Posts Tagged As: Paul Cameron

San Francisco Chronicle Confuses Cameron With Focus On The Family

Jim Burroway

May 21st, 2007

Sometimes reporters are biased, sometimes they’re just careless, and sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference. The San Francisco Chronicle’s Ilene Lelchuk wrote this in an article on Focus on the Family’s opposition to gay foster parents:

Focus on the Family’s objection to same-sex parents is grounded in interpretation of biblical scripture and research by Paul Cameron, director of the Family Research Institute in Colorado.

Believe you me, I’m no fan of Paul Cameron, and I’m the last person in the world to defend Focus on the Family for much of anything. But if there’s one thing I can’t stand is a reporter who doesn’t check her facts.

Paul Cameron generally works with less than $200,000 a year and has maybe four employees — all family members as far as I can tell. Focus on the Family has an operating budget of more than $138 million. Their 1,300 employees are more than capable of generating their own false statistics whenever the mood strikes. They have no need to get their hands dirty with Cameron’s work.

And in fact, Focus on the Family has been avoiding Cameron’s work for almost a decade. They’re even careful to avoid using his work indirectly — although occasionally it does manage to slip through.

Believe me, I’ve been watching for it. And after three years of watching them very carefully, I’ve only found a couple of isolated cases where they used his statistics indirectly. (One isolated example can be found in James Dobson’s book Bringing Up Boys, where he cites William Bennett instead of Paul Cameron to get to Cameron’s gay lifespan statistic).

A lot of people use Cameron’s research. Many more use his work discretely without attributing it to him by name. But Focus on the Family — as a rule — generally doesn’t. And by no means are their positions “grounded” on Cameron’s research. This is astonishingly sloppy reporting coming from the Chronicle.

So then, mark this day. I said something mildly positive about Focus on the Family — if saying that Focus can manufacture bad data without Cameron’s help is at all positive.

I’m sure it’s hard to keep track of all the anti-gay activists. They often sound so much alike. But I think it’s important to set the record straight when the media gets it wrong, especially when they overstate Cameron’s stature. Cameron’s bad enough, but when it comes to overall impact, he’s no Dobson.

Although Cameron’s statement to the Chronicle does beg one question: Would Focus on the Family prefer to keep kids institutionalized than have them go to same-sex couples?

Updates to the Cameron Links

Jim Burroway

May 18th, 2007

Gary Glenn wrote to me this morning to point out he did not use a Cameron reference for his article, “Deadly Homosexual Behavior.” The links to Cameron had been appended to the end of his article by Earle Fox, the web site’s owner. Mr. Glenn’s name has been removed from the list. I sincerely apologize for the error.

Meanwhile, thanks to your inputs, the list of those who use Cameron’s work has grown a little. Mary Jo Anderson was added to the list, and I have a whole set of additions that still need to be made from the Free Republic web site. If you find any others, please send them my way.

More Cameron Collaborators

Jim Burroway

May 16th, 2007

Monday, I revealed Paul Cameron’s chillingly sympathetic accounts of how the Nazi’s “dealt with” homosexuality. I also started a list of Cameron collaborators who spread his message by using his “science.” Thanks to your inputs, it grew so large that I had to put the complete list on a separate page. Prominent additions include Robert A. J. Gagnon; James Kennedy; Christian Medical and Dental Associations; Eternal Word Television Network; the Howard Center for Family, Religion, and Society; Leadership U.; and Regent University.

A surprising find was Exodus Global Alliance, the worldwide arm of Exodus International (which would be more accurately thought of as Exodus North America). While Alan Chambers removed all references to Cameron’s work from Exodus International’s site, they remain on the Exodus Global Alliance site.

Meanwhile, Paul Cameron has issued a very strange press release which recycles most of the best gems from his letter to Warren Throckmorton, including his Höss-ian, “parasitic lives.”

More Links To Cameron

Jim Burroway

May 15th, 2007

Here are some more additions to the list of Cameron collaborators. The complete list will be maintained here. Many thanks to those of you who left links via e-mail or comments. If you find someone using Cameron’s junk science, please send them to me.

