It has just been revealed that \"Tom Johnson,\" whose story I elevated from the comments of this blog into a distinct post, and who I praised for coming forward, was also \"bilbo,\" \"milton c,\" and various other commenters here. And now he's going by \"William.\" Needless to say, I no longer consider his story credible. Until these revelations, I had no idea of any of this. Not only had I never checked my commenters' IP addresses or for sock puppets before (although now I see that I should have). But moreover, when it came to \"Tom Johnson,\" I emailed him after his first comment, to check on his identity. The response claimed to be a specific person--a specific Ph.D. candidate at a specific university--and provided a university website and considerable detail about this person's scientific career, publishing record, outreach endeavors, and so on. Now, \"William\" says, \"When Chris contacted me, I made up a story about being a grad. student as an explanation about where the story came from because I didn’t want the Tom character to get exposed as false.\" No. It wasn't just a story about being a graduate student. A specific name was given, a specific career, a specific website, a specific university, ...<\/p>
It has just been revealed that \"Tom Johnson,\" whose story I elevated from the comments of this blog into a distinct post, and who I praised for coming forward, was also \"bilbo,\" \"milton c,\" and various other commenters here. And now he's … Continue reading <\/a>
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