Often my detractors—of which there is no paucity—criticize me for not posting links to the pages of material I debunk or refer to. This is nothing new: those who have neither the knowledge, nor the intellect to interact with the substance of my arguments, must fall back on attacking marginals such as my “style”, or my “rudeness” (for a rebuttal of such nonsense see A Note on Consistency, and When “Fowl” is All They’ve Got). Now they see something sinister in the lack of posting of references.

Well, with my scientific background I am usually extremely careful to reference worthy sources. So much so, that sometimes editors deleted my reference list as being “too academic” (we can’t have that, can we?).

But I will not post links to unworthy material, and there is nothing sinister about that: if you want to know why, read this. I see no good reason to inflate the “popularity” of undeserving material—as measured on the Internet—nor to help people get to it. But I do keep copies of the material in case I need to prove it exists.

Posted 7/8/05