Andrew Skolnick:

The Weird Ally no One can Count On...

"ARRRRRRGH!!! Moura, moronic, moronic, Moura!! You idiot! Idiot!!!"

Anyone who takes a casual look at the above quote is bound to think that it was probably uttered by some awesomely beautiful and extremely rich (and rather spoilt...) blond in a self-described "Bitch Fit" (this link, alternative link). Disappointingly enough, the protagonist of this BF is neither extremely rich nor awesomely beautiful... Instead, it is a rather non-handsome, mildly swollen, reddish by constant inflamed temper, hypertrophied-cynical-eyed, and biting prone, "malignant" character...

No, I am not referring to the above beast. I am talking about something far worse! Andrew Skolnick. The executive director (...???!!!) of the Commission for Scientific Medicine and Mental Health (CSMMH). He was the main designer of the test CSICOP did with the russian psychic Natasha Demkina. Below I will present a rather voluminous list of Skolnick public vices, and these will shed some light on the credibility we should give to these "researchers" of the paranormal...

Skolnick...

1- ...was unethical even towards his fellow researchers Ray Hyman and Richard Wiseman: in his email exchanges with me (hardly knowing me at all...), Skolnick revealed something that was quite unnecessary and unethical towards his fellow researchers. He said on November 15, 2004: "The day of the test, they (Hyman/Wiseman) seemed to have gone over to the other side, trying to re-write the test rules to allow Natasha Demkina more freedom to get non-psychic information and increase her odds of correct matches by non-psychic means. I had a big fight with them at breakfast before the test. During the test, I just had to bite my tongue and 'pray' that we were't going to pay dearly for the numerous compromises that were permitted. We came awfully close to paying for those lapses." I had then already told Skolnick that I would be posting this material on skeptic and parapsychological forums in Brazil, and also that I had an antiskeptic site and that I had friends and foes among skeptics. Even though I thank Skolnick enormously for this "little secret", I cannot help but say that he is definately someone not to be trusted...

2- ...brutally offended all parapsychologists: at James Randi's forum, he said that all parapsychologists are incompetent, deluded, frauds, or willfully stupid. (This link, alternative link). This includes even Stanley Krippner, who is Randi's friend...

3- ...mocked the moderation in James Randi's forum: especially on two occasions, Skolnick clearly showed that he has no regard for the moderating process in JREF forum. The first occasion was right after I complained about many offenses that he had directed to other members. (this link for his reply). The second occasion was right after another member complained that he had called all parapsycologists deluded-frauds-incompetent-willfully-stupid (this link for his reply).

4- ...offended my family relationships by saying I may sexually abuse my own kids: this link is the original text where he did this. At this link I comment on this issue, and I show why it was not an innocent comment from Skolnick...

5- ...offended Latin American scientific medical journals: it is surprising and outraging that someone who is allowed to be the executive director of a "commission" that deals with medical matters feels free to offend respected medical institutions and publications from a whole continent (Latin America).

At this link, Skolnick said that one of the most prestigious Latin American scientific medical journals, "Memorias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz", is an "obscure journal" "no one here ever heard of". While the meaning of "obscure" is very "permissive" (we can even say that George Bush is an obscure individual, that is, obscure to many tribesmen of central Amazonia...), the subsequent messages from Skolnick fully revealed his contempt for fellow medical institutions unless they belong to either USA or to top European countries.

I replied to his first charge by saying that (this link): "My paper was not published in a obscure journal. By saying this, you give full proof to all forum members that you are highly unethical in your behaviour, and that you have feeble knowledge of medical matters. Memorias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz is the medical publication with highest Impact Factor in Latin America (far higher than your backyard magazine Skeptical Inquirer, for that matter...). It is linked to a worldwide renowned institute, Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, which is more than a hundred years old. The journal itself is more than 80 years old. Your behaviour in this regard is so deplorable that you should quit right away your position at CSMMH! You do not respect doctors, institutions, countries, forum moderators (including Darat himself), family relationships, nothing!"

