Critiques of Science as Currently Praticed

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Thank you for the links.


I read the entire decision. This is a motion to dismiss by Barrett where he was successful in dismissing a number of the counts against him in a defamation suit. Nothing in it supports your allegations from what I can see. There is no allegation that Dr. Barrett falsely represented himself as a psychiatrist.

Quackbuster Stephen Barrett:
"Not an Expert," Declares Judge!
The judge concluded:
-As for his credential as an expert on FDA regulation of homeopathic drugs, the Court finds that Dr. Barrett lacks sufficient qualifications in this area.
-Dr. Barrett's purported legal and regulatory knowledge is not apparent.
-Barrett who claims to be backed by the FDA, FTC, DHHS, NCI, HIH, AMA, and ADA showed up with one witness and his own lame testimony. Barrett claimed to have hundreds of studies, but couldn't produce one.

This is from a different case and is what I referred to above. The court ruled that Barrett was not to be accepted as an expert in regulating homeopathy. It did not label him a fraud. Nor did it accuse him of falsely calling himself a psychiatrist.

It just found he was not as expert in the area of the regulation of homeopathy.

Expert witnesses get rejected all the time. This doesn't make them frauds. With all due respect you have misunderstood this decision.

I read the entire decision. It is mostly a technical argument about if the defendant was an information content publisher. The defendants had admitted that they had made tortious comments against Barrett but they got off on a technicality. I'm not clear on why l you think this supports your claim. Did you actually read it?

I think you need to reevaluate your position on this. It does not seem to be supported by the documents you believe support it. Maybe someone had misled you as to their contents.
 
Mercola was an example, Barrett was exposed in court as a fraud. He was never a psychiatrist. Google, this circular debating is only fueling your ego

With respect you have to do more than google, you have to carefully read what comes out of your search, and make sure that you sufficiently understand what you are reading enough to draw conclusions.
 
If Barrett is not an expert in Homeopathy or the regulation of homeopathy and he makes dubious claims about homeopathy wouldn't that make him a fraud or a liar, misleading? What word should we use? He was deemed "Not credible"

Breaking down Barretts case in strawman and eqovications is not suffcient
 
http://www.michaelmooney.net/Quackbusters Busted.pdf

In Canada, Barrett admitted to claims made by a plaintiff(3) that: The sole purpose of the activities of Barrett & Baratz are to discredit and cause damage and harm to health care practitioners, businesses that make alternative health therapies or products available, and advocates of non-allopathic therapies and health freedom. Barrett has interfered with the civil rights of numerous Americans, in his efforts to have his critics silenced. Barrett has strategically orchestrated the filing of legal actions in improper jurisdictions for the purpose of frustrating the victims of such lawsuits and increasing his victims costs. Barrett failed the exams he was required to pass to become a Board Certified Medical Doctor

What should we call such actions such as these he admitted court? Misleading? Fraudulent? Misrepresentation? Petty? Manipulative?
 
If Barrett is not an expert in Homeopathy or the regulation of homeopathy and he makes dubious claims about homeopathy wouldn't that make him a fraud or a liar, misleading? What word should we use? He was deemed "Not credible"

Breaking down Barretts case in strawman and eqovications is not suffcient

The case required an expert on regulation. The lawyer should have chosen someone with those qualifications. Being deemed an expert witness in a lawsuit had certain criteria. The same person can be a valid expert in one case but not another.

And again, the issue was not that he called himself a psychiatrist but was actually an m.d. I hope you can see this.

I think you need to be open to the possibility that as a non-lawyer you may be missing some subtleties here. Do you know any lawyers personally? Maybe you can run this by them and get their opinion. You don't need to taken my word for it.

You didn't mention the other cases. Do you agree with my assessment there? Or do you think I missed something?
 
https://archive.org/stream/QuackWat...ett Is a BIG Quack | ENCOGNITIVE.COM_djvu.txt

Of Stephen Barrett of www.quackwatch.com and www.ncahf.com (National Council Against Health
Fraud—another shill for the AMA, American Medical Association):

biased and unworthy of credibility" in court of law, Jan 2007

Barrett also had said that he was a legal expert even though he had no formal legal training.

Barrett conceded that he was not a Medical Board Certified psychiatrist because he had failed the
certification exam.

Barrett had filed similar defamation lawsuits against almost 40 people across the country within
the past few years and had not won one single one at trial.
 
The case required an expert on regulation. The lawyer should have chosen someone with those qualifications. Being deemed an expert witness in a lawsuit had certain criteria. The same person can be a valid expert in one case but not another.

And again, the issue was not that he called himself a psychiatrist but was actually an m.d. I hope you can see this.

I think you need to be open to the possibility that as a non-lawyer you may be missing some subtleties here. Do you know any lawyers personally? Maybe you can run this by them and get their opinion. You don't need to taken my word for it.

You didn't mention the other cases. Do you agree with my assessment there? Or do you think I missed something?

