Lying for Reason and Science

[Tyrannical]

*Somebody* should have made sure that everyone involved in the videos signed over their rights to the foundation. It's not too late to ask that they do that, but it is too late to require it.

[Bella Fortuna]

Have to agree with Huxley on this stuff... seems a tempest in a teacup. And sorry, LP, but the obsessiveness is glaring and is making you defensive and look as if you're hauling around a very large axe to grind.

[Robert_S]

I'm of the opinion that if you see something that weird, it's fair to bring it to like and ask "WTF?" But when you start making too many comments about people's characters, it detracts from your point.

Grind the ax all you want, but be careful.

[lordpasternack]

Have to agree with Huxley on this stuff... seems a tempest in a teacup. And sorry, LP, but the obsessiveness is glaring and is making you defensive and look as if you're hauling around a very large axe to grind.

I appreciate that perspective as things stand from your vantage point, at this minute - but there is a lot more context to this than I am even at will to discuss publicly.

Seriously - your view that this is a 'tempest in a teacup' is, from my own vantage point, as mistaken as Richard's little rant around the time of forumgate, about how we were all pathetically, hysterically worked up about the forum closing, and how there is clearly something foul about the internet.

There is a bit more context to this - at least insofar as what's motivating me.

[lordpasternack]

I'm of the opinion that if you see something that weird, it's fair to bring it to like and ask "WTF?" But when you start making too many comments about people's characters, it detracts from your point.

Grind the ax all you want, but be careful.

Thanks Robert.

[chalkers]

Here's the conversation I had with Paula Kirby when I was alerted to Robin changing the Foundations' eMail to her personal account.



Note that this eMail address is also included in the document discovery request:
http://dawkinssuestimonen.com/documents ... 0Owens.pdf

This is not her foundation eMail address. But all her emails (even on GMail) are gone due to a hard drive crash (http://joshtimonen.com/post/7749335533/ ... tion-claim ). Does any on this forum have a GMail account? Or a .mac/MobileMe account? What does that suggest to you w.r.t the authenticity of their claim?

As for credits, and as I have posted on other threads, RDFRS under the direction of Cornwell paid (?) for the actual videos to be re-edited and have credits and copyright notices removed and uploaded them to YouTube in a private playlist to be published at sometime late in 2010. Not just Josh and Maureen's credits but all people who did any editing, composing and anything else. People who Upper Branch contracted with. This is when I resigned. They didn't publish these videos.

But it does seem every time I alerted Richard to Robin's ad-hoc and bizarre commands he used to go in an change things back. Like Josh's authorship on articles he wrote.

Why would Cornwell want to remove all traces of Josh and Maureen? Was it because it was "messy legal wise"? Did they think this would've helped their case?



Does anyone have an opinion on this behaviour? Is this the behaviour of someone who has been legitimately wronged?

[hadespussercats]

Also-- I asked earlier who it is that's giving you this information.

You've mentioned that you're being "informed." By who? How is this not mainly gossip?

When I mention that I've been 'informed', then yeah - it's just someone's word. When I present some kind of evidence, then that's different. And I got the information about her coming up with ideas for videos from her RD.net bio.

And as to what a 'producer' does - I would have thought that they'd have some physical hand in making the video a reality - most likely post-filming. If you're going to call someone a 'producer' merely for suggesting general ideas for videos that could be made, it's setting the bar pretty low, I think.

And how do I know she wasn't physically involved? Because I damn well know that that was Timonen's domain, and as does Richard Dawkins - and also that, if she were there, she'd have been credited, along with all the miscellaneous subcontracted companies that were credited for their services in producing the video. And if she was there, actively involved in producing the finished product, and wasn't credited - she would no doubt have complained, or simply added herself, at the time - or mid-2010, even - after Josh left. Leaving it till after the summer of 2011 to have that flash of insight, is rather taking the piss, if you ask me…

And yeah - that isn't the last of the pretensions that she took upon herself after the summer of 2011…

There are lots of ways to have a hand in making a film. Producers generally deal with getting/providing funding, obtaining necessary clearances, dealing with necessary paperwork, finding/hiring support personnel, from cameramen to dressers to crafts services. They might co-ordinate different crews, or artistic and executive personnel.

Or they might just be ideas people, who start the process of getting the film made in the first place.

But they generally aren't also directors, camerapeople, editors, or actors, except in special cases-- like if your name is Clint Eastwood.

[Robert_S]

One still wonders if successful credit alterations would have changed anything PR wise or in a future legal action.

[hadespussercats]

One still wonders if successful credit alterations would have changed anything PR wise or in a future legal action.

Here's my rampant speculation--
JT was such a golden boy at the time he took more credit than was his due, screwing other people out of their fair shares (doesn't sound like him at all, does it? )

And since the mask came off, they're trying to correct the scales.

Like I said, I'm bullshitting here. This would be my made-for-TV dramatization, "ripped from the headlines."

[chalkers]

One still wonders if successful credit alterations would have changed anything PR wise or in a future legal action.

I'd imagine if I removed Warner Brother's copyright of a bunch of DVDs and distributed them I'm pretty sure I'd be guaranteeing legal action.

[Bella Fortuna]

I sincerely doubt that's an apt analogy.

