RESPONSE TO A BROADCAST ON CBC RADIO ONE'S SHOW, THE CURRENT
That was a terrible job of interviewing by Susan Ormiston in the item on typing facilitators.
She got across to the professor at Syracuse none of the essential criticisms by the lucid magician, a man from whom I first heard years ago.
The professor never answered her only meaningful question, and she let him slide off the hook with his silly, pompous "we don't engage in that kind of thing."
The fact is that the rigorous procedures of modern science can be gamed by people like those at the University of Syracuse. They may be a non-profit institution, but that doesn't mean they have no motives to engage in unscientific research.
It brings money to the university and enhances the positions of people like the professor internally. Sadly, the money comes from desperate parents of autistic kids seeking miracles.
This facilitation business is an old fraud, going back some years, and it should surprise no one who knows some history.
We've had past unscientific fads galore, for example Mesmerism about two centuries ago or Krebiozen for cancer in the 1960s.
Or the years of "experiments" at Duke University - otherwise a perfectly respectable institution - on people's psychic abilities with cards and other silliness. Millions were spent for nothing.
One can only conclude Ms Ormiston did not understand the magician's points or she was unable to summon the skills to challenge the professor.
In either case, she has no business hosting a show like The Current.
I do hope, using her is not a sign of things to come on the show, pointing to the general trend of dumbing-down on CBC Radio which has been so painfully apparent in recent years.
