Welcome back! I'm not sure you really understood
the post from Dr. Lerner that you recently replied to.
There were some rather nasty exchanges over the last
day or two which contained charges that someone had
improperly cited a reference or had supplied an
inaccurate quote or one improperly pulled out of context.
All Dr. Lerner was asking was that if you feel the need
to point out an error made in another person's citations,
you should in all fairness supply a correction.
This makes good sense to me. It is certainly not helpful
to the debate or to the person who has made such a mistake
to simply say "You can't even get your references right!"
(which is my paraphrase of several recent comments on the
reflector). If someone has either deliberately or carelessly
altered or misrepresented another author, by all means call
him to account. But include a specific correction in order to
set the record straight!
I don't think this is too much to ask. It would certainly
cut down on "knee-jerk" reactions which might later (as we
have seen) need to be retracted.
Stan Zygmunt
Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
Valparaiso University