I got email!

I have wanted to do a Pharyngula-esq post using an email for a long time, and this made a perfect opportunity.

MEDIA RELEASE to Ian Raugh
(Please note: This is a Media Release, not spam. There is a difference.)

Just published ‘Revelations of a Human Space Navigator’ Second Edition is now available for FREE DOWNLOADS.

The Second Edition explains more precisely:
• Exactly from what everything is physically made of, and why.
• Exactly what gravity is, and why.
• Exactly who and what humans are, and why they behave as they do.
• Why god and gods do not physically exist.
• Why ‘time’ does not physically exist.
• Why there is homosexuality in humans.
• What ‘happiness’ actually is and how it can be obtained.
PLUS there is much, much more of what humans never knew – or misunderstood – about themselves and all that physically surrounds them. This includes, Ian, an explanation of what it means to be a physicalist (“I am also a materialist (more accurately, a physicalist)”, for to be a physicalist has at all nothing to do with the selfishness of materialism.

These claims may appear to be far-fetched to all those who have not read this book. It may also appear as highly improbable that a mere book can contain information that had never before been assessed by human intelligence.

But here’s a puzzle… what is intelligence in the first place? Where does intelligence originate? What does intelligence comprise of?

While current humans and their science may wonder about intelligence, they actually know neither what intelligence represents nor how it is derived. And yet, the source of intelligence – as many other unknowns – is revealed and explained in the book.

STILL DOUBTFUL?
Make a FREE Download of this book and judge it for yourself. You have nothing to lose but the future of humanity!

HOW TO MAKE A FREE DOWNLOAD
Click on the link below:
http://www.lulu.com/browse/search.php?fListingClass=0&fSearch=senchenko

OR:
Visit the website of Victor Senchenko
http://www.victorsenchenko.com

OR:
Visit the website of the publisher Lulu
http://www.lulu.com
Enter Victor Senchenko (as author) or
Revelations of a Human Space Navigator (as a book title)
in the FIND field.

In my absence, this comment was made on my About page.  I looked into it a bit and I must say, it is a quite interesting exercise in critical thinking and it would help train anyone’s bullshit meter.  My first tip off that this is not genuine is that it claims to explain several things as they “Actually” are, which indicates a net dismissal of current scientific knowledge.  This single book is supposedly able to adequately explain happiness, psychology, human origins, atheism, and physics.  I find that doubtful primarily because, as someone who owns and has read a multitude of books on each of the aforementioned areas of study, there is a lot to say on each subject.  I would argue that there is not enough room in any book shorter than the Bible (around two thousand pages, depending on the translation) to explore all those areas properly.  I would also argue that it is very rare to find someone who can appropriately be called an expert in psychology, biology, philosophy, and physics.  Certainly he could be quite knowledgeable about a few of them, but an authority on all of them?  Doubtful, especially since a Google search reveals nothing flattering.

But all those are just suspicions, I could easily have been wrong on every count.  He could (and no, I am not being sarcastic here) could be some undiscovered genius in all these fields who has been saving their big revelations over several years and who chose to avoid the peer review process.  Could have, but I am glad I did not take that possibility seriously.

I went to his site and found a few very interesting details.  First stop on any evaluation of if someone is credible or not is, of course, the about page.  This is what his said, verbatim (http://www.victorsenchenko.com/author.html):

While Victor Senchenko – as a legal representative of that identity – takes responsibility for the writing of the book, he acknowledges that the actual information of everything revealed in the book was provided by the same intelligence that maintains his identity. (This explanation – which is a physical truth – will only make sense after the reading of the book).

He currently lives in Australia, which is not his country of birth, but which has given him much to be thankful for.

He is also thankful to Lulu.com, a US organisation that makes it possible for so-called radical ideas to be freely published, when no conventional publishers (all of whom had been approached) would even contemplate an author who discloses that not only are the religious deluded but also those who represent current science; the very same deluded scientists who call religions delusional.

Absorb that for just a moment before I go over the numerous things it reveals.  Most distinctive is how it references the book for an explanation of his introduction.  What this says, to me at least, is that the book is more than just some ideas he wants to share or research he has done, but rather part of his very identity.  That book is his revelation, it is what has made him distinctive.  I also can’t help but note that he goes out of his way to give an introduction that confuses the reader.  He is basically saying that the mind associated with the name Victor Senchenko is somehow a distinct entity from that name.  It is also revealing that his reason for using Lulu.com, which I will be fair in saying I know nothing about them, is because no one else would even consider publishing his material.  Although this does not necessarily mean he presents incoherent ideas in mishandled prose, it does indicate it.