Instead of leaving behind the laymen talk, and properly embracing the medical debate, and consequently presenting due apologies for his unethical remark, Skolnick decided to charge further. He said (this link) that I was lying and that he got proof that this Latin American journal was obscure indeed. He had just searched the New York Times internet search engine and found zero articles referring to it (or zero articles from it). He stressed that for some other journals he found the following numbers: The Lancet, 580 articles. British Medical Journal 537 articles. JAMA 2,418 articles. And concluded about the Latin American zero citation: "Oh, My! ". (this image on the left was included by Skolnick in his disrespectful post).

Then, another forum member showed Skolnick the obvious: that we were discussing medical matters (Natasha Demkina's "diagnosing" powers), and that the search engine to use in this situation was not the New York Times', but pubmed instead. On it, the Latin American journal appears not in zero citations, but in 3,685 instead! (more than JAMA in the New York Times...). Instead of presenting the due apologies, Skolnick just insisted (this link) that: "The fact that nothing published in that journal was ever reported by the New York Times (at least back to 1981) is compelling evidence that the journal is obscure or little known. The New York Times is one of the very few newspapers that have a weekly science section. For this and other reasons, it is one of the most important lay media for reporting medical research."

Pathetic...

6- ...does not know that JAMA is indexed by ISI (even though he claims to be a "medical journalist"...): in a message entitled "It's hard to distinguish shameless lying from blithering idiocy" (this link), Skolnick decided to say a few words about the Journal Citation Report (ISI). In this message, supposedly fighting idiocy, he taught us that: "Moura provided his incomplete and misleading figures in an attempt to show that Mem D Inst Osw Cruz is less obscure than the Skeptical Inquirer -- never mind that the Journal Citation Report doesn't include lay magazines such as Skeptical Inquirer. In fact, some major science journals are also not included. For example, one of the world's top four medical journals -- JAMA -- is not listed! Nor are any of the AMA's 10 important specialty journals, such as the Archives of Internal Medicine, the Archives of Otolaryngology, etc."

So, Skolnick was saying that JAMA is not indexed by ISI and does not have its Impact Factor listed in the Journal Citation Report. The same for Archives of Internal Medicine and the Archives of Otolaryngology. Remember: Skolnick is a medical journalist who worked for JAMA for almost ten years! (from 1989 to 1998). He should be highly trustable on these matters. But... Moura showed that he was dead wrong. (this link). JAMA is included, and its impact factor is, in the year 2003, 21,455. Also Archives of internal medicine, Impat factor: 6,758. And Archives of otolaryngology-head & neck surgery, Impact Factor 1,242.

Agreed: It's hard to distinguish shameless lying from blithering idiocy...

7- ...vandalized Wikipedia, Natasha Demkina entry: although he said it was I who had vandalized Wikipedia, I presented a big list (this link) proving it was actually otherwise, that is, it was he who did that... Below, I present this list again:

Brief Chronology of Wikipedia, Natasha Demkina entry; Skolnick's vandalism:

01- Someone got the entry started (Arcadion, I think). It was a bare entry.
02- Sometime later, Skolnick starts to feed into it his highly biased version of the events...
03- Someone added a link to Julio Siqueira.
04- Skolnick changed "Julio Siqueira" to "Julio Siqueira, Elementary English teacher".
05- An angel (Arch..) warns me of all this. I take my first look at the entry. Amazing. Too biased.
06- I insert the viewpoint of the critics AND I start the talk page, where I leave a message directly to Skolnick. Also, I changed "Julio Siqueira" English teacher to Julio Siqueira MA in clinical bacteriology and antipseudoskeptic activist.
07- Skolnick takes away my MA credentials, and adds that "Julio Siqueira's comments were removed. Siqueira has been conducting a defamatory campaign against the investigators and his statements are neither balanced nor honest."
08- I put back my MA credentials (and the rest of my inserts too).
09- I take out Skolnick's MS credentials. (I call them phony, because he acts like a phony Magister Scientiae).
10- I repent, and put Skolnick's credentials back.
11- Skolnick complains about the fact that I took out his credentials.
12- Skolnick says of the fact that he removed my MA credentials: "Julio Siqueira is an elementary school English teacher. I replaced his misleading statement with a more truthful one." (I believe that "more truthful" is quite close to "less lying").
13- Skolnick was rather rude (IMHO) to three Wikipedia mediators: Edwardian, Keith, and FRJohn.
14- Skolnick altered the entry thirty times (30!!!) after Edwardian had strongly emphasized that neither I nor he should edit it any further.
15- In one of these alterations, Skolnick took out once more my MA credentials (together with the credentials of everybody else), claiming now that they do not belong to a reference section (weirdly enough, it was Skolnick himself that first included my credentials as English teacher in this very same reference section...).

