David Mantik vs. John McAdams

[Jim DiEugenio]

Mantik really piles on McAdams' sorry excuse for book.

http://www.ctka.net/reviews/McAdams_Mantik.html

And we are not done yet. Two more reviews coming up.

[Phil Dragoo]

http://www.ctka.net/reviews/mcadams_review.html

Really enjoyed this. Cassano gritted his teeth and forged on--so we don't have to.

I am convinced more than ever that if the lone-nutters didn't lie, they'd be mimes.

Now to enjoy the work of David Mantik, a man I greatly admire, on John McAdams, a man stuck in the mire.

[Phil Dragoo]

In Mantik v. McAdams the reviewer cites examples of the author's fallacies:


The Straw Man

The Invalid Analogy

Begging the Question

Special Pleading

False Dichotomy

Moving Goalpost

Appeal to Probability

On the other hand, Dr. Mantik is ultimately disappointed to find author McAdams hasn't displayed any critical thinking and wonders if this is a symptom of a problem:


Conclusions


I was seriously disappointed by this book, not merely because I disagreed with it on so many fundamental issues, but even more so because it fell so far short of its announced goals (of explaining and promoting critical thinking). I was also disenchanted that it so often merely regurgitated second hand data; McAdams appears to have done little research of his ownand none at all at the National Archives and apparently none at the Sixth Floor Museum. Chiefly, however, I was astonished by the central issues that he frequently overlooked. Moreover, not every one of his oversights is easily explained by random chance, and that inevitably raises the ugly specter of evidence suppression. After all, if some of these omissions were deliberate, that is radically different from merely overlooking critical problems. Of course, the book is rather short, and space was limited, but many of these neglected issues (such as those I cite here, even in this limited review) could have been incorporated, had McAdams merely been willing to dispense with his incessant and peripatetic comments, e.g., 9/11, UFOs, moon landings, unrelated conspiracies, bureaucrats, Obama's birth certificate, and especially his interminable thrashing of inconsequential witnesses. (After all, the book's title is JFK Assassination Logic.) He might also have called off his attacks on feeble-minded conspiracy believers in favor of a few more fundamental issues, but that would, of course, have necessitated more critical thinking.



Without suffering the punishing McAdamization first-hand, the portfolio of the pompous professor is that of the plagiarizing lawyer, the insulting prosecutor, even the Church Lady of the Confusatory:

"I am the be-all and the end-all. Do not seek proof. I am the proof. Touch the hem of my garment and believe."



As a nice palate-cleanser, I recommend Mark Lane, Last Word: My Indictment of the CIA in the Murder of JFK.


For irony consider the radio today recognizing the fiftieth anniversary of the dedication of the new Langley CIA facility by JFK.


Soon we'll have such a dedication for the billion-dollar million-square-foot Institute of Rightthink built by the National Security Agency in Utah.

All of these agencies have failed to foresee the fall of the Soviet Union, the bombing of the Murrah Building, the anomaly of the Twin Towers and the Pentagram, as the regime changes under the Arab Spring proceed apace and the poppies prosper in Wagistan.


McAdams is not a professor of politics, the ways by which the people govern themselves.

He is an asset of the militocracy, that cabal by which the people are controlled.

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