I also looked at the contact page, which contains this hilarious nugget (http://www.victorsenchenko.com/contact.html):

For those who may desire to send hateful and ignorant vitriol, be made aware that it is precisely for the likes of you that the Revelations of a Human Space Navigator had been made available for FREE download. Now there is no excuse to express your ignorant loathing without having first read the book. Read it, and if you are still angry and displeased, read again chapter 8, Living to Fear, page 163, where ‘anger’ and ‘displeasure’ are explained for what they are, without any modern psychological mumbo-jumbo. Do that and note how your desire for hateful expression shall diminish when confronted by physical truth. (emphasis mine)

Who knows, maybe this is my ignorance caused by modern psychology (which seems to do an excellent job at helping people despite being wrong… think on that one), but anger and displeasure are pretty straightforward.  I also do not see how reading more of a book that made someone angry or displeased would alleviate those emotions.  Granted, I am pretty sure his book would not evoke either.  If anything, it seems probably to induce fits of laughter and mild concussions (from face-palming).

From there, I did a Google search on him.  Not to spoil the results too much, but I am not the only person to have been approached by him on this same subject.  Interestingly, there are parts of his site that are no longer accessible from the pages you can get to using his navigation menu.  I could not help but wonder why they were taken down, and then I read them.

The first is a page about his promotional efforts which does not have an internal link anywhere I could find.  Here are few of my favourite parts, and my commentary (http://www.victorsenchenko.com/promoEfforts.html):

In the first stage of the book promotion, an email Press Release was issued directly to individuals representing national and local societies, associations, and organizations associated with antitheism. These included the Atheists, Freethinkers, Humanists, Secularists, and Skeptics across USA, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand.

[three statistics snipped]

• Approximately 90% of individual recipients visited the VictorSenchenko.com website.
• Of those visitors, approximately 70% had examined the site for more than 5 minutes.
• Approximately10% had bookmarked the site.
• Not a single book had been purchased.

Surprise, it takes more than a grand sales pitch to get the sceptical community to buy your book.

This had been expected. There were, and are, no illusions that to have humans examine a book that explains all of their fabrications and fallacies – both in their flawed sciences and in their erroneous perceptions, with which they had structured their societies – would be anything but a long-term project.

Translation: I didn’t think that anyone would take me seriously, but I really want them to because they are all so deluded.

As it is stated in the ‘Revelations of a Human Space Navigator’:
“…when humans are presented with notions familiar to them, they at least make an effort to listen, even if mentally they may have already dismissed the concepts; while upon being presented with innovative thinking, most of them do not even bother to listen before making a rejection…”

Congratulations, earlier he dismissed modern psychology only to agree with one of its findings on attention and judgement.  Also, there is always something suspicious about quoting your own book as evidence.

So the outcome of humans dismissing an offer to acquire the knowledge-of-all, preferring instead to continue wallowing in the arrogant ignorance of their own opinions – despite their overall assertions of being seekers of knowledge and truth – is reflected in the subtitle of the book: ‘What humans fear to know: the physical truth of everything in existence, including themselves’.

He claims to have found the truth of everything and that everyone else is too ignorant and fixed to realize it, that sounds uncomfortably like all the other pseudo-scientists and pedlars of the supernatural I have spoken to over the years.

Of course, those not believing in gods defend their beliefs with physical existence of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid, that performs a fuction of a genetic information-carrier in most living organisms), and the conclusions of Charles Darwin. What these humans fail to know, however, is why DNA exists? What was responsible for implementation of DNA in the first place? What is life? What was the intelligence that was capable of implementing DNA? What is intelligence?

“What was the intelligence that was capable of implementing DNA?”  DNA is not “implemented” by an intelligence, it acts on its own as a chemical reaction.  There is no sentience controlling it, DNA evolved from more rudimentary forms that all boil down to one chemical reaction starting another, and another, and another until you have life forms that reproduce.  As for why DNA exists, that assumes some guiding intelligence for the universe.  Oh, that evidence is probably in his book (if that is even what he is claiming).

While no current scientist has an answer to these, and hundreds of similar questions…

Because they are inane.

… the ‘Revelations of a Human Space Navigator’ explains it all, including that the evolution of life has nothing to do with a “natural selection”, as upheld by Darwinists. Were natural selection to be true, then humans, by now, would have all become geniuses, and would have learnt long ago all that the ‘Revelations of a Human Space Navigator’ reveal.

Nope, sorry, you have failed to grasp evolution by natural selection.  Evolution predicts only that traits which increase survival rates before procreation will be passed on, it says nothing about the traits that would best serve the species or those unrelated to survival.  We don’t need to be that smart to survive.  If you watch any reality television, you know just how little intelligence it takes to function in society.

