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Transcript of a Presentation by Alan Gold, Canadia
Transcript
of
Presentation
by
Alan Gold, Barrister at Law
at the
Public Consultation
on
Violence and Abuse Within the Family
June 9,1995 & June 10, 1995
If I was a doctor and I told you that you had a fatal illness, a
painful, fatal illness, it wouldn't be good news to you and you
would go through various stages. Among the things you might do is
try to put the best spin on it, you might go get some herbs for a
couple of hundred dollars, because someone told you that this is an
Amazon cure, you might visit Lourdes, you'd do all kinds of things.
And you might even live, because spontaneously, sometimes randomly
people live, or you might die. And if you lived, you would
probably thank God for Lourdes or for the Amazon herbs. In all that
conduct you would be very, very human and this is what is important
to understand.
I'm going to tell you something now, about yourselves and how the
brain works. In listening to me, you're using a certain instrument
that's between your ears. Everyone has one, even Senators, and they
are all the same. And we know a lot about them, and I know very
well, that some of you out there, are not even listening anymore,
because I am a criminal defense lawyer and you've read this
brochure and read that I have defended rapists and so some of you
have closed your minds and don't care what I have to say. A few of
you may have closed your minds because I am male. This is how this
thing between our ears works. It's a device, and people like Dr.
Ian Begg and other people, sociologists, neurologists, know an
awful lot about how this thing works. THE WAY THEY KNOW HOW OURR
EYES WORK, AND OUR EARS WORK AND HOW THIS BRAIN WORKS, THIS IS
WHAT'S VERY IMPORTANT FOR YOU TO UNDERSTAND. IT ISN'T PERFECTLY
DESIGNED, IT HAS BUILT IN DESIGN FLAWS. IF GOD WERE GENERAL MOTORS,
HE'D HAVE RECALLED THEM. I CAN'T STRESS THAT ENOUGH, IT HAS BUILT
IN DESIGN FLAWS.
Now, they are flaws from the point of not making mistakes, and
locking innocent people up. They are not flaws from a point of view
of our species survival. In other words, things like jumping to
conclusions, stereotypical thinking, bigotry, biases, self serving
interpretation, and all of the things that get us into trouble in a
logic exercise, are the very things that ensure our species
survival from generationto to generation. The things that make us
objectively smart, are not the things that make us good survivors
in the real world where species fight for survival. So this thing
has design flaws in it. AND SOME OF THE DESIGN FLAWS HAVE REALLY
SHOWN THEMSELVES IN THE LAST 20 YEARS, IN WHAT HAS BEEN GOING ON IN
NORTH AMERICAN CULTURE. And here I pause to note, it is primarily a
North American phenomenon, although the Netherlands have had one
satanic ritual abuse episode, it appears to have been put in it's
proper place fairly quickly.
THIS IS A NORTH AMERICAN PHENOMENA. AND THE FIRST THING THAT IS
INVOLVED IN THIS PHENOMENON IS ANTI-SCIENCE. THIS IS THE ONLY TRUE
BACKLASH THAT HAS ACTUALLY BEEN TAKING PLACE IN THE LAST 20 YEARS.
AND IT INVOLVES THINGS LIKE THE RISE OF FUNDAMENTALIST THINKING.
The essence of fundamentalist thinking is, of course, an appeal to
authority, and that there is an authoritative worker person who has
all the answeres and is resorted to. Anti-intellectualism, the idea
that somehow being rational is a bad thing. This is the phrase that
you will hear " there are other ways of knowing that kind of
thing".
Again, I hate to disappoing you, but there aren't really any other
ways of knowing. People that break their legs usually go to a
scientifically trained doctor to heal, if they went to a mumbo
jumbo herb specioalist, they will likely suffer further damage,
etc. So what we've learned over several thousand years, is that
unfortunately there aren't really any other ways of knowing that we
have found. Wishing, imagining, praying, those kinds of things are
human activities and the brain uses them, but in terms of finding
out what actually works. However, what puts a person on the moon,
develops a new medicine, develops a new cure, helps use live
longer, science is the only thing that has turned out to be a way
of knowing.
THE NEXT FEATURE OF CULTURE IN THE LAST 20 YEARS, IS THE CORRUPTION
OF CERTAIN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS. Someone once said that "all social
movements go to far". Now I don't know, I always thought I was a
feminist. BUT AS WE NOW KNOW, FEMINISM HAS BEEN CORRUPTED. NOW ALL
THINGS MUTATE. DISEASES MUTATE, SOCIAL MOVEMENTS MUTATE. THERE IS A
VIRULENT STRAIN OF FEMINISM THAT HAS ARISEN, CALLED GENDER
FEMINISM, OR BIGOT FEMINISM, WHATEVER YOU WANT TO CALL IT. AND
ESSENTIALLY, IT'S TURNED INTO A KIND OF BIGOTRY AGAINST MEN. AND I
THINK THAT'S A WELL IDENTIFIED SOCIAL MOVEMENT.
