If an experiment cannot be duplicated, then it must be discounted. This is the basis on which to legitimately question the findings. Not by questioning the reputation of those who did the study. Is this science or a witch trial?

Shame on Mr. Shermer for this bit of sophistry – he should know better.

Why did I say large country? Because we have lost many of our freedoms. Monaco has no income tax, Hong Kong and Estonia have flat taxes with little regulation, and in the United States we seem to increasingly move away from equal taxation, equal treatment under the law, and many of our freedoms seem to decay regardless of the administration (although there is a difference between the parties even if both have been guilty of moving away from the Constitution). However these problems in our country have not yet compromised any fundamental principle in America. You and I can still freely speak out, choose our profession, petition the courts during disputes, lobby our legislators, and keep the products of our labor (although this right is the closest to being threatened in a fundamental way). There are a few countries with greater freedoms than ours, but there is no place I would rather live than the United States of America. Monaco is freer economically, but it is a principality without real political freedom. Hong Kong also has more economic freedom, but freedom of speech does not exist as it once did under the British and even then it was not complete. America is the first republic which protected freedom as an absolute with her few original sins such as slavery being defined as evil precisely because they deviated from that principle of freedom. When all is taken into account, social, sexual, political, and economic freedom, we are still the freest country in the world and being the freest large country in the world give our liberty a protection that Monaco, Hong Kong, and Estonia just don’t have.

So when people get down on America I defend her passionately and even fanatically. I am an atheist who wishes the lifting of prohibition of drugs, prostitution, and gays in the military as well as the elimination of the income tax, regulations, state licensing (of marriage or doctors for that matter), welfare, and many other key elements of what our government has become, but when people start attacking the country I break out my American flag and start waving it. This country is special and to criticize it part of it, but to run it down even when you agree with what it is doing (as was the case with this post) is something I react to because while I am always contrarian, I am always patriotic.

P.S. Kudden, I don’t swear for the hell of it or condemn people just for disagreeing with me. I don’t say up yours to you, your post was spot on. “Large” in that context was no trivial word. The nuances and subtleties of argument are often the most important parts of those arguments.

Then again. He was sued for defamation, he defended himself against those accusations and he won the case. Is it still in any legal process?(this is not a rhetorical question, I want to know)

No, Dr. Cha was especially angered by an article charging him with plagiarism of an unrelated study.

It seemed like everyone here assumed that Dr. Cha sued Dr. Flamm just for criticizing his study, but the reality wasn’t so simple.