Principia Scientific International

[taeto]

What is known about this organization principia-scientific.org ?

On the extreme end of being anti scientific, so far as I can see.

I wrote a book review on Amazon of a book apparently written by one of the members or affiliates of this organization:  

www.amazon.de/Mathematik-für-die-ersten-Semester/dp/3110377330/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&sr=1-1#customerReviews

My entire mathematics department immediately got attacked by spams from one of the members of PSI, Klaus D. Witzel, and the review itself got angry replies also from John Gabriel, a well-known extreme racist anti-semitic anti-science crackpot, as well as Stephen Crothers himself, who needs no further introduction. 

Has anyone else got any similar experience, and if so, is there any known recourse. It has been a while ago now that this happened, but I have some similar concerns building up now, due to my critiques of a crank poster of youtube videos, whom I know to have connections to the same organization. 

Edited December 31, 2019 by taeto

[MigL]

Don't know about, or have any experiences with them.
But quite a few of their members, who make their membership known, are AGW opponents.

https://principia-scientific.org/why-psi-is-proposed-as-a-cic/

[taeto]

1 hour ago, MigL said:

Don't know about, or have any experiences with them.
But quite a few of their members, who make their membership known, are AGW opponents.

https://principia-scientific.org/why-psi-is-proposed-as-a-cic/

That is a nice list, good find! Thanks, and happy New Year!

The entry alone on Stephen Crothers is gold. 

I add it here just for lulz: "Stephen J. Crothers: Stephen is probably the most able scholar in Einsteinian type general relativity. He has produced many definitive refutations of big bang, black holes and other fallacies and errors of Einsteinian general relativity."

Edited December 31, 2019 by taeto

[Markus Hanke]

13 hours ago, taeto said:

Has anyone else got any similar experience, and if so, is there any known recourse.

I was unfortunate enough to have had dealings with members of that organization on another science forum some years ago. There is no reasoning with these people. Your best bet will be to not engage at all - immediately block all attempts at private communication/spam, and keep reporting public reviews, messages, and posts to the respective platform provider, such as Amazon. There’s little else you can do, I’m afraid.

[StringJunky]

From mediabiasfactcheck site: "Overall, we rate Principia Scientific International (PSI) a strong conspiracy and Pseudoscience website that promotes anti-vaccine propaganda and frequent misinformation regarding climate change. (D. Van Zandt 7/18/2017) Updated (9/26/2019)"  https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/principia-scientific-international/

[Markus Hanke]

Some of the interactions I had with them were of quite a threatening nature; it had a really sinister feel to it, far beyond mere online crackpottery. These people are like the Westboro Baptist Church of the science world. Really sad to see.

[taeto]

4 hours ago, Markus Hanke said:

Some of the interactions I had with them were of quite a threatening nature; it had a really sinister feel to it, far beyond mere online crackpottery. These people are like the Westboro Baptist Church of the science world. Really sad to see.

I looked up the word "cult". It seems a reasonable fit.

Exceptions to the sensible "stay away from them" policy do suggest themselves. 

Such as when videos full of made up nonsense get labeled in the category "Education" on Youtube. How does that even happen? I hope that reporting will help, but I have no positive evidence so far. 

And obviously when the muppets distribute defamatory emails to a number of one's colleagues. Which technically is criminal, though authorities might not care much.