No justice for the Prince of Panspermia

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

A neuroscientist claiming to have found evidence of life on Mars and Venus has had his lawsuit demanding $50 billion from a science journal publisher tossed out by a district court in New York.

Astrophysics and Space Science in 2019 published a paper by Rhawn Joseph PhD, which argued for the presence of mushrooms, or at least mushroom-like growths on Venus. The journal was also considering another paper of his on the subject of fungi on Mars, but wanted further review of the article. In response, Joseph withdrew the paper and had it published elsewhere. Somewhere along the line, the journal had second thoughts about what it had spawned with the Venus paper and told Joseph that additional reviewers were looking at it. Joseph then wanted them to pull the article, but instead it got retracted, an action not generally viewed as bringing a scientist into enhanced repute. What followed was a lawsuit against the publisher, on grounds of libel and defamation, fraud, tortious interference and assorted other stuff.

The judge has tossed the lawsuit, calling its claims “frivolous”.

“The Complaint is at times difficult to follow. It is littered with speculation, confusing ramblings, conclusory legal assertions, and personal attacks against Defendants. See, e.g., Compl. ¶ 12 (“The Defendants are lying, confabulating, engaging in fraud and falsifying their references[.]”), ¶ 20 (claiming that “major scientific discoveries must pass through three stages: 1) Ridicule, 2) Violent opposition, 3) Acceptance as obvious and self-evident” and that Dr. Joseph’s work regarding life on Venus and Marks “is now at stage 2 (violent opposition)”)”

http://retractionwatch.com/2021/12/21/court-tosses-50-billion-suit-by-prince-of-panspermia-against-springer-nature/?fbclid=IwAR3Wk6-hKuyGWCog2cKaR9Gf-2-_CeLl15u6qqz5Xx3bDUqq6UkZ0FKuBJY

Tragically, Joseph had been hoping to use the $50 billion to put together a team of thousands of scientists to make awesome game-changing discoveries. It seems that will not happen now. :disappointed_relieved:

2

So suppose this was legitimately grounds for a defamation lawsuit. Still, what could justify a claim for $50billion? Where does he come up with a number like that?

What might such a suit really be worth?

3

Every molecule of his being was insulted by the journal’s slight.
So, at $1 per insulted molecule…

4

He deserves $50 billion just for being fabulous. (website)

5

“Perhaps even the gods, have gods, who have gods.” – Rhawn Gabriel Joseph

Oh, wow, man! That’s like totally DEEP! (We overlook the redundant first comma, which totally interrupts the flow of the mantra.)

Interesting fellow. He seems to have had training as some sort of neurophysiologist, which doesn’t seem to have stopped him from publishing on his diverse interests such as female sexuality (also, why women are so competitive) time travel, the true nature of black holes, and of course, life on other planets. Speaking of female sexuality, Rhawn’s bio describes an incident when, at the age of 13, he was seduced by a next-door neighbour, who apparently emerged from the house half-naked and invited him in for “lemonade”. It’s not the sort of thing you usually find in an academic bio. Like I said, interesting fellow.

One might note that the vast majority (virtually all) of his cosmological “papers” have been published in something called the Journal of Cosmology. It is in fact not a journal at all, but just a website – a website founded, incidentally, by one Rhawn Gabriel Joseph, aka the Prince of Panspermia himself. It appears to accept his work eagerly and without criticism, unlike all those other journals out there. The journal went dark for a while when the Prince forgot to renew the domain name and it was taken by someone else, but it’s now back under a different name, and has rebranded itself to be a journal of “cosmology and spirituality”. Note that in his citations of his “publications” on the subject of cosmology, “Cosmology” and “Journal of Cosmology” turn out to be same thing. The change of name seems to have been due to the Prince’s memory lapse and the loss of the original domain name.