Another one is child abuse. Somehow the real problem of child abuse,
and no-one denies there is a real problem, has been corrupted into
the child abuse movement where it has become the only problem, as
if homeless people didn't exist, and all the other evil things in
the world didn't exist. It's taken on a sort of quality, that it is
the single explanation for everything in the world. And so I think
that the real problem of child abuse today, is that it has mutated
into some kind of corrupt version of it. And of course,
Victimology. The recognition of victims and the real sympathy and
desire to help has mutated into something we now call victimism.
Where it's become a recognised social role. In these days of high
unemployment it's on the the roles for which there are still a lot
of openings. And far too many people are applying for jobs as
victims. People say, why would anyone want to be a victim if they
really are not one. The answer it it satisfies a tremendous number
of secondary gains. Who do people want to be on welfare, because of
the money. Why do people pretend to be sick, just to stay home from
work. Because they would rather do something else and it feels
good. Human beings do all kinds of things for all kinds of reasons.
So those are the four trends that I have identified in the last 20
years, and I'm just a criminal lawyer, I just want to do my job,
collect my money and go home at the end of the day to my family.
I'm not a social philosopher. I can laugh about this stuff and I
never really intended to be interests in this on any level, BUT
THIS STUFF STARTED SHOWING UP IN MY CASES. AND SO I HAD TO LEARN
ABOUT THIS STUFF AND WHAT I LEARNED HORRIFIED ME. FIRST OF ALL,
THERE WAS A KIND OF EXPERT EVIDENCE APPEARING, THAT EVEN I KNEW
WAS HOGWASH AND THE JUDGES SEEMED TO BE LISTENING TO IT. It would
be evidence, like the child is shy in the presence of the father.
And that's indicative of child abuse. The child bed wet. The
child's marks fell, or they rose. If they fell it was fear, if they
rose it was because the school was an escape from abuse.
I started to see that, no matter what it was that was presented, it
was consistent with abuse. So you start to say, what is
inconsistent with child abuse, and the answer always was... well,
nothing is inconsisten with abuse. In fact, sice most abused
victims don't show aftermath, lack of symptoms is consistent with
abuse.
I had truly fallen into some kind of black hole. And so I started
investigating these expert witnesses, and lo and behold, these
four strands would always appear. The witnesses all shared several
things in common.
* First, they knew nothing about science.
* They had no appreciation for concepts like control groups.
* They had no idea at all that to learn something about a group,
you have to study the "not group".
Someone who only studies horses, would tell you that the next
creature with 4 legs is a horse, because that's the only creature
with 4 legs that they've studied. And as a result, a lot of dogs
will get saddled up in error.
So these are examples I would use in arguments to judges. If you
wnat to know whether only horses have 4 legs, you have to look at
other things that aren't horses, and lo and behold, you realize,
gee zebras have 4 legs, dogs have 4 legs and cats have 4 legs.
Obviously 4 legs really isn't indicative of being a horse. But in
the child abuse context, the same type of nonsense was being
spouted... "I saw 12 abused children and 11 of them bed wet, so bed
wetting is symptomatic of abuse". It's the horse example without
the horse. SO THOSE WHO FORM THESE TYPES OF OPINIONS ARE
SCIENTIFICALLY ILLITERATE. IN FACT, IF THESE PEOPLE PRACTISED
MEDICINE IN THE SAME WAY, A LOT OF YOU WOULD BE DEAD. You know that
before something is put on the market as a medicine, it goes
througt what are called blind and double blind studies. In order to
objectiviely assess whether the conclusions follow or not. We don't
do that, because we like spending money on research, we do it
because we have learned that people deceive themselves and that
anecdotal subjective inferences and conclusions are absolutely
worthless. We often work this way because of the way our brains
are designed. We can't keep score in our brain, we have to have
objective records. We learned that in every field of science. But
these people never learned it. They are scientifically illiterate.
Secondly, they know nothing about how the brain works. Their view
of the brain is that of ancient Greece or Egypt. They beleive that
the brain is a tape recorder, it never forgets, it's just gotta
find the right button, and of course, usually the button is, "now
picture daddy leaning over you in the bed". And they are surprised
at what images that come to mind.
Scientists know how the brain works, and if you wnat to develop
false memories of anything at all, I'll give you their names. YOU
CAN SPEND A FEW SESSIONS IN A DARKENED ROOM AND THEN YOU CAN HAVE
MEMORIES OF WHATEVER YOU LIKE.
