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Emily Rosa

TsarBomba said:
Since you seemed convinced that this is a spoof, and that someone is defaming Emily creating this fake myspace page, coupled with your assertion that it would be quite easy to call her and ask, maybe you should do so and report back. I would be pleased punch to eat crow if Emily were to denounce this myspace page as a fake.
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Wrong bucko; I don't have to be 'convinced' of anything; the onus is not on me. The burden of proof is on you.

No one on the Internet is ever 'real', until you actually can verify it; you can provisionally accept a poster for their ideas, and what they say they believe, but never for a moment what they claim in RL.

May I point out that many people at this forum lambasted Trey Parker for his 'myspace' postings castigating Richard Dawkins? One of the arguments for that pages 'authenticity' was that 'well, Trey would have it shut down if it wasnt him. Of course, once that page was revealed to be fake, and then was subsequently shut down...

If this really is Emily Rosa, then that'll be annoying. But until then she gets the benefit of the doubt.
 
bignickel said:
Wrong bucko; I don't have to be 'convinced' of anything; the onus is not on me. The burden of proof is on you.

No one on the Internet is ever 'real', until you actually can verify it; you can provisionally accept a poster for their ideas, and what they say they believe, but never for a moment what they claim in RL.

May I point out that many people at this forum lambasted Trey Parker for his 'myspace' postings castigating Richard Dawkins? One of the arguments for that pages 'authenticity' was that 'well, Trey would have it shut down if it wasnt him. Of course, once that page was revealed to be fake, and then was subsequently shut down...

If this really is Emily Rosa, then that'll be annoying. But until then she gets the benefit of the doubt.
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While not what I would call an extremely active myspace blog, Emily's blog has a post as old as Sept. 2007. So, for your hypothosis to be correct, someone thought to start an Emily Rosa fake myspace page a year and a half ago, and kept it going with occasional innocuous posts, just waiting for the day when he/she could spring forth and do a really good fake post that might be embarrasing to Emily. That seems to have such a low probability that it is not worthy of further discussion.
 
TsarBomba said:
While not what I would call an extremely active myspace blog, Emily's blog has a post as old as Sept. 2007. So, for your hypothosis to be correct,
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I don't have an hypothesis; nor am I required to.

I don't know who or why anyone would create a page of someone like Emily Rosa; nor do I have to.

The burden of proof is on those who claim that the page is real. That's what skepticism is.
 
I'd just like to point out that men can and do multitask.
We can think with our brain and simultaneously not think with ...other bits.

Knowing nothing of this young woman since her previous mention here rather a long time ago, I can imagine that she may be a bit fed up with people who want to talk about something she did aged nine. Think of the garbage you were into at that age and put yourself in her shoes.

Anyone wanting to get into anything other than her shoes, hit the cold shower, now.
 
I wonder what she's doing now in terms of "skeptic activities" or whatever you'd call it (besides going to various meetups). I mean, is her experiment that she did over a decade ago the main reason why she was asked/accepted to speak at TAM? If so, was she mostly going to talk about her old project? Personally, I'd like to hear a presentation from someone who is currently active in the skeptical or scientific community, something current. I think it would be more fun to talk to her about her project in a conversation with a small group of people. I wish we knew what her presentation was going to be about. I also wish she was here to give her side of the story. It seems kind of mean to be discussing this without her. Maybe I just have a tendency to be guilt-ridden over everything, but I think this is getting a little too vicious and we're just speculating at this point. I don't know.

On another note, I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that the MySpace page is really her. TsarBomba's post pretty much sums up my thoughts on it. I am reserving a little bit of doubt just in case it may not actually be her, but it seems pretty unlikely that someone would be faking this.
 
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paperskater said:
I also wish she was here to give her side of the story. It seems kind of mean to be discussing this without her.
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Agreed! However, she has posted some additional comments on her myspace page (assuming that it is, indeed, her, Myspace page). The first comment was in regards to a long comment posted on the Myspace page coming to her defense:

Eeek! I had no idea people were talking about me on JREF. That is truly unfortunate :(. Oh well.. I've never truly fit in anywhere, so I guess I don't fit in there either. Anyway, thanks so much for the defense. I really do appreciate it.
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The only thing I think there is worth saying about this is that I think she opened herself up for criticism when she canceled her appearance at TAM (although from her Myspace page she takes the position that she did not "cancel" so much as "never confirmed" and the JREF went ahead and announced her as a speaker anyway--I don't know if the JREF takes a different position) and then posted her explanation in a public Myspace page. By the way, someone (who shall be nameless) set up fake Myspace account for me today as a joke--good one!

