Dead Sea Scrolls Cyber-Bully Raphael Golb Admits Lying to Authorities
The NY Post has an article and video of Raphael Golb lying to investigators about his online conduct after his initial arrest. His attitude, especially his fake indignation at 1:45, and ‘suggestion’ that the investigation might be for the purpose of gaining information to ‘smear his father’, suggests only one thing: delusion.
A prosecutor today hammered the “deranged” Dead Sea Scrolls cyber-bully for lying to investigators about the defendant’s scheme to discredit his dad’s academic adversaries.
During tedious and testy cross-examination, Manhattan lawyer Raphael Golb was forced to admit he lied throughout his 2009 video-taped interview with authorities, who were grilling him about fake e-mail addresses created to wage cyber war against rival scholars.
Is disagreeing with another scholar really ‘smearing’ him? Really?
If I had a nickel for every time I read one scholar write that another’s theory (really quite often, theory = educated guess. Nothing more) was wrong. Well… I’d have a lot of nickels!
That a fifty-year-old man’s life could be this consumed by the mere fact that other scholar’s don’t like Daddy’s idea is really, really sad. It’s a theory. Move on.
Via: Zwingli Hates Glee
As a partly off-topic comment on a blog I enjoy very much. . .
theory ≠ educated guess, at least in the sciences
I suspect it may be different over in the humanities, but in science a theory is a testable explanation for a natural phenomenon that is well-supported by lots and lots and lots of data. Usually the “just a theory” gambit is played by someone who doesn’t like evolution. They usually forget that this logic also applies to gravity, germs, and the heliocentric model of the solar system.
Interesting post, though! These sorts of dramas play out on one level or another throughout academics (and life).
Andy,
Yes, I agree with you. In the sciences theory ≠ educated guess… however, as you pointed out, in the humanities, and especially concerning the Second Temple period and the DSS, often, theory = educated guess.
Fuller thoughts here: http://scotteriology.wordpress.com/2010/09/02/some-thoughts-on-being-a-dsssecond-temple-scholar/