Because of the way the brain works, I want to start a business
called "Memories r' Us" , where I would develop memories. For
example, there are certain women that I want to date, that wouldn't
give me any time. I could have memories of having dated them, and
even some of them liking me and all that. Here's a good business we
could get into.
The fact is, the way our brains are built, it is very easy to
generate imagery in a significant proportion of the population. 15
-17 % of the population is very capable of generating imagery, and
once generated, that imagery, subsequently, is indistinguishable
from historical memories. These experts in the courtroom knew
nothing about this. It wasn't a part of their knowledge at all.
Victimism is absolute, every misery, even civil war in Bosnia
becomes an incident of child abuse. You know the expression, that
if the only tool you have is a hammer, everything becomes a nail.
Everything to these people was child abuse, nothing more, nothing
less. This was the lens through which they saw the world. SO THAT
IN THEIR SINCERITY, THEIR DESIRE TO HELP, THEIR GOOD NATURE HAD
SOMEHOW BEEN CORRUPTED INTO A VIRULENT KIND OF OBSESSION. And that
kind of obsession never does anybody any good. And this is
important to bear in mind. HOW IN THE WORLD DOES FALSELY CONVICTING
SOMEBODY POSSIBLY HELP THE REAL VICTIMS OF REAL PROBLEMS. I just
don't understand that. If I was a real victime, I would want to get
rid of the frauds and the scam artists, whether they are
intentional or unintentional. They are detracting from the real
problem.
In New Jersey, they have ghost riders. The scam was the you would
fake an automobile accident with the public transit, because they
always settled rather than investigate. It was cheaper to settle.
So this became a real problem, because after some accidents, there
would be double the capacity of the bus filing claims. Whoever
would be passing would jump on the bus to file a claim. So the FBI
ran a sting operation, where they faked an accident and videotaped
all sorts of people jumping on the bus to lay their claim. They
were call ghost riders. No social problem is made better by
tolerating ghost riders. Absolutely not. People who have a real
concern about a real problem should be helping those who want to
get rid of the ghost riders. So that the real problem can have the
real resources devoted to it.
Let me finish, I think I almost done. Let me finsih with one area.
We got rid of the child abuse experts their "symptoms". THE COURTS
ARE NO LONGER ACCEPTING THAT. IT WAS A WONDERFUL JUDGEMENT OF A
CASE IN OTTAWA THAT PUT AN END TO THAT. In effect, the judgement
said, "This isn't science, this is just voodoo. We understand that
they beleive it, but it's never been tested. In fact, when it is
objectively tested, it just doesn't stand up".
Here's what you are going to hear for the next couple of years
about the current voodoo science. This is an interesting story.
Some of you may have already encoutered it, because it is being
used in child abuse cases. It's call SVA(every process has to have
a 3 letter acronym). I just love TLA's SVA is called"statement
validity analysis". In the early 50's, the German supreme court
listened to a German Psychologist whose name I can't pronounce. Who
came up with this belief. As Dr. Ian Begg has said "There's no way
that science can tell true statements from false statements". This
German psychologist developed his theory which states "Real stories
are inherently different from false stories". A real story is
something that has happened in the past and is different somehow
from a made up story. Now first of all the problem is it different
from a made up story that is beleived to be true? He doesn't
address that, but based on his axiom, the German supreme court
decided that in every child abuse case, they would require this
evidence. That one of the experts trained by this person would have
to give evidence that they examined the child's statement and that
it bore the hallmarks of a true statement. Now, who cares what
nonsense that they want to have in Germany. But this is coming
into North America, because certain people have a financial
interest in selling this belief, to police departments and child
abuse agencies and that there are several experts who are starting
to testify that this is real. My next conference in this series is
called Pinocchio's nose, because they claim that this method of
validation will tell if a child is lying or telling the truth. So
this may be coming to a courtroom near you. I want to tell you,
that from as far as I can determine from literature and from
speaking to one of several researchers who felt that the data
did not support these extravagant claims, that this is Voodoo
science. The researcher I spoke to had been dropped from the
business enterprise that is now sell this stuff and will be coming
to Toronto to speak about this. Although this SVA will be presented
as if it were a validated process, you should not accept it. The
only validation studies that are presented are those done by the
people with a financial interest in selling it. In any event, this
is going to be the new battlefield for the next couple of years. I
PREDICT THAT THE COURTS WILL NOT ADMIT IT BECAUSE IT CAN NOT STAND
UP TO SCIENTIFIC SCRUTINY.
End... file as ALANGOLD.TXT
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