Larvatus Prodeo

Apparently it’s now the question on everyone’s lips – apropos of the Keith Windschuttle Quadrant hoax. “Sharon Gould” was the pseudonym used by a hoaxer who submitted an egregious article embodying “outrageous propositions” about GM research and splicing human genes into food to Windschuttle, which he published. Crikey revealed the hoax. Don Arthur, writing at Troppo, doesn’t know the answer to the question of the moment, but he links to some people who have some ideas, and has done a bit of googling off his own bat. Both Jason Soon and Nexus6 believe they have identified Katherine Wilson as the hoaxer. I offer no opinion on the matter.

But I wanted to clarify something – in comments at Troppo, mel wrote:

I wonder if Wilson tipped Mark Bahnisch off about the hoax …..? AFAIK he was the first blogger to flag the issue.

Aside from – as appears to be his wont – making false and self-serving statements regarding moderation on this blog and throwing in a bit of personal abuse for good measure – never a good start – mel is committing a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, which abounds these days. I posted about the Crikey story because I happened to be online when I received the Crikey email. That’s all. That was the first I’d heard of it. I don’t read Quadrant as a rule, and I’m actually not all that exercised about this whole affair.

Continue reading ‘Who is Sharon Gould?’