Open letter to TEDxBristol regarding Esther Crawley's presentation on 2 November 2017

I once had a problem with a male neighbor who didn't like that I didn't want what he wanted. One day he put a knife with an opened blade in front of my door, with a small note. I didn't feel it to be a death threat because I couldn't believe it (but I guess it was). Later the police told me I could file a legal complaint about "harassment". So I guess that's an example of harassment in a legal sense.

 

For people struggling to post Brea's tweets, it looks like @Alivin did it manually here: https://www.s4me.info/threads/jen-brea-comments-on-esther-crawleys-behaviour.1736/#post-29730

 

There's a homepage named "Babycaust" (the name!) - which is not fake - where doctors are discredited, offended and insulted publicly, and although several people sued the person behind that webpage, no court until now said this is illegal. And in this case I really wished it was illegal and not "freedom of speech".

 

First of all there has to be evidence that harassment has taken place. EC hasn't produced any, and until she does there is no reason to believe her. "It wouldn't surprise me" doesn't come anywhere near the standard of proof required. And until there is some evidence, there's nothing to defend, and any talk of what is or isn't a defence is irrelevant.

Oh do make up your mind @Esther12.

 

Sorry if that comes across as a bit rude, but people choosing to believe something for which there is no evidence and acting on the basis of it is one of the biggest problems we face. I will continue to call out Fingers Crawley every time and swear whilst doing so.

 

I'm being consistent!

I've not seen any good evidence of what I would describe as harassment, but an absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, and given the way Crawley has behaved, and the widespread anger this has led to, it would not surprise me at all if some people had sent stupid and abusive e-mails. I think it would be a mistake to insist no harassment has taken place when it could well have. Better to stick to just making claims we know are true. If dealing with the 'harassment' topic at all, best to just cite the findings of the tribunal, or explain how there's been an attempt to present legitimate advocacy efforts as 'harassment', rather than go beyond the evidence and act as if we know that no harassment has taken place.

 

In the end any harassment has little to do with us, its between Ester, Bristol and the perpetrator, if there are threats they can call the police and the person responsible will face the law. It need not be said anyone breaking the law should face the consequences of their actions.

All that being true it appears the real issue is that she wants to be able to spew her lies and harm more children without interference and to demonize us as cover.

 

I've never said that EC has not been harassed. I couldn't possibly know that. But in the absence of evidence I have no reason to believe it, and I shan't. It would be the easiest thing in the world for EC to back up her claims, but she never has.

Never said that.

Never said that.

I'm not claiming anything. EC is claiming that she's been harassed. If she wants her claim to be accepted she'll need to provide evidence. She's a known liar. She said her university had sent a cease and desist letter to David Tuller's university when they hadn't. She presented a journalist's mock-up of a letter that never existed and even if it had it was sent to Wessely in a way that encouraged her audience to think it was a letter she received. Why doesn't she just show us a real email she's received instead of being so duplicitous? She'll get no benefit of the doubt from me.

Never claimed that I knew that no harassment has taken place.

I agree with you that it would be surprising if she hadn't received some nasty emails. But so what? And if she wants to make a big deal about it just show us some instead of lying. Then demonstrate that it amounts to actionable harassment rather than just a few nasty emails.

 

Hold on... how have you now written your posts as if my comments were a response to things you had claimed, rather than a response to you saying I should make up my mind?

I wasn't saying that you had said any of those things, I was explaining why it was that my comments on this issue had been consistent.

 

I don't think such a thing was even said to have been sent to Wessely. My understanding is that it is claimed to have been said in a anonymous phone call to him.

 

I wasn't saying that you were saying that I had said any of those things, I was simply saying that I hadn't said any of the things contained in your explanation of why it was that your comments on this issue had been consistent, without assuming that your comments were in response to things you claim I had claimed (why are you claiming that I claimed anything?)

Why are you warning against the danger of claiming that EC has not been harassed? Has anyone done that? If not, are you worried that there is a realistic possibility that somebody might, and may need to be warned against doing so?

My "Oh do make up your mind" comment may have been misjudged, I did apologize for it six minutes later in my following post.

 

Never said that.

This is starting to remind me of Inception. What level are we on now?

I think that my first comment about harassment was about the danger of assuming that one could insist certain things are not harassment, when in fact it seems to me that the courts have a lot of leeway, and quite a wide range of actions can be classed as harassment:

I think it's probably in our interests to be cautious in all the claims we make about this stuff at the moment.

PS: No worries about being critical of me, and better to risk being a bit rude than risk not making a legitimate criticism. I just think that I have been consistent!

 

Oooooooooooooooh!

I'm starting to lose track and I don't know what Inception is.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66TuSJo4dZM

There are levels within levels within levels...

 

On the topic of harrassment, I read today that UCL's The London Conference on Intelligence had to be run in secret, because of potential harrassment from militant anti-eugenics activists.

 

I think my browser's crap at ordering sequenced tweets. Its still displaying them the same way for me whatever I do. Need someone with a decent browser to do some screenshots!

Edit: thanks @Esther and @Alvin! I feel like an idiot now because everyone probably read that thread except me.

 

Yes, it was. Sorry, I thought it was huge news in the UK, that people would know I was referring to truly nasty stuff. There was an article - in the Guardian I think - about some of the topics, which were utterly chilling.

The issue reminds us that sometimes activism in academia is appropriate, because the ideas being disseminated can directly cause harm to innocent people.

The trouble with separating academia and activism is that it assumes academic discussion is truly unbiased. Academics have personal, ideological and political biases they're usually unaware of. For example, all the speakers in this conference that argued for the intellectual inferiority of nonwhite races and women generally, were, perhaps unsurprisingly, white males.

Edit: PS great find on the SMC involvement of Thompson!

 

A few twitter interactions with Wessely from him, although it looks like tweets have disappeared so the discussion is broken up:

https://twitter.com/user/status/568748735431188480