8- ...posted a phony book review at www.amazon.com: unbelievably, Skolnick allowed himself to publish a book review about the book from skeptic and CSICOP fellow Victor Stenger ("Has Science Found God?") even though he simply never read this book at all! All that he wanted with his "review" was to warn the readers that I was passing myself off as a microbiologist when actually I am no microbiologist. That would be fine and fair if it was not a lie... Skolnick knew very well that I am indeed a microbiologist. He ended up being banned from www.amazon.com, together with his phony review, but why on Earth did he decide to lie that way? Only God knows... Also, he lied about my credentials at the forum Museum of Hoaxes (thread discussing Natasha Demkina), at Wikipedia (Natasha Demkina entry, Talk Page), and repeatedly at the JREF forum. What a pinocchio!

9- ...got "banned" from the skeptic forum Museum of Hoaxes: the moderators of the forum Museum of Hoaxes decided to close the thread that Skolnick himself had created more than a year ago. At this link (alternative link), we see that the moderators got really upset at Skolnick's insistance on posting there things that had happened in other forums. Right after one such post from Skolnick, the moderator Boo said: "I have to ask that you keep your debate to the JREF, rather than carry it on here. This is an old thread on a forum which has been shut down for all but responses. The JREF thread has actual responses from people other than the few of you. Basically, we're tired of you using up the 'recent comments' section due to your arguments." Soon after it, the thread was closed for good.

10- ...was offensive towards my country: Skolnick made some inappropriate comments about what he called my "latitude" (meaning "country"). At this link, I complained of it.

11- ...did not know how molecules grow...: Skolnick sided with JREF forum member CFLarsen in saying that molecules will not grow (see this page for a detailed report on it). And Skolnick claims to be a Science Journalist...

12- ...suspiciously boasts too much about the hundreds of articles that he published in the JAMA: Skolnick is always boasting about the fact that he has more than 230 articles published in the JAMA. However, all of them were published as he was the associate editor of this journal. He published 242 articles in just ten years (according to his website), and all of this when he worked in JAMA! That is about two articles per month... My conclusion is that this astronomical amount of JAMA articles does not provide any evidence of Skolnick's competence, per si. They just provide evidence that he was working for JAMA. So, to me, these 242 equals to Zero!

13- ...conveniently forgets what he has said and written, even when the online material in question is easy to access...: the best example of this manipulation from Skolnick took place at Wikipedia, Natasha Demkina entry, talk page (this link, alternative link). There he said:

"Yes, these organs can be hard to see with conventional x-rays. That's why radiologists use barium swallows and other radiological procedures including CT-scans, MRI scans, and ultrasound. The original Wiki text says 'visible via radiology.' It did not say routine x-rays. And that's the way it was stated in the test protocols. These protocols state that the target medical abnormalities would only be conditions visible by radiology." Then I replied:

"Skolnick, I think you misread your own protocols. It is not said in them that the conditions would only be conditions visible by radiology. Where on Earth did you get this from? And also, your protocols do mention specifically 'x-ray'." And Skolnick was forced to admit:

"Sorry, my error. I did not include that statement in the written test protocols. My memory failed me. I did make this statement in other writings since it was an important rule we used for choosing the target medical conditions. All the conditions had to be diagnosable by radiology -- which would rule out many diseases and disorders, such as hypertension, diabetes, anemia, hypercholesterolemis, allergies, many infectious diseases, hypothyroidism, to name a few."

