Oh, well spotted! Can anyone suggest a better crank e-mail? This is actually the only one I’ve sent since I found Skinner’s paper, which is the thing that made me go from ‘dark suspicion’ to ‘bloody hell, this is probably true’.
I would suggest that your first two paragraphs should be (1) a hook, to make the reader interested; and (2) establishing your bona fides in the sense that you’ve read the literature and not just a random bloke who saw a programme on the BBC and now knows everything about thyroids.
Also don’t be so bloody apologetic about intruding on their time and write more than a few lines. They always have the option to stop reading.
Actually I wrote back once you pointed that out, and we’ve swapped a few e-mails since, but now he’s gone silent too. It is hard, this crankery.
I explained the whole bloody thing to him, with papers attached, and said:
What I would expect you to say is:
(a) We hear that all the time, and it’s rubbish because [link]
(b) That’s not a bad idea, but it can’t be true because [implication
that I have missed that isn’t true]
(c) [redacted for fear of identifying correspondent]
and he said:
I [have specialised in a thyroid-related field but I don’t see CFS patients] Therefore I have no experience nor opinion about the topic you want me to address.
Am I reading too much into this, or are those the words of a man trying not to get his name mixed up in a massive scandal? Are there in fact lots of people perfectly well aware that there is something dreadful going on but no-one wants to be the first to say it out loud in public?
Oh, well spotted! Can anyone suggest a better crank e-mail? This is actually the only one I’ve sent since I found Skinner’s paper, which is the thing that made me go from ‘dark suspicion’ to ‘bloody hell, this is probably true’.
I would suggest that your first two paragraphs should be (1) a hook, to make the reader interested; and (2) establishing your bona fides in the sense that you’ve read the literature and not just a random bloke who saw a programme on the BBC and now knows everything about thyroids.
Also don’t be so bloody apologetic about intruding on their time and write more than a few lines. They always have the option to stop reading.
Actually I wrote back once you pointed that out, and we’ve swapped a few e-mails since, but now he’s gone silent too. It is hard, this crankery.
I explained the whole bloody thing to him, with papers attached, and said:
and he said:
Am I reading too much into this, or are those the words of a man trying not to get his name mixed up in a massive scandal? Are there in fact lots of people perfectly well aware that there is something dreadful going on but no-one wants to be the first to say it out loud in public?