It appears that the Prince of Panspermia forgets a lot of things, actually. In 2017 he published a paper (in the Journal of Cosmology, natch) titled “Origins of Life on Mars: NASA Never Sterilized the Mars Rovers”. There you go, mystery solved. Apparently the NASA rovers, due to not being sterilized, inadvertently planted mushroom farms, and now portobellos and chanterelles are springing up all over Mars! They are just like the ones on earth except sentient. The Prince will undoubtedly kick himself when he remembers that he wrote this paper. Still, it doesn’t account for all the mushrooms that have sprouted all over Venus, but it’s hot and humid there, so it stands to reason.

6

Gods all the way up? At least it makes a change from turtles all the way down

7

Against stupidity the very gods themselves contend in vain. -Friedrich Schiller (with an assist from Isaac Asimov)

8

Is that the same Arabian Prince or w/e guy from the early days of the intarwebz?

Or maybe his nephew?

9

I found his findings extremely credible (in addition to fabulous), until I noticed:
“Dr. Joseph and four colleagues published a major monograph”

Um… that’s not how monographs work

10

In light of all the facts I noted above, I keep thinking about Rhawn Gabriel Joseph interviewing for an academic position at a major university:

Interviewer: Looking at your CV, you seem to have, ah, quite a diverse range of interests, Dr. Joseph.

Rhawn Gabriel Joseph: Oh, yes. Did you see the part where I had sex with the next-door neighbour’s wife when I was 13?

Interviewer: Yes, yes, I did see that. And nobody ever reported it to the police?

Rhawn Gabriel Joseph: It was the will of the gods. Who am I to judge the gods, who themselves have gods, and they too have gods? Say, have you ever taken LSD?

Interviewer: Right, right. And there are mushrooms growing all over Mars and Venus, if I understand you correctly.

Rhawn Gabriel Joseph: All over. And the chanterelles are sentient. NASA recorded one of them running around one of the rovers, and then tried to deny it. They claimed it was just a rock that had been knocked out of place by the rover’s motions. I sued the bastards to get them to prove that it wasn’t really a rock. [True story. The suit was thrown out. Turned out, it was really a rock.]

Interviewer: Well, thank you, Dr. Joseph. We’ll get back to you.

Rhawn Gabriel Joseph: Better do it quick. I’m very much in demand, as you can tell by the fact that my shirt is never buttoned, to reveal my hairy chest. Say, did you see those pics I sent in with my CV, with me frolicking on the beach with naked women?

11

If those are magic mushrooms growing all over Mars and Venus, it’ll be one hell of an incentive for commercial space travel.

12

It’s hot. Real hot. It ain’t humid. There’s hardly any water vapor in Venus’ atmosphere.

Course, those Russian probes that landed there back in the 70s probably took care of that.

13

As for sex with his neighbor, we have this from another footnote:

For example, he cites 18 U.S.C. § 2255, which sets forth civil remedies for personal injuries suffered by minors who were victims of sexual abuse. Again, Dr. Joseph offers absolutely no indication how the statutes he cites are relevant here, and the Court declines to engage in a lengthier discussion as to why they offer Dr. Joseph no recourse.

So maybe he’s blaming Springer for it?
I’d love to see the reviews for the article that got published. The editor who accepted it got some ‘splainin’ to do.

14

I always thought the “mono” in monograph primarily indicated a single specialized topic (as opposed to something broader). Although it tends to be written by the preeminent expert in that narrow field, so usually a single author. So I guess upon reflection I’m not completely sure about usage - in practice it tends to be both single topic and single author.

15

He read “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus” and decided to write the prequel “Mushrooms are from Mars, Mushrooms are from Venus”.

16

Wikipedia agrees with your definition:

but then every scientific paper I’ve ever read or written would be a “monograph”, so I’m unclear on the utility of the monicker.

17

This seems to have spawned a separate lawsuit:

18

When Sherlock Holmes published a monograph, it was meant to be the complete, definitive compilation of understanding on a subject, not just an addition to the knowledge of the field.

That’s always been my understanding about the difference. Of course, in those days multiple authors were uncommon. Today they are everywhere in the sciences, so I wouldn’t be surprised that a modern monograph would have multiple authors.

19

You are correct, according to Google. I am aware of at least one three-author monograph.

20

And wasn’t aware that theory is from Uranus?