But in any case, as others have said - if you have suspicion and purported evidence of legitimate wrongdoing (versus simply being a poor manager or treating people like a jerk), why not stop playing Nancy Drew and turn it over to the appropriate regulatory agency?

[lordpasternack]

Part 2: In which R. Elisabeth Cornwell's biography looks a bit interesting

Okay - so some of you aren't impressed by me showing you that she repeatedly meddled with video credits, and added herself as a producer years after the fact - and even think there's enough ambiguity of her role for her to be able to claim that title for herself. 

I personally think that it was a deliberate and calculated falsehood and distortion of the truth, no matter how petty - but since some don't find it particularly compelling, I hope at least to show here that obvious, unambiguous lies are not beneath her. 

Look here at this screenshot of her bio, from 23 June 2011:



For some curious reason, the Wayback Machine archive for the RDFRS Staff page went kaput a few days ago - but the text from that bio is repeated through a number of sources over the web - and a legit RD.net cache can currently be found here: http://rdnet-staging.heroku.com/pages/staff

There is a little claim made in there, wrapped up in a few subordinate clauses, which seems to be stating rather unambiguously that:

"Her contributions include... the filming of lecture events made available on the RDnet website."

This statement is not only false, but quite transparently and outrageously false. It's not like her claimed role as 'producer' - where there's at least enough ambiguity to grant benefit of the doubt regarding the honesty and sincerity of the statement. Robin Elisabeth Cornwell has, to very best of my knowledge, and the perusal of all available evidence, never so much as stood behind a film camera and looked through the lens, at any of these pertinent 'lecture events' in question. It's that cut and dry. 

It is quite a farce of a claim - and it's important to note that is was specifically edited in after this capture in 22 May 2011:



It wasn't some legacy trifling mistake that some confused person had made when writing the bio up originally - or a bad edit made by a confused editor, of a vaguely similar claim that was there previously. It was a claim clearly quite purposefully added in, completely de novo, sometime between 22 May and 23 June, 2011 - when someone had stopped by, again quite purposefully, to retouch Elisabeth Cornwell's biography in particular. 

What if we give Elisabeth the benefit of the doubt and assume that she didn't actually write that herself? Who wrote it then? Who is there involved in RDFRS, who could have edited the bio, who would be under any impression that Elisabeth had moonlighted as a camerawoman before becoming Executive Director of RDFRS? Would they have edited her bio without consulting her first? If she were confronted by this - who could she hope to point the finger of blame at - for this obvious falsehood?

And is it possible that the rogue claim was only up there for a short while, before she spotted it, and humbly retracted it?

Well, not really. Unfortunately the Wayback Machine archive stops in July 2011 - but here is a bio written up for Elisabeth Cornwell for the American Atheists Convention 2012 - which is a very close paraphrasing of that June 2011 RD.net bio: http://oldsite.atheists.org/events/2012 ... Convention

And while I know that speakers are announced, and their bios retrieved, some months in advance - I think that that is enough to suggest that the claim of her filming lectures remained on her bio for several months, at least to the end of 2011, if not into 2012. And she was probably requested by the American Atheists to submit that biography information personally, to boot.

Okay - still not convinced?

It was damn well READ OUT TO HER, VERBATIM - at the actual American Atheists Convention event itself, on the 25th of March, 2012:



The entire spiel, including that specific claim, was read out within her earshot, and she didn't bat an eyelid. 

And I repeat - Elisabeth hasn't so much as stood behind a camera at any lecture events that were filmed for RD.net. It's a transparently false claim that I don't think would fly over an honest person's head. It's like someone introducing me as a moderator of this forum, or Richard Dawkins as the author of 'Attack of the Theocrats', or something. It's glaring. It's plainly untrue. You'd notice it.

No - I think it was her to wrote it, and she knew as well as we do that it was a shameless, flat-out lie when she wrote it. And in the grandiose claims of involvement in the production of filmed events - it also dovetails quite nicely with that other claim of hers, and helps to reinforce the hypothesis that she meant it perhaps without the most honest of intentions.

It was a straight lie, and I fully believe she meant it. And while these are petty lies and half-truths - insofar as they aren't directly harming anyone - they are just so utterly wantonly and obviously dishonest and economical with the truth.

And more importantly - I find it perfectly reasonable to assume that this is the tip of the iceberg. If Elisabeth Cornwell is willing to lie about something so silly, and so obviously and provably untrue - I think it's fair to assume there may be more egregious falsehoods therein.

[Azathoth]

She told a lie on her CV? Call the fucking morality police. That is unheard of in civilised society

[lordpasternack]

She told a lie on her CV? Call the fucking morality police. That is unheard of in civilised society

It's the sheer blatantness and pointlessness of the lie, and how it hangs with everything else… I hope Dawkins isn't so flippant about the deliberate dishonesty, anyway.

[Robert_S]

One still wonders if successful credit alterations would have changed anything PR wise or in a future legal action.

I'd imagine if I removed Warner Brother's copyright of a bunch of DVDs and distributed them I'm pretty sure I'd be guaranteeing legal action.

So, a record of the changes here could conceivably help Upper Branch, you and/or Josh some day then?