Magic 23.5 update: Osborne runs away.
Just thought I'd put up a quick little note here. I found that the author of the "23.5" stuff, after giving up on responding here, has set up a nice little website - sans comments - in which he defends himself from the criticisms here.
Since I went to the trouble of publically presenting his defense on the front page of this blog, and engaging in a civil discussion with him in the comments, I'm more than a little bit ticked at this. He's obviously welcome to handle things as he wants, but I find it rather cowardly of Gary to silently drop out of a public, open discussion here, and then continue it on a private site, where no one who disagrees with him is permitted to respond.
I'm not going to link to it, since he's got rather a lot of advertisements set up (you actually have to sit through an ad on the main link to the site before you're allowed to read any content), and I'd rather not send cash in his direction as a reward for this. If you really care, you can find it either through google, or through the sitemeter referrals link on the bottom of the front page of this blog.
Since I went to the trouble of publically presenting his defense on the front page of this blog, and engaging in a civil discussion with him in the comments, I'm more than a little bit ticked at this. He's obviously welcome to handle things as he wants, but I find it rather cowardly of Gary to silently drop out of a public, open discussion here, and then continue it on a private site, where no one who disagrees with him is permitted to respond.
I'm not going to link to it, since he's got rather a lot of advertisements set up (you actually have to sit through an ad on the main link to the site before you're allowed to read any content), and I'd rather not send cash in his direction as a reward for this. If you really care, you can find it either through google, or through the sitemeter referrals link on the bottom of the front page of this blog.
posted by MarkCC at
2:29 PM
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10 Comments:
Let's just keep your post's comments going. Not our fault he retreated to the Internet equivalent of a cave... or would that be the underside of a bridge?
By
Bronze Dog, at 3:15 PM
Actually he retreated to a concession booth. He can't wait to get the book out, apparently, but he seems happy enough to shill for ad clicks in the meantime.
Gary, I'm sure you come back here to at least read the comments on your shenanigans.
Just so you know, I'm not going to the site, and I won't be buying the book.
Hey, you might try finding some impossibly large and ancient pyramids in Bosnia or something. Pick a town that hates itself and needs a morale boost. They will love you.
By
Don Sheffler, at 12:19 AM
Nah he's quite active this morning insulting and lecturing me.
By
Rev. BigDumbChimp, at 9:11 AM
There are some very valuable lessons you quickly learn as a police officer, emergency response team member, bouncer, and so on: once you detect irrationality (drunk, crazy, other), argument with that person is the most unproductive solution in your toolbox.
By
Anonymous, at 1:24 PM
Gary:
It's interesting that you quote someone discussing how attacking the *character* of people rather than the *content* of their arguments is the sign of a poor debater. I've been sitting through these threads asking questions about the *content* of your argument: the methodology of measurement, the reasons why information would be encoded in this way, the techniques and reasons why the artists could have put information into paintings this way; etc. You've responded to those questions by saying you "kicked my ass", calling me childish, calling me a pseudo-skeptic, calling me an amateur: everything *but* responding to my questions.
So tell me Gary - why is it that you'll take the time to return to my blog again and again, posting dozens of comments, but you absolutely refuse to answer any of the reasonable questions that have been put to you?
I'll repeat a few here, just to collect things in one place.
(1) How do you measure the angles in the paintings? When you say a limb points at a particular angle, how are you determining where to put the line for the limb?
(2) You've admitted that sometimes the lines aren't precisely 23.5 degrees. If your thesis is that the difference between a 22.5 and 23.5 degree angle is crucial, how do you determine *when* the precision of the angle is important? Is it just a matter of "if it's 23.5, then it's important that it's precise, but if it isn't 23.5, then it doesn't matter?"
(3) If this was being kept secret because of a fear of the church, how was it passed between dozens of artists over hundreds of years without the church ever finding out about it?
(4) If dozens of people over hundreds of years were hiding this in plain sight, then why is it that there is *no* written documentation anywhere? No personal notes from any artists, no private diaries? No correspondence containing coded messages?
If you can answer any of those questions, please do. If you're just going to insult me more without bothering to answer my questions, please don't waste your time.
By
MarkCC, at 11:33 AM
I rest my case,
By
Anonymous, at 1:37 PM
gary:
Let me paraphrase.
(1) Measurement: you eyeball it.
(2) Angles/precision: accuracy matters when you want it to, but not when it doesn't.
(3) Hiding from the church: Actually, it predates the church that they were keeping it secret from.
(4) Documentation: buy my book if you want to see the answer.
By
MarkCC, at 3:59 PM
gary:
First - drop the newage strawman, OK? I just ran a quick blogsearch on the phrase "new age", and the only references to the phrase seem to be in comments written *by you*.
You can whine all you want. The fact remains that you can't provide real answers for the questions I keep asking. You insist on just endlessly resorting to insults and strawmen, rather than actually talking about content.
To me, there are two key, fundamental things that you have consistently refused to address; and unless you can do that in a meaningful way, your thesis totally lacks credibility.
First: the key piece of evidence that you claim is the presence of very precise angles. Except that you *don't* require them to actually be precise. You don't have a precise criteria for measuring (the "eyeball" measurement system you use allows shifts of several degrees depending on how you draw a line); you don't have any objective method for deciding when precision matters. If precision gives you the result you want, then it's precise; if precision doesn't give the result you want, then it doesn't need to be precise. Sorry, but that doesn't meet any standard for scientific evidence.
Second, your thesis relies on a closely held secret. Secrets are notoriously difficult to keep. You claim that the secret was kept well enough over a space of hundreds of years that the keepers could place that secret in plain sight, without anyone outside of their circle noticing it. That's an extraordinary claim, and you absolutely refuse to provide any evidence. And after dozens of comments, repeatedly insulting anyone who questions you, and having the question put to you politely numerous times, you still refuse to actually answer the question in any way beyond "buy my book".
There are very literally tens of thousands of books out there proposing all sorts of theories. I can't buy them all, and even if I could, I can't possibly read them all. To convince me to buy a book, the author needs to demonstrate a minimum level of credibility. You haven't done that. Rather than discuss your evidence, you've insulted people for nothing more than asking you questions. That tells me that you *can't* answer the questions, and you have no credibility at all.
By
MarkCC, at 5:35 PM
gary:
What people put on their own blogs has nothing to do with me. *Here*, on this blog, as far as I could see, no one other than you has used the phrase "new age"; no one has called you a new ager. It's just a strawman to deflect attention from the fact that you're *still* avoiding answering my questions. You're *still* just resorting to insulting me rather than answering anything. Rather than take the bait of responding to your insults, I'll just repeat the questions.
(1) What objective standard allows you to determine whether or not the precision of an angle in an image is significant? The only answer thus far is "if it's precisely 23.5, then it matters; if it isn't, it doesn't matter."
(2) You say the secret was hidden for fear of the Church. How was the secret passed on for hundreds of years, and yet kept secret enough that artists could put it in obvious places in paintings without the church noticing?
By
MarkCC, at 8:29 PM
gary:
To sum up:
- You refuse to state how you measure the angles beyond "eyeballing".
- Precision counts when you want it to, and not when it doesn't.
- You can't explain the contradictions inherent in the idea of the "secret" information.
- Anyone who disagrees with you is automatically dishonest, immature, ignorant, irrational, foolish, etc; *but* asking you polite questions is making personal ad-hominem attacks.
By
MarkCC, at 11:49 AM
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