A Classic Example of Flawed Skeptical Logic
As I have noted here, some people who consider themselves skeptical of the PG Film
have polarized against me because I have not offered any conclusion that fits their foregone conclusion arguing the film was hoaxed.
And I noted in another commentary that one of my primary reasons for doubting the skeptical reasoning for their analysis of the hoax
idea is that I have seen first hand their flawed reasoning about me and my intentions and actions. So I know with certainty that they
fail to see clearly or fairly what I'm doing, and so I must consider that their flawed logic, driven by a forgone suspicious conclusion,
may render their "hoax" theories equally flawed and potentially false.
The reaction of some skeptical people to elements of my
website has essentially proven their failure to think critically and fairly, and shown they will choose a suspicious conclusion that
satisfies their forgone preferred conclusion even if it is not true.
The first three commentaries on my activity connected to
the PG Film analysis are not formatted as text objects overlaid on an image background, as is commonly done for website pages. Instead,
they are text integrated within the image in Photoshop, and so if the viewing computer (of a person visiting my website) tries to
copy what I wrote, it can only copy the whole picture (text plus background) and not just copy the text alone in any highlighted portion.
This makes copying and quoting that text harder than usual. You can see one of the pages, for example, HERE.
So my critics seized
this as an example of my suspicious behavior, as if I had deliberately formatted my comments on the film in a way that they couldn't
easily copy and challenge. Since they are suspicious of everything I do, and find the worst or most devious explanation for anything
I do which they find even remotely irregular, they took this as one more example of my supposedly suspicious intent.
They didn't
simply investigate why it was done that way, which a responsible investigator should. They did not consider other possible reasons
for the website pages being structured that way. They did not consider that maybe life just isn't as perfect as we like and sometimes
things are done by an alternate way to simply work around a problem, with absolutely no suspicious intent or devious motive.
And
these "skeptics" who pride themselves in critical thinking and responsible investigating methods, failed to consider all the above
alternatives and demonstrated they were not thinking at all.
The Simple Truth
This is the simple truth of why those pages are formatted with text in the image, an unconventional website
process:
1. I wanted to build the website myself, so I had more capability to update it (my Digital Art gallery was managed by
a wonderful lady named Cheryl Boswell, but I was dependent on asking favors of her when I needed something updated, so I finally just
stopped updating it). I have never built a website before.
2. I purchased Web Easy Pro 7, a modestly priced (under $40)
software for building websites and thought I'd try learning it to do the site myself.
3. Once I had most of the display images
and artwork done, on Friday, July 4, I finally started learning the software and trying to build my website with it.
4. Once
I got to the part about how you add text, I found that the "box" that contains the text keeps glitching to a maximum size far less
than the size I needed for my commentary text. So I'd paste my text into the box, and could not see all of it, and so I would stretch
the box longer down the page to show more of the text, and the box kept glitching back to a smaller size, so only a small portion
of my text was visable.
5. The usual method to resolve such is to call Technical Support for the software, but this was the 4th
of July weekend and their Tech Support by phone was only offered M-F during normal business hours, not weekends or holidays. So I
had no tech support to help me resolve the issue.
6. So I simply chose to work around the technical problem and put the text
in Photoshop over a simple image panel and load it into the website build as an image object alone, and it worked just fine as far
as people being able to read it, which I thought was the main objective.
7. I wanted to launch the site on Sunday, July 6, because
it includes in the introduction part a tribute to my father as an artist who inspired me, and July 6 was his birthday, so in my personal
way, it seemed a fitting way to honor and remember him. So I preferred not to shut down my activity and wait for tech support to be
available at a later time.
And that's why it is the way it is, nothing suspicious, nothing devious, nothing intended to bother
or frustrate people who might visit my site. Yet the skeptical critics seized upon this "irregularity" that I had formatted the text
commentary in a way they concluded was suspiciously devious, because that false conclusion satisfied their already solidified suspicion
of me.
Two Kinds of People
There is a cliche phrase that usually starts with "There are two kinds of people. . ." and in this matter,
I could say there are the people who will stop what they are doing and cancel a scheduled event if something isn't perfect. There
are other people who, when confronted with a block, obstacle or other problem with something not working perfectly, will look for
a work-around process so they can keep working and finish their true goal. I'm one of those second types of people. I like to finish
what I start, instead of just griping that I can't finish something because everything isn't perfect. Life isn't perfect. It has it's
glitches, bump, obstacles and unexpected detours. We can find a way to work around the problems and keep moving forward, or we can
just stop where we are and make excuses for why we stopped making progress.
I choose to keep moving forward, making as much progress
as I could. So I kept moving on my website even though the text formatting issue wasn't perfect. I have since found another workaround
where I use 5 or 6 smaller blocks of text and break up a longer comentary (like this one) into those smaller parts, but it still isn't
the perfect way it should work.
Maybe in the future as I learn more about websites and move up to a more sophisticated software,
I can do the text commentaries the "professional way", with all the text in one large text block. But for now, I'll do what I can.
And
this brings me back to the skeptics and their elaborate hoax theory of the PG Film. They study the people involved and the descriptions
of the filming activity and find things they deem to be "odd" or "suspicious" (as they found my text imbedded in an image "suspicious").
And they conclude the suspicious thing about the film they have found must be explained by a hoax, their foregone conclusion. They
fail to consider that life is imperfect, and people sometimes do things in an irregular manner with absolutely no suspicious intent,
simply because they had a small problem and they chose to find a simple workaround solution, an imperfect solution, perhaps, but a
solution to allow them to keep going with their activities.
And so just because the people involved with the PG Film did something
out of the ordinary way, it doesn't mean they did anything suspicious or devious. It may just mean they tried to find a solution to
a small problem with an unconventional course of action, and a responsible investigator would consider benign or harmless explanations
as well as suspicious explanations before making any conclusion of a hoax or dishonest event.
Diminished Credibility
Each time I do something with no devious or suspicious intent, and see my critics seize it as an example
of their perceived suspicion of me, it further erodes the credibility of their reasoning skills, and further erodes or diminishes
my confidence in their "hoax" explanations of the PG Film.
If they can't even figure out how I built a simple website, or keep
an open mind to some irregular methods of formatting pages, and they won't investigate before they leap to their preferred conclusion,
why should I have any confidence in their analysis of a true mystery?
And that is one more reason why I choose to do my own analysis
of this film, and not just buy into their fanciful "hoax" theory.
Bill Munns
July 10, 2008