I want to add that the link posted to Cosmored's post at spurstalk.com, to the supposed mountain of evidence for the Apollo, mentions me by name and makes several incorrect and misleading claims.
I am indeed the principal author of
www.clavius.org. The spurstalk.com link to the David Icke forum that allegedly describes both my site and Bad Astronomy is a post written by Cosmored himself under the name DavidC. He wrote this after he was banned under both those aliases, both from the Bad Astronomy forum and also from the Apollohoax.net forum (which he mistakenly identifies as my site Clavius), for his abusive behavior. It does not discuss the my site at all, which is static content and
not a web forum. In fact it is unlikely that Cosmored/DavidC has ever read my site.
Cosmored's spurstalk.com post goes on to link
here to a debate at IMDb between me and Jarrah White. He asserts that Jarrah left that debate because the moderators were deleting his posts. In fact, the moderators deleted only one of his posts, which contained foul and abusive language.
Jarrah knows why the post was deleted; he posted a cleaned-up version of it later than day, but then tried to tell his fans that IMDb was preventing him from posting key evidence that would have proven his claim. Further, IMDb was
Jarrah's choice of forum to debate in, not mind, and he explicitly agreed to be moderated there. He chose the venue and accepted the ground rules. His inability to follow them is his fault and his alone.
Jarrah debated for a considerable length of time after he was moderated, before finally resigning the debate. He resigned because he was losing badly the argument he had made regarding solar weather. It was becoming increasingly clear that he had incompetently misinterpreted the NOAA data (which Cosmored also alludes to in his post, when discussing Ralph Rene) and was being held accountable for it. His attempts to replay debunked arguments had failed, and his attempts to change the subject to Apollo 1 had failed. Further, he was also being held accountable to respond to an Australian poster's invitation to set up a panel of academics in Jarrah's area to endorse Jarrah's findings in person.
Cosmored's claim that I will debate only when there are moderators to "ride to [my] rescue" is false, misleading, and highly misrepresentative of the nature of the debates I participate in.
First, the claim pertains largely only to Jarrah White. As many here can attest, Jarrah has a reputation for foul-mouthed, abusive language when addressing me. At the Yahoo! groups forum where he first tried to engage me directly, several of the other posters tried to get him to calm down and clean up his language, but to no avail. He was promptly banned by the Yahoo! administrators -- for which he tried to blame me, even going so far as to accuse me of hacking his computer.
From then on, Jarrah has spent considerable time making YouTube videos that focus considerable attention on personal attacks against me and Dr. Phil Plait, the originator of Bad Astronomy. The comments that accompany these videos are largely a continuation of the vulgar personal insults that won Jarrah his original reputation. His approach to me has been described by others as a "sick obsession" and an "unhealthy fixation."
Hence when Jarrah contacted me by email to debate my correspondence with Astronaut-Scientist Brian O'Leary, I informed him that I do not debate in private (for the simple practical reason that I don't want to have to repeat myself a hundred times for every supplicant), and that if he in particular wanted to debate me directly, it would have to be under moderation that would enjoin him from relying upon his characteristically abusive language and personal attacks.
Ideally I would like him to debate at BAUT, where the moderation for conspiracy theories includes rules that require proponents to focus on the debate and evidence, rather than upon debate tactics. But few if any hoax proponents are willing to submit to that level of rigor, so I was happy with any program of moderation that would keep his vitriol in check. Jarrah chose IMDb, but was ultimately unable to control himself even by their liberal standards. JREF would also have been a suitable forum.
In no online forum where I debate do I have any authority to control who posts, what is posted, or what may be said to or about me. I post here, at BAUT, and at Apollhoax.net. None of the moderators at any of these places bow to my will. In fact, I explicitly linked to Apollohoax.net from Clavius.org precisely so that a third-party moderator would regulate the discussion of my site.
In contrast, Jarrah White rarely ventures outside his YouTube channel, where he continues the solar-weather debate in a one-sided fashion where he controls what is presented what is said in response, basking in the accolades of a small group of sycophantic followers who likewise rarely leave the channel. He remains entirely insulated from criticism.
I have entertained several third-party requests to present my views in public under my real identity. Those requests have come from the journal
Science,
The New York Times,
The New York Times Magazine, The History Channel, National Geographic, The Ron Reagan Show, the Discovery Channel, and a host of skeptics organizations. In many or most of these cases, noted conspiracy theorists are also invited to present their views. Some agree, most don't. In a few cases, they demand exorbitant appearance fees.
I think it's clear who's trying to win the debate by controlling what is seen and heard.
And get a reply such as:
