"Evidently, a couple of uninformed and unqualified individuals with massive vested interest are continuing to perpetuate false propaganda against my work."
There is also a name for this debating trick. Notice that the actual substance of the criticism is never addressed. Instead, insinuations are made of a massive conspiracy ...
Whether Joy Christian is right or wrong, this is exactly what he could and would say. If he is right, he could and would say it. If he is wrong, he could and would say it. Hence the statement is totally uninformative. He might as well not have said it.
Bayes theorem: posterior odds equals prior odds times likelihood ratio. Everyone can have their own prior odds as to whether Christian is a charlatan or a genius. When he says something, we all have an opportunity to learn. To change our prior odds in one direction or the other. But so far he has not said anything which changes the odds. If he is the misunderstood genius whose brilliance is totally beyond everyone, he could very well say something very like this. If he is a deluded charlatan, impervious to criticism, he could very well say something very like this. He never says anything which contains any relevant information.
Now my prior odds that a former PhD student of Abner Shimony, whom Shimony thought was OK but not too strong on matematics, is the new Albert Einstein, are rather low. I mean: there is only one Albert Einstein every hundred years, or so. So far, all the evidence is equally likely under the hypothesis that Christian is so brilliant that no one on earth can understand him. as under the hypothesis that he is deluded. Hence my prior belief that he is not the next Albert Einstein have not changed much (if anything, they have changed in the wrong direction).
By the way, I am not saying that Joy cannot defend himself! He could defend himself by actually addressing the criticism which was made on his work in a way which well educated people, but not necessarily equal geniuses, could understand. But so far he couldn't.
This is the big problem of all misunderstood geniuses. I am sure there are very many. Only very very few are later "re-discovered". The others are forgotten forever. One should ask oneself, how many of the self-styled misunderstood genii really are genii.
