In the wee hours of 3/2, I was asked in an email if I knew whether
LifeMirage, posting and moderating at Imminst.org, was also Lee Crost
MD. My reply basically was that, while I could not affirm that, Paul
and I had many reasons to think that LifeMirage and LefMirage/Edward
were the same person. The latter had been a poster at LEF Forums
since long before we left in January 2002, but no claims of a
medical background were ever a part of his posts.

Before sending off the email I did a lot of Internet searching and
the tangled web of anonymity/pseudonymity that I found was enormous,
not only for LifeMirage, but for so many others with their penchant
for pseudonyms. Much of it can be seen in the contents of a recently
started and still active thread at Imminst.org regarding LifeMirage
as moderator and advisor, and his removal while the thread was in
progress for apparently abusing moderator privileges by removing or
editing posts and threads all without proper cause, falsely claiming
to be an MD, and threatening and lying (to Imminst.org "leadership"
from what I can determine). The fact that neither the forum
moderators and nor even the directors of that organization (a
non-profit corporation with 501(c)(3) IRS status) fully identify
themselves - with verifiable information - has created this problem
and it will continue until authenticated identification together
with all public pseudonyms used (except any that are needed to guard
against coercive force including that of governments) is required
of every director, moderator, advisor, navigator *and* poster.

Ólafur Páll Ólafsson, the 3rd moderator on our "team" has fully
identified himself to us; his knowledge and research capabilities
are constantly under "scrutiny" by virtue of his need to reference,
or to logically prove, everything that he says of a health
information nature. We all check each other's work so that no
unsubstantiated claims or illogical statements are passed along.
Ólafur's curriculum vitae (CV) will be available in the near future
and linked from the MoreLife Yahoo front page and likely from his
Yahoo profile. Since it will be housed at MoreLife.org there will
also be room there for him to include other information about himself
- he already plans to include his own supplement regimen. (Much of it
is currently scattered over several posts to the group.) We look
forward to announcing when this is ready for viewing.

Paul and I have provided considerable information about ourselves at
MoreLife.org for years. We require full identification to us for
posting on this Yahoo group and inclusion of full name in messages
(and public aliases provided or linked to) - and we think it is past
time for other forums to do no less. For those who have not already
read our detailed reasoning, it can be seen within essays on the
subject at http://selfsip.org/focus/ and in comments to posts
following our announcement on June 26, 2005 of the new posting
requirements for MoreLife Yahoo. (The current version of those
requirements is sent to all new members on joining and is available
in the Files section for current members.)

There are likely now a number of people who are questioning whether
they should be following advice/suggestions given to them by someone
who often did not produce evidence for such advice/suggestions, and
now has been shown to have made false claims about both his education
and treatment of patients that he never had. For individuals who are
concerned about health recommendations given to them by anyone,
physician or not, if they do not have the ability and/or time to
thoroughly investigate the recommendations themselves (which is
always best), then they at least should do a thorough evaluation of
the person whose statements they are accepting as valid. Paul and I
have provided our background information and always take great effort
to make it clear how we arrive at our conclusions. Scientific
references are provided where they are available/applicable and
sound reasoning is always present. All of this is done primarily
to help others to learn how to think; we do not wish to be
considered "advisors", one whose words are simply "believed". The
goal of both MoreLife and SelfSIP includes and requires the
development of more well reasoning, sound thinking human beings.


**Kitty

[I just want to add a statement concerning why the objection that many people
have made to our urgings against anonymity is incorrect and why completely
authenticated identification of everyone on the Internet including linkage to
all their aliases (except ones which access their own property, accounts, etc.
or are used to combat government coercion) should be the norm.

Many people state something to the effect that:

"Only the words or information that is written should matter, not where or who
it is coming from. The truth or falsity should be judged on the words alone, not
on anything else about the writer."

While I have great sympathy for the statement above, it only applies where the
words that are written *can* be objectively judged by themselves, independently
and on their own merits. This is only true when the words are integrated with
objective scientific evidence (peer reviewed papers of empirical data and its
analysis) or are logical deductions from clear assumptions.
However, most often people do *not* produce objective evidence or make clear
logical deductions from state assumptions in their writings. Instead they merely
state opinions very loosely based on all their previous reading, thinking and
accumulated knowledge. It is in this last kind of circumstance that knowledge of
the credentials and complete background of a person is necessary in order to
judge the likelihood that his opinion is valid for reality. Personally, I have
always tried to do both - to clearly state my background to show why it is
reasonable to evaluate my statements as credible and to produce both scientific
evidence and clearly logical deductive reasoning. Unless and until others do the
same, what they write should remain suspect and its validity tentative and
needing to be independently verified. --Paul]