(this passage above is worth a million dollars because it is the only place where Skolnick ever acknowledged being wrong...)

14- ...misreports what he has told others to unfairly say they were dishonest to him: Skolnick told the people at the feeble JREF forum that, while offending him from his back, I was sending emails to him calling him "My Dear Friend". I never called him "my dear friend" in any of these emails. This utter lie from Skolnick is fully explained by me in this link. Also, Skolnick repeatedly misreported (in JREF forum) what he had told me about the advice he gave to Natasha during the test as to how she should search for the volunteer with the resected esophagus clinical condition. Full description of it in the previous link.

15- ...tried repeatedly to swindle the JREF forum members: the examples listed in this number 13 above are representative of this number 14 as well. Further, Skolnick repeatedly misreported to the forum members that Natasha had not complained about two of the clinical conditions right before the beginning of the test. At this link, I prove that he is not telling the truth, that is: Natasha indeed complained of these two conditions right before the beginning of the test!

16- ...repeatedly said that Skeptical Inquirer is not a scientific journal: at this link, Skolnick said that "Skeptical Inquirer is not a science journal. It's a magazine for the general public." Another member did not quite agree. At this link, Skolnick pressured further: "Look on the magazine's cover, you malignant mendacious moron. It says: 'Skeptical Inquirer The Magazine for Science and Reason.' Right there in the subtitle it says, 'Magazine' not 'Journal.' It is not peer-reviewed and it's not a science journal." This other member had warned Skolnick that, at CSICOP's page, they say Skeptical Inquirer is their "official journal". Then, at this link, this other member showed Skolnick a link where Skeptical Inquirer itself claims to be, too, a scientific journal. This link (alternative link). It is said at this link that: "SKEPTICAL INQUIRER: we bridge the gaps between science and the general public... Detailed Description: Skeptical Inquirer is an unusual hybrid, part semi-popular magazine, part scientific journal. It's fair to say that we not only help to cross disciplinary barriers within scientific fields, but bridge the gaps between the hard and soft sciences and between science and the general public." After this post, Skolnick fled this issue. Moura still got a reply from Skeptical Inquirer editor concerning this. He asked him, on February 3, 2006: "I was told that the Skeptical Inquirer is indexed by ISI. Since I am commenting briefly on the SI on an internet forum, can I say that the SI can be classified as a Scientific Journal, like Nature or Science?" This same day, Kendrick Frazier replied: "We would like to think so, thank you."

17- ...said Natasha did not fail their test! At last, Skolnick admitted the obvious: Natasha Demkina did not fail CSICOP's test. At this link, he says that: "She didn't "technically" fail the test. She failed the test according to the rules she, her mother, and her agent agreed to."

18- ...feebly tried to manipulate phrases in the English language, and... ended up receiving an English lesson! I had been refraining from doing this for many weeks, but it came to a point when I could no longer help doing it any longer. Finally, at this link (alternative link with picture removed by the rats), I showed how Skolnick resorted to faulty English in order to try to swindle the forum members at JREF into thinking that Natasha had not complained of the two impeding clinical conditions before the test. Humiliating. But necessary...

Final Words of Warning: Andrew Skolnick has managed to fool too many people for far too long. Some people who pretend to be skeptics are conveniently allowing him to swindle them. At JREF forum, they abound. The sheer fact is that simply no one gains from it. Not even Skolnick himself. Exposing this quack, and forcing him to come to more socially positive works, is what everyone should be doing instead. Skolnick claims that in the past he placed himself in danger for fighting for human rights. His motto then was "Live and Let Live". Now, corrupted, he has turned to the motto "Live and Let Die"... But until he let die the quack in him, the only one who will be dying indeed is he himself. And, on this way, he will only look weirder and weirder, and farther away from his alleged scientific and social aims. Live and let live, so. Let him decide his own way...

Julio Siqueira
Microbiologist
juliocbsiqueira@terra.com.br