Michael Fumento

Dear Mr. Fumento:

I just read your article regarding the Lancet article and your comments about Tim Lambert and his web site, Deltoid.

Dr. D. Rutledge Taylor asked me to view the site and comment when they opened a new section dealing with Rachel Carson. I foolishly tried to engage them in an intelligent and mannerly discussion. I have to agree with you wholeheartedly. Any honest-hearted person who "reads and comments on Deltoid is spitting into the wind." Snotty juvenile manners and gigantic egos are the order of the day for Lambert and his acolytes. They clearly filter the comments and I think there is some back door discussion between them before the comments appear. They will take one or two words or one sentence (ignoring the entire context of what is said) and declare everything stated as being debunked in great triumph. What a waste of time. I would love to know what he does for a living. Can anyone that ridiculous do anything that is worth anything?

My response:

Probably not, and in Lambert's case certainly not. He is a computer professor, meaning he may teach as few as nine hours a week. (I know a professor who did, at full pay.) He's also only written a handful of published papers in his lifetime, none on issues that he blogs about. That gives him lots of time to troll the web for people to attack who make him feel insecure by being smarter than he is. (He started a vendetta against when I made him look like a fool, notwithstanding that doing so is easier than "dieting" on chocolate cake.) It's long been said that idle hands are the devil's workshop. Add in blogging software than can be used by a child and you've got a really bad combination. The troll also uses his free time (and perhaps money) to make sure his personal attacks appear in the top ten of a Google search of that person's name and to make sure his Deltoid postings are repeated over and over on blog search engines like Feedster and Technorati. That makes readers have to scroll through several pages to find the original of whatever it is that he and his little but vociferous gang are attacking, and as he knows many readers will not. In other words, he abuses science, he abuses individuals, he abuses search engines, and probably abuses himself as well - though we won't go into that.

One can only hope Troll Lambert will join "Second Life" (Do they have troll avatars?) and finally get a first life.