rationalskepticism.org

TimONeill wrote:

Passer wrote:
But just to make the point, I think it is entirely possible for a non-credited individual to have an excellent scholarly knowledge, and have an impressive wealth of information. All the person need do is the necessary research.

That’s perfectly true. But I didn’t simply say that unless someone has relevant qualifications and holds a Chair of History or Comparative Religion at Harvard or Oxford they should be ignored. Of course non-specialists can write useful material. I’m currently reading Philip Ball’s Universe of Stone: Chartres Cathedral and the Triumph of the Medieval Mind. Ball isn’t a medievalist and he isn’t even a historian or an architect. He’s actually a science writer and editor of Nature. But even a quick look at his bibliography and his footnotes show that he is a generalist writer who really knows how to research and pull the work of actual experts (much of it in obsure journals and specialist monographs) together and make it clear to the general reader. And his book is excellent.

Compare that to “Acharya S”, whose books certainly look like they have lots of scholarly footnotes and bibliographies, but when you look at the works she cites you find a preponderance of stuff from the 1800s, obscure works by esotericists and Theosophy gurus and very little scholarly material at all. If you then bother to look up the sources in her footnotes you regularly find the work she cites doesn’t support the point she has just made anyway.

I realise you might not have the academic background to tell who is a sound generalist writer like Ball, capable of distilling the work of real scholars, and who is a kooky hack like “Acharya S”, cherry picking and misrepresenting work to construct what looks like a a valid thesis. That’s why I gave you some other rules of thumb to give you guidance.

If someone is Emeritus Professor of Jewish Studies at Oxford, you can be fairly sure that their scholarship is solid. If someone calls herself “Acharya S” and self-publishes books from her home office, on the other hand, warning bells should be ringing in the head of any rational sceptic.