Sadly, this did not happen, because it could never happen. Life is not an ongoing process delivering the very best traits for better adaptation…

Correct, natural selection does not select the “best” traits, it selects those that happen to evolve and are not a hindrance.

… but a precise and highly calculated process of high intelligence with random intent, which has nothing to do with any fictitious gods, or any alience, or any human mumbo-jumbo. All life, anywhere, is governed by physical principles that current humans are not ever aware of. To know these is to know everything, including what gravity actually is.

Yes, and we already know a significant portion of the physical principles behind the universe (including gravity, thank Einstein).  However, best we can tell, there is no intelligence guiding those forces.

The reason that the initial promotional activity was directed at those professing not to believe in god, was not because they were a “target market” who would be expected to purchase a book that claims to prove the non-existence of god, but because of the need to historically confirm that atheist – and the like – are no less dismissively ignorant to those who accept human fiction of gods.

So his entire marketing ploy (of which I am now a part) was to show that atheists are ignorant of his grand truth.  Because of course that sends his credibility for everyone else sky-rocketing.  He was basically doing it for the “lolz” (how I loathe that term, but it applies here).

When given an opportunity to have their belief confirmed (without proof atheists cannot “know” for certain that gods do not exist, but only “believe” that they do not exist), in ignoring that which was offered – by rejecting it without any examination…

Excuse me, his own statistics reveal that most people did examine it before rejecting it.

…– no atheists can ever say of themselves that they, as non-believers in god, are fearless pursuers of knowledge and truth, and from that are more enlightened and astute to that of theists – as they currently imply.

Even if atheists as an entire group did claim that, that no one bought his book is hardly an indication that they are not.  What it means is that no one found it credible, and I can’t say I blame them.

What the expected – and confirmed – atheist response to our press release had shown, is that one set of ignorant attitudes from theists is set against another set of ignorant attitudes from atheists, with both sides preferring their familiar opinions and notions, all based on personal “beliefs” rather than physical truth of physical reality. This shall continue until humans learn who and what they are, as the book reveals. Only then shall humans be rid of their arrogant ignorance, and with that, their fictitious gods.

I have been over this before, but feel the need to mention it again.  Because of how the brain functions, it is impossible for us to know with 100% certainty anything factual outside of our own minds.  Truth based on axioms, yes, but nothing empirical.

After having my laughs with that page, I moved on to examining the purpose of his book (http://www.victorsenchenko.com/purpose.html), which he is basically billing as the saviour of humanity.  In far more words than this, he claims that we are destroying ourselves (which is a fair statement) but that if we all just knew the truth he presents in his book, we could save ourselves.  I don’t know about you, but this is the point where I was firmly convinced he has nothing of merit, but I kept looking.

My next stop was his excerpts page, where I got to actually look over a few of his claims (http://www.victorsenchenko.com/samples.html).  This page, and those subsequent say, in the handy summary, that brains use bodies to navigate the world.  Brains control life and are the unit of reproduction.  The body doesn’t matter so long as a brain exists, they will create a body for their needs.  I just want to say one thing about that: the brain is part of the body, and many organisms function without anything we would call a brain.  The very first organisms would not have even had them.  Remember that life is defined by metabolism, reproduction, and having a distinctive physical entity (a protective membrane for individual cells).

The pages he has following, through page 175, continue until this gem on page 175: “All the responsibility for physical body change belongs to the brains, and no one else.”  Last I checked, brains also evolved over time, different variations include the reptilian, mammalian, and human (distinctive in that it has a few areas that no other animal has).  Brains have been evolving and, last I checked, are unable to alter the body in any inheritable way.  To cite Richard Dawkins and my high school biology textbook, evolution is conducted through the random variation then natural selection of genes.

At this point, I gave up.  He clearly doesn’t know biology, physics, or psychology but cleanly dismisses all of them.  His statements reflect a possibly disturbed individual thinking he is out to save the world and that he has some grand insight.  Not once in the eight pages he has samples for is there a shred of evidence for his claims.  Like many creationists, he just spouts claims without any backing whatsoever.

I would probably read his book one afternoon, but unfortunately, I have other demands on my time.  There are thousands of books out there I would want to read if I could, but we all have to prioritize which books are worth the time and effort of reading.  Even for free, I do not think his book will be worth the effort of reading.  There is nothing to indicate that his book is anything besides the random assertions of a man with a messiah complex.  I would love to think otherwise, but there is no reason to.

I will email this entire post to him, welcome him to demonstrate an error in understanding on my part and an opportunity to provide his evidence, because right now, I feel like I just wasted my time in writing all this (fun though it was).

His reply

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