Yes, you missed something he is not a MD, nor a psychiatrist. I know lawyers running this by them would be a waste of time. If you can't grasp a simple concept, this is not about Barrett, but more about you trying to be "right" creating strawmans, using equivocations on the strawman
 
B. Stephen Barrett, M.D.

Dr. Barrett was offered on several issues by the Plaintiff, but the Court found that there was substantial overlap on the issues that he and Dr. Sampson were asked to address. Thus, in order to avoid duplicative or cumulative evidence (see Cal. Evidence Code �� 352, 411, 723), Dr. Barrett�s testimony was limited by the Court to the sole issue of FDA treatment of homeopathic drugs. The relevancy of this issue was questionable at best, since the Plaintiff had previously asserted that its case did not depend on or seek to establish any violation of federal food and drug laws or regulations. Nevertheless, Plaintiff elicited testimony from Dr. Barrett on his experience with the FDA as it relates to regulation of homeopathic drugs.

Dr. Barrett was a psychiatrist who retired in or about 1993, at which point he contends he allowed his medical license to lapse. Like Dr. Sampson, he has no formal training in homeopathic medicine or drugs, although he claims to have read and written extensively on homeopathy and other forms of alternative medicine. Dr. Barrett�s claim to expertise on FDA issues arises from his conversations with FDA agents, his review of professional literature on the subject and certain continuing education activities.

As for his credential as an expert on FDA regulation of homeopathic drugs, the Court finds that Dr. Barrett lacks sufficient qualifications in this area. Expertise in FDA regulation suggests a knowledge of how the agency enforces federal statutes and the agency�s own regulations. Dr. Barrett�s purported legal and regulatory knowledge is not apparent. He is not a lawyer, although he claims he attended several semesters of correspondence law school. While Dr. Barrett appears to have had several past conversations with FDA representatives, these appear to have been sporadic, mainly at his own instigation, and principally for the purpose of gathering information for his various articles and Internet web-sites. He has never testified before any governmental panel or agency on issues relating to FDA regulation of drugs. Presumably his professional continuing education experiences are outdated given that he has not had a current medical licence in over seven years. For these reasons, there is no sound basis on which to consider Dr. Barrett qualified as an expert on the issues he was offered to address. Moreover, there was no real focus to his testimony with respect to any of the issues in this case associated with Defendants� products.

C. Credibility of Plaintiff�s experts

Furthermore, the Court finds that both Dr. Sampson and Dr. Barrett are biased heavily in favor of the Plaintiff and thus the weight to be accorded their testimony is slight in any event. Both are long-time board members of the Plaintiff; Dr. Barrett has served as its Chairman. Both participated in an application to the U.S. FDA during the early 1990s designed to restrict the sale of most homeopathic drugs. Dr. Sampson�s university course presents what is effectively a one-sided, critical view of alternative medicine. Dr. Barrett�s heavy activities in lecturing and writing about alternative medicine similarly are focused on the eradication of the practices about which he opines. Both witnesses� fees, as Dr. Barrett testified, are paid from a fund established by Plaintiff NCAHF from the proceeds of suits such as the case at bar. Based on this fact alone, the Court may infer that Dr. Barrett and Sampson are more likely to receive fees for testifying on behalf of NCAHF in future cases if the Plaintiff prevails in the instant action and thereby wins funds to enrich the litigation fund described by Dr. Barrett. It is apparent, therefore, that both men have a direct, personal financial interest in the outcome of this litigation. Based on all of these factors, Dr. Sampson and Dr. Barrett can be described as zealous advocates of the Plaintiff�s position, and therefore not neutral or dispassionate witnesses or experts. In light of these affiliations and their orientation, it can fairly be said that Drs. Barrett and Sampson are themselves the client, and therefore their testimony should be accorded little, if any, credibility on that basis as well.
 
Yes, you missed something he is not a MD, nor a psychiatrist. I know lawyers running this by them would be a waste of time. If you can't grasp a simple concept, this is not about Barrett, but more about you trying to be "right" creating strawmans, using equivocations on the strawman

Those decisions have absolutely nothing to do with that.

You are relying on court decisions about being qualified as an impartial expert witness. These are technical legal issues in a particular context.

I think you will find it instructive to run it by someone with legal training who you trust. The blog posts you are citing don't show they understand the context either.

The guy may be a big jerk I don't know. But these decisions don't say what you think they do.

I don't think there is much more I can say on this.
 
Those decisions have absolutely nothing to do with that.

You are relying on court decisions about being qualified as an impartial expert witness. These are technical legal issues in a particular context.

I think you will find it instructive to run it by someone with legal training who you trust. The blog posts you are citing don't show they understand the context either.

The guy may be a big jerk I don't know. But these decisions don't say what you think they do.

I don't think there is much more I can say on this.

I posted his case from 2003 its 22 pages PDF court document, the post before is from the case. Just let it go its apparently over your head;)
 

Unfortunately fake news. A fellow Skeptiko poster and semen expert (who would understandably prefer to remain nameless) has pointed me towards this 2011 article which appears to have spawned the piece to which I linked (and countless others it seems).

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/all-about-sex/201101/attention-ladies-semen-is-antidepressant

This appears to a case of inaccurate reporting and serial plagiarism by sites that don't take fact checking too seriously.



I haven't told Mrs malf yet.
 
Unfortunately fake news. A fellow Skeptiko poster and semen expert (who would understandably prefer to remain nameless) has pointed me towards this 2011 article which appears to have spawned the piece to which I linked (and countless others it seems).

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/all-about-sex/201101/attention-ladies-semen-is-antidepressant

This appears to a case of inaccurate reporting and serial plagiarism by sites that don't take fact checking too seriously.

I haven't told Mrs malf yet.

Interesting that Psychology Today also has a rebuttal of the argument presented in that 2011 article.
 
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