42.
232
‘The Nottingham race disturbances were caused by coloured wide boys’:
University College Newspaper, 2 February 1961, p. 1.
233
he suspected that he had been mismarked:
D. D. Guttenplan,
The Holocaust on Trial
, Granta, 2001, p. 41.
233
he wrote to Krupp, the Nazi armaments manufacturer:
D. D. Guttenplan,
The Holocaust on Trial
, Granta, 2001, p. 42.
243
historians ‘do not, as Irving kept demanding, seek a “smoking gun”‘:
Deborah E. Lipstadt,
History on Trial
, Harper Perennial, 2005, p. 133.
243
‘Confirmation bias even sees to it that no evidence’:
Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson,
Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me)
, Pinter and Martin, 2007, p. 20.
243
An interview with Irving’s brother Nicholas:
Olga Craig, ‘David, what on earth would Mother think?’,
Daily Telegraph
, 26 February 2006.
243
‘Earlier experiences had persuaded me’:
John Keegan, ‘The trial of David Irving – and my part in his downfall’,
Daily Telegraph
, 12 April 2000.
244
Psychologist David Perkins conducted a simple study:
Jonathan Haidt,
The Righteous Mind
, Allen Lane, 2012, pp. 80, 81.
244
What if Hitler hadn’t known about the Holocaust?
Interview with author.
245
Around the period in which Irving was considering this find:
Ron Rosenbaum,
Explaining Hitler
, Faber and Faber, 1998, p. 224.
14: ‘That one you just go, “Eeerrrr” ’
Following the first publication of this book, Professor Wiseman contacted me with some objections to this chapter.
Two of his objections resulted in small changes to the text. The first is about the timing of Wiseman’s tests on Jaytee the ‘psychic’ dog, and where they came in the study period. The second is about where I obtained a particular scientific paper.
During our interview, Professor Wiseman said his work was carried out ‘very, very early on.’ He also denied that Rupert Sheldrake had invited him to test Jaytee. During the second phase of my reporting (when I was adapting what had been an
Esquire
article into a chapter of
The Unpersuadables
), I read a paper co-written by Wiseman in which it is acknowledged that Wiseman was working at the invitation of Sheldrake, and that Sheldrake’s tests on Jaytee the dog began before Wiseman’s tests.
The original wording, which I have altered in this edition, was ‘Later, I find a paper …’ Wiseman pointed out that he, in fact, sent me this paper very shortly after our interview. Unfortunately, as this all happened some time ago, I can’t recall where I found the version I used during the second period of research. However, as my PDF is called ‘psychicdogreply’ and the file that Wiseman emailed to me was called ‘pets1’, I believe I independently sourced the paper via Google, from Wiseman’s website, as the version contained there is called ‘psychicdogreply’. [
http://www.richardwiseman.com/resources/psychicdogreply.pdf
])
All that said, had I realised that Professor Wiseman had volunteered that same paper earlier, I would certainly have noted it in the text. For the oversight, I sincerely apologise.
In the original text, in the passage in which I discussed this paper, I made the following claim. ‘It confirms that Sheldrake “kindly invited [Wiseman] to conduct his own investigations of Jaytee”, and that they took place thirteen months after Sheldrake’s experiments began.’
Wiseman’s position is that this is an error on my part. He notes that the experiments Sheldrake started doing thirteen months before his did not involve making video recordings of the dog and only constituted observations that were recorded manually. Wiseman carried out two videotaped tests in June 1995 and two in December 1995. Sheldrake’s preliminary experiments that specifically used video cameras began in April 1995, around two months before Wiseman’s. His formal video experiments began in May 1995, one month before Wiseman’s. In the text, I use the plural ‘experiments’ in reference to all of Sheldrake’s experiments. Sheldrake first began studying Jaytee in May 1994, thirteen months before Wiseman.
Video cameras or not, all of Wiseman’s and Sheldrake’s testing protocols were different, which I believe underlines the notion that the various forms in which these experiments took place is not relevant. The material point – and their essential commonality – is that they were all experiments on Jaytee’s purported psychic abilities.
Wiseman says this misses the point because the book only discusses the studies which emerge from the video phase and that Sheldrake’s claim about Wiseman analysing his data differently only makes sense within the context of these specific studies. In his view, therefore, the book clearly implies that Sheldrake started the videotape phase of his studies thirteen months before Wiseman did his.
Even if we accept Wiseman’s position, the fact that he began his video camera tests a month after Sheldrake began his formal video phase (and two months after his preliminary video tests) and completed them seven months afterwards, it still seems to me to be not wholly consistent with his claim to have carried out his work, ‘very, very early on.’ Furthermore, the broader point – that Wiseman didn’t replicate Sheldrake’s videotaped tests partly because his work was carried out so early that Sheldrake’s protocol didn’t yet exist – is directly disputed by Sheldrake, who insists that it did, in fact, exist when Wiseman was doing his work. He says he began plotting and analysing his video data in this way immediately, in April, two months before Wiseman’s arrival. Wiseman, it seems, didn’t ask Sheldrake and Sheldrake, it seems, didn’t tell him at that time.
I don’t agree that the original text was erroneous, but I have altered the text to clarify Professor Wiseman’s point. It now reads, ‘… they took place a month after Sheldrake started his video tests and more than a year after his studies of Jaytee’s purported psychic abilities actually began.’
Wiseman had two further objections that did not lead to material changes, but which I wish to note.
He objects to my quoting him telling a newspaper, ‘I agree that by the standards of any other area of science that [psi] is proven.’
He complains that I have truncated the quote which, in full, reads as follows: ‘I agree that by the standards of any other area of science that [psi] is proven, but that begs the question: do we need higher standards of evidence when we study the paranormal? I think we do. If I said that there is a red car outside my house, you would probably believe me. But if I said that a UFO had just landed, you’d probably want a lot more evidence. Because [psi] is such an outlandish claim that will revolutionise the world, we need overwhelming
evidence before we draw any conclusions. Right now we don’t have that evidence.’
Wiseman complained that, by omitting this section, I have ‘reversed the meaning’ of what he was saying.
I did truncate his quote – not to distort his position, but to explain it concisely, whilst contextualising it as a view shared by various estimable scientists. The section that immediately follows his quote unambiguously defines his position, explaining that Wiseman and Skeptics like him, ‘reject psi … because what’s more likely? That parapsychologists are mistaken or fraudulent? Or that a psychic terrier from Ramsbottom has proved that a foundational principle of science is wrong? A common materialist slogan … says “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” As Wiseman tells me, “A lot of physics and psychology will be called into question the moment you accept psi. Therefore, it’s reasonable to say that the weight of evidence for it must be much greater”.’
Finally, Professor Wiseman would like me to note that our interview was conducted for an article I wrote about Jaytee in
Esquire
magazine, an article I subsequently expanded into a chapter of this book.