--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Xenophaneros Anartaxius" <anartaxius@...> wrote: > > I did not know about this fellow, and my knowledge of the history of the > Wikipedia edits is cursory, just based on my following links in replying to > the previous post; I have never edited a Wikipedia article, but I do know > that sometimes there are problems with the ideology impaired attempting to > modify the site. Skolnick seems to have rather good credentials as a science > writer, he wrote 242 articles for JAMA, the journal of the American Medical > Association between 1989 and 1999. > > Only one of those concerned itself with TMO related subjects, namely, he was > concerned that Chopra and Sharma did not tell the truth about their connexion > to products reviewed in an article on Maharishi Ayurveda in the JAMA in the > early 1990s. I find it difficult to tell from what I could find on the > Internet so far that he is on some personal campaign against the movement, > but it is the kind of cause he would take up. He is obviously a skeptic, and > is against censorship, but where did you get the information "Andrew > Skolnick, ... is even more violently biased against TM than Vaj"? >
Well, Judy and I (and TorquoisB for that matter) interacted with him for years on the internet. The Judy Stein Worship Site which is still reachable if you know the links, was his eventual response to Judy's take on subjects. He even gave ME an honorable mention as the Dormouse of a.m.t. One thing to realize is that Skolnick didn't just write an article in JAMA but went on a crusade against all things TM. WHenever Hari Sharma or Deepak Chopra appeared in public within driving distance of where Skolnick lived, he attended the lecture and started harassing the speaker from the floor. Finally, the TMO decided to challenge him, so they brought a $100 million lawsuit against him and JAMA. After THAT, he was definitely on a warpath against TM. Mind you, I think the lawsuit was stupid, and I think the behavior of Chopra and Sharma was stupid. I also think that Skolnick was out of line as well. > Skolnick is rather precise in his aim. Not with TM. FOr that matter, whatever catches his ire gets hit full broadside. I don't think he has a "mildly annoyed" mode. He wrote an article about his experiences as a guest journalism teacher in China where he castigated everyone as a cheating liar except the one student who sucked up to him. When I and judy pointed out that he was getting bent out of shape about cultural differences, he accused US of being prejudiced by assuming that the lack of ethical behavior at the school he was at was a cultural norm for china. When we pointed out that according to the Dean of the School, the behavior he was so incensed about wasn't unethical, he insisted that we were wrong: it was all that school [because everyone knows that ethics is the same in all cultures]. > >Vaj seems to be in a medical field and some other more esoteric areas of >interest. >My own impressions from my own contacts in the movement rather correspond >with his (Skolnick's), except I am aware that the ideology in the movement is >so >strong that many there simply cannot believe otherwise, and so it is not >deliberate, shall we say, malice, that they fall in with the standard line. I >have long >felt the movement has a strong bias, and is not honest, but that does not mean > >that certain things within are not without value, like meditation, and a few >other >things. Each needs be evaluated on its own merits. It is just that I have >never had >the thought that because Maharishi says TM is great, and I find that for >myself to >be true, that everything else in the movement is allowed to ride on the >coat-tails >of that positive connexion to the same status. No way. Judy and I both pointed this out as a possibility to Skolnick concerning what was going on with his interactions with the TMO. He would have none of it. > > In mid 1992, Deepak Chopra and two TM associations > filed a $194 million libel suit against Skolnick, the AMA, JAMA's editor. The > lawsuit was dismissed in early 1993. > That's a rather gross oversimplification, according to my memory of the events. > Skolnick's resume: http://www.aaskolnick.com/new/resume.pdf No-one ever said that he wasn't a good science writer. L.