She also had this to say about a person who I can only assume is me (I am 43 yrs old and she refers to a 43 year old person).

Young women should not be expected to travel alone, sorry! As a struggling college student, I simply cannot afford to bring someone along with me. Maybe at the age of 43 and being more experienced you are not such a vulnerable target :)
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I don't even know where to begin with this, except to say that we don't live in the world of a Jane Austin novel where unmarried women in their 20s are expected only to travel in the company of a chaperon. Most 22 year old women that I have known in my lifetime (yes, 43 years long, alas) are independent people have their own residences, jobs, cars, and can take whatever journeys they want without an escort.

I think that the JREF is absolutely right their apparent refusal to comp her a free conference registration (assuming, again, that it was, in fact, their position, and that the website is, in fact, Emily's actual website and that it is an accurate description of what occurred).
 
Wowbagger said:
Some folks have informed me that she is not a very good public speaker. I would have liked to have met her, anyway. She is a legend in the skeptical community, afterall.

But, maybe I will some other day.
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Soapy Sam said:
Knowing nothing of this young woman since her previous mention here rather a long time ago, I can imagine that she may be a bit fed up with people who want to talk about something she did aged nine. Think of the garbage you were into at that age and put yourself in her shoes.
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I agree with Mr. Sam over there. Maybe she just doesn't want to talk about it anymore. Especially to a group of people who think she's "a legend."

Soapy Sam said:
Anyone wanting to get into anything other than her shoes, hit the cold shower, now.
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A man's got to dream.
 
Giggywig said:
I agree with Mr. Sam over there. Maybe she just doesn't want to talk about it anymore. Especially to a group of people who think she's "a legend."
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Oh, come on! It's not like we're gonna put any high stakes pressure on her to publish another paper, or anything.

Just being in a room, to shake hands with, and take photos with, would be sufficient for me. That's all Carlos did, when he was at TAM 5.5
 
Wowbagger said:
Oh, come on! It's not like we're gonna put any high stakes pressure on her to publish another paper, or anything.

Just being in a room, to shake hands with, and take photos with, would be sufficient for me. That's all Carlos did, when he was at TAM 5.5
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Yeah, and some people might not care for that. Or maybe she does not want the attention any more for something she did before she was 10.
 
I thought she had gotten subsequent grants to do other research? I admit, I haven't followed what she's been doing, not being a big Intertoobz person at all.

There's always the possibility that she is just having the normal teen/early 20's rectal-cranial inversion in which we come to see ourselves as the Center of The Universe, and anyone who disagrees with whatever we request as being Totally Uncool and Old Fogeys, as well as Greedy and Unfair. Now that we have MySpace, people can be haunted by their adolescent indiscretions forever!

I am more inclined to the above explanation than the "I hate people mentioning that" version. She obviously was more than willing to be on P&T's TV show; she likes publically posting provocative pictures of herself; she was interested enough to have agreed to appear until she didn't get enough compensation (in her view) for the massive inconvenience of Going to Vegas for Free.

She's used to being considered Hot Stuff, the featured attraction, etc. I think it more likely that she has fallen into the common fallacy of thinking that she is The Most Special Person and should be given whatever she asks for. Now that she has been denied, she is piqued and is demanding sympathy. The "I'm at risk" thing is so bogus as to be laughable--at that age, I was doing business trips, fer chrissakes!--so I think this might be rationalization that her unreasonable request was somehow valid. (Because, like, she ought to get what she wants, because skeptics, like, they have, like lots of money because they can afford to give a million away, right?) The child prodigy has grown up to be a fairly normal adolescent, and we expected her to have grown up to be remarkably level-headed and reasonable.

Sorry, Emily, I had been hoping to hear what you'd done with the wonderful opportunities your early exposure had gotten you. But it looks like your role model is closer to Brittany than to Eugenie. Based upon the evidence to date, I'm glad that TAM didn't waste our time listening to another self-absorbed, reality-non-focussed kid.

Just my thoughts, MK
 
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