Sgroh:
2.) By what logic do you dismiss the fact that EVERYONE connected with this man…(including the man himself!) is unwilling or unable to answer even the most basic questions about his credibility? I don’t care if he eats lunch with the Pope every Friday…this is a HUGE red flag. These people have been asked directly.
Quite simple. Neither Mr. Tim Francis nor Mr. Ron Tesoriero know enough to answer those questions. However, inferring what you are inferring from that is in illicit logical move, another argument from silence. What you have, at best, is justifiable agnosticism on the issue. At best.
As for the lack of cooperation by Dr. Castañón himself, this is truly regrettable. But it sounds like he was indignant at the question and chose to answer in a dismissive way (though I still have not read the response). This is unfortunate, but it still only provides an argument from silence - he was angry and chose not to answer you directly. Perhaps he perceived you as condescending and standoffish, I do not know. Let’s go back to my analogy, though. If the person you met also had a similar response, that would be reason enough to doubt his claimed credentials
without the accompanying lab documentation. But with the lab documentation, you can more reasonably infer that the person is having a bad day, haha.
Sgroh:
3.) In reference to Dr. Dr. Castañón you wrote that the “scholar in question is relatively obscure.” Is that a joke? This man is repeatedly referred to as a renowned scientist on various religious websites (and this is certainly how Tim Francis portrayed him). In the text for one of his books on Amazon it states in Spanish that he is “Internationally known for his scientific investigations and more than 1,600 conferences on five continents.” So is obscure or Internationally known? You can’t have it both ways.
I really pay no mind to such blurbs, which likely were written by an eager publisher and then repeated by an uncritical web master or whatever. The fact is that this is no Neil Dygrasse Tyson, here. This man is a relatively obscure scholar, and his only notoriety seems to be among a handful of Catholic lay men and women. And we’re a fringe group, haha. I have seen his itinerary, though, and find credible that he has spoken at many conferences. He was scheduled to speak at a conference in San Diego, I think, a couple of years ago, for example.
Sgroh:
Also, let’s be clear. Hanging out with religious people is not indirect evidence of a man’s academic claims.
I agree, but no one is suggesting this. It seems that your knowledge of the data concerning these miraculous events is limited. We have quite a lot of primary sources that are, as I have said, quite impressive in their pedigree. We have, for example, correspondences between lab technicians and Castañón concerning the testing results. And much more. As I have argued above, these are not epistemically without value.
Sgroh said:
“Surely they would have checked his credentials,” I imagine you would retort. Really? Ron Tesoriero is a lawyer who by his own admission worked closely with him for over a decade. Ron told me DIRECTLY by e-mail that he did not know. If that is true, why should we expect that ANYONE did their homework on this man? Ron has tied his credibility to the man…worked alongside him for years…and now he tells us that he has never even asked him when or where he earned his degree. Does that not strike you as absurd?
Actually, yeah.
Tim would be the first to tell you that I have been critical from the beginning about the lack of urgency in making a tight and complete case for these miraculous phenomena. Tesoriero’s
Reason to Believe, for example, contains precious little in the way of primary sources for critical examiners. It is largely a personal and popular work, not intended to convince skeptics. I was assured that Tesoriero’s follow-up,
Unseen, would contain the goods, but it’s very much written in the style of
Reason to Believe. Tim was kind enough to send it to me, though.
You overstate, though, the reliance on Castañón. The fact is, we have so much more.
Be that as it may, other works, such as
Mas Alla de La Razon, contain primary sources galore. And while I still think a much better case can be made, there is definitely enough here to make a reasonable assent.
Final thoughts, your arguments amount to nothing more than arguments from silence. I have explained why these arguments are logically fallacious and why you overstate your inability to find anything via internet jockeying. I have also explained why it is very possible why such information would not be amenable to internet jockeying in the first place. You dismiss the lab reports and other documentary evidence as without epistemic value. This is simply bad epistemology in my estimation, and it’s likely you probably don’t even know what I am talking about - you are probably unaware of the quality and quantity of primary sources we have.
In short, I think there is a lot to go one in the way of indirect evidence, and I feel quite comfortable making a rational assent, even as I recognize that a much better case could be made.
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