Esther Crawley talk at TEDxBristol, Thurs 2nd Bristol - "Disrupting Your View Of ME"

That's unlikely but possible but it would not be relevant. She is claiming that the image in the Sunday Times represents a message that she had received at the time of publication.

 

Apologies for seeming to go on about this matter. But one keeps seeing more that helps the overall view.

If one looks at the article in the Sunday Times, as well as the front page, which we knew about, there are an additional four uses of the apparently insane threatening letter style.

1. (Apparently beneath a picture of SW) "This man faced death threats and abuse his crime(sic)? He suggested ME is a mental illness.

2. (Beneath a picture of Charles Shepherd and white labrador on a sofa) "Someone should put you on a treadmill until the exercise cures your sadistic or is it delusional, state of mind."

3. "You and your psychiatrist colleagues will start to become increasingly isolated."

4. "How are you evil bastards gonna explain away yet more evidence showing physical abnormalities of ME patients."

One of the major skills of the advocate is supposedly knowing when to shut up and sit down. Perhaps the skill has been lost. As these headlines appear in the same style as-

"You evil bastards....We're going to cut your balls off....stay out of this.... time is running out for (EDIT as shown on Crawley's slide, but " for out" sic- in the copy in the Science Library forum ) you all. Pray to god for forgiveness."

-it must be assumed that they are considered of equal import. Indeed the "you evil bastards" used in the front page looks suspiciously like the "you evil bastards" in number 4...where it does not look threatening at all.

It will be noted that the use in example 1. does not even purport to represent the contents of any communication. It is merely editorial comment.


Just about the only thing that can be agreed upon is the little red box on each page saying "Hate Campaign". One can certainly relate to that.

(EDITTED to add italics)

 

It is possible to clarify completely the reference to the cutting off of balls which appears to amuse Crawley so.

The article specifically refers to this in a paragraph about Wessely:

"Wessely lists his tormentors, who cannot be named for legal reasons...... The person who telephoned him to say, "We will come and get you soon," did not leave a name and address, nor did the man who said he was going to "come and cut your balls off"."

The curious aspect of this is that it says the tormentors cannot be named for legal reasons, which implies that the names are known, but says that they did not, perhaps unsurprisingly, leave a name and address.

In respect of Crawley the article refers to death threats "mostly on-line......she showed me some of the e-mails. In one she is referred to as an evil bastard. Another reads "To those of you who are responsible for preventing us sick ME sufferers from getting the help we need, wasting £5 million on flawed bullshit, and trying to discredit the real scientists who are trying to help us, you will all pay." Is "you will all pay" a threat? Crawley thinks it is."

My interpretation of this is that even Hanlon had doubts as to whether what was produced amounted to a threat. In such circumstances one would have expected him to request to see the most damaging messages.

Make of that what you will.

 

It just occurred to me to post what TED says about TED talks.
The link provides their rules for giving a talk: http://storage.ted.com/tedx/manuals/tedx_content_guidelines.pdf

ETA: clearly TEDx Bristol has been co-opted by people who know squat about science (or don't care).

 

You cannot also defame and slander innocent persons for 'legal reasons'...

I'm unsure of a law that prevents listing tormentors?

 

"Alleged tormentors" would have been more accurate. The legal reason why they can't be named is because is would be libellous to do so.

 

Thanks, that what I thought too.

I understand that in some cases the police or lawyers might caution against naming someone, but I didn't think it would be illegal unless there is an injunction in place.

In other words, the sentence has a meaning almost opposite to what we are guided to infer from it.

 

"For legal reasons" isn't the same as "illegal". The legal reason that the alleged tormentors are not named is because, whilst the journalist and the Times are quite happy to take Wesseley's baseless and duplicitous claims at face value and publish them, they do not want to leave themselves open to a civil action for libel by naming anyone. They are basically repeating dodgy claims whilst covering their own backs against being sued by a named alleged tormentor.

It wouldn't be "illegal" in the the sense of "a criminal offence", because libel isn't a criminal offence, it's a civil matter. A tort, as I was taught.

 

Thanks. Might be worth bearing that in mind when listening to Crawley's talk.

 

Yes, this is why i'm not a lawyer! Getting my torts mixed up with my tortillas as it were

On an unrelated note, I wonder how Malcolm Hooper views the article.

 

I agree with all this, but was trying to get at a slightly different point.

One would usually only consider whether "tormentors" should not be named for legal reasons if one has the names to disclose. Not having the names would be a greater bar to disclosure. The wording suggests that the names are known. Admittedly, the suggestion might be false, but if specific names are known, it would be deliberately misleading to smear a whole group of people for the activity of known individuals.

 

What the alleged journalist should have spotted is that Wesseley and his cronies are the tormentors.

 

Reading that document, it looks like Esther fails pretty much everything under Guideline 4: Only Good Science. So then I wondered what one could do as respects notifying TEDx in such a case. Reading further, there was this paragraph at the end of Guideline 4:

Re my bolded bit: Remember how Esther's video suddenly disappeared a short time after her presentation, replaced by a slideshow of famous quotes? I wonder if that is indeed what happened? In that case, maybe they do care about science, but unfortunately only after the event, not before. A little preliminary fact-checking could save them a lot of face, but presumably they don't have the time/staff to do so? But maybe this incident will make them a little more aware.

 

Don't be surprised to hear EC referring to this as further evidence of harrassment in her next presentation.

 

Hah, yes! She will put on that furrow-browed I'm-such-a-martyr face she does, and recount how even TEDx has now fallen to those evul activists who have dedicated their lives to trying to stop her world-leading research! (And, trot out 'that' slide yet again and how they threatened to cut off her man-bits, of course.)

 

Just searched TEDxBristol 2017 crawley on you tube and John the Jack has put up her speech in 2 parts.

 

If anyone is planning to write to TedX I'd be happy to exchange PMs with others and fact check whatever is sent. Maybe it would be worth getting a transcript of potentially problematic bits to be checked by others? We don't want to play into Crawley's narrative by making false claims in any complaint.

 

Thanks John. I'm planning to have a Crawley marathon soon... inaugural, that Sci Data talk, then this. I wonder which time she'll tell the hilarious 'balls' joke/lie best?