American Family Association:
Armstrong Williams:
Baptist Press:
BibleBelievers.com
Center for Reclaiming America for Christ:
Illinois Family Institute
The Road to Emmaus:
World Net Daily:

Do These Folks Agree With Cameron’s “Solution”

Jim Burroway

May 14th, 2007

Dr. Warren Throckmorton has also posted about Paul Cameron’s disturbing views expressed in Cameron’s article, “Gays in Nazi Germany.” Dr. Throckmorton concludes:

Suffice to say that Dr. Cameron is not simply ideologically opposed to homosexuality, he is fixated on “solutions” that I find abhorrent. I call on fellow social conservatives who still refer to the Camerons’ work to take a hard look at these posts and reflect on whether someone with such extreme animosity could possibly approach social science data with sufficient objectivity to be trusted.

When Ex-Gay Watch pointed out that Exodus was using Cameron’s research, Exodus finally responded by removing those web pages from their web site. On the other hand, NARTH has so far failed to act.

I wonder how many of these individuals, organizations and publishers agree with Paul Cameron’s Solution for those who live “parasitic lives”?

E-mail me or leave a comment if you find someone who is using Cameron’s “science” and I’ll add them to the list.

Publications:
American Family Association:
Americans For Truth:
Courage:
Concerned Women For America:
Ears To Hear:
Evergreen International:
Family Research Council:
International Healing Foundation (Richard Cohen):
Lifesite News:
National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH):
One News Now:
Renew America:
Virtue Online:

Let me know if you find any others.

I’m Starting A List…

Jim Burroway

May 14th, 2007

… of all of Paul Cameron’s publicity outlets — anyone who is complicit in spreading the so-called “science” of someone who is even willing to use the events of the Holocaust for his own aims. Included in this list are Psychological Reports and the Journal of Biosocial Sciences. Also included are NARTH, Evergreen, the Family Research Council, the American Family Association, Concerned Women for America, Peter LaBarbara, Richard Cohen, and so many others. I’ll have an early draft of that list posted by the end of today.

You can help. If you know of someone who’s using Cameron’s junk science, please pass it along with a link. You can do it either in the comments or via E-mail. Thanks.

Paul Cameron’s World

Jim Burroway

May 14th, 2007

paulcameron01.jpgIn 2005, the Southern Poverty Law Center issued a report saying, “[Paul] Cameron’s ‘science’ echoes Nazi Germany in that these disparaging descriptions of homosexuals are reminiscent of themes found in the ugly history of anti-Semitism…” It turns out that the SPLC didn’t know half the story.

Paul Cameron, of the Family Research Institute, inhabits a very dark and sinister world. A review of his web site gives us ample evidence of what that world looks like. It’s a world of gay “parasites,” vast conspiracies, and shadow organizations, posing a dangerous threat to all of Western civilization.

And there’s something else too. There’s a strange report on “Gays in Nazi Germany” in which he whitewashes a part of the holocaust to support his theories on homosexuality. You can read it all in our latest report, “Paul Cameron’s World.”

Paul Cameron Denounced in Anthropology News

Jim Burroway

May 8th, 2007

It’s been a full year since Paul Cameron’s paper on gay parenting appeared in the Journal of Biosocial Science. Despite a barrage of emails from Abigail Garner, (one of the authors whose work Cameron misrepresented in the paper), myself and others, there has been nothing but silence from the journal’s editors.

This month, Anthropology News published a series of articles in its May edition addressing Cameron’s publication in the JBS. Unfortunately, the contents of that newsletter are not online. But Raymond Hames, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Nebraska, sent me the text of an article he co-wrote with Edward H. Hagen, of the Institute for Theoretical Biology at Humboldt University in Berlin.

That article, “A Case of Misrepresenting the Scientific Record on the Effects of Parents’ Sexual Orientation,” calls the Journal of Biosocial Science to task for the failure of its peer-review process to uncover Cameron’s rather obvious weaknesses and distortions. The scientific peer-review process ordinarily assumes that a researcher is acting in good faith, that “a genuine attempt was made to learn about the world.”

However, recent events have shown that an author’s good faith can’t be taken for granted. Not only are there career pressures to report breakthroughs that haven’t occurred, but personal biases can also drive an author’s efforts:

At the extreme, partisans repeatedly shop a piece of strongly biased pseudo-science to a large number of journals in the hopes that their “result” will slip through at one, gaining the imprimatur of acceptance in a peer-reviewed journal. We regret to report a recent instance involving Paul Cameron, an anti gay-rights activist, and the Journal of Biosocial Science (JBS). JBS, published by Cambridge, is edited by well-regarded biological anthropologist C G N Mascie-Taylor and features an impressive editorial board, with members from universities such as Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard and UC Berkeley.

Professors Hagen and Rames briefly describe a couple of the particular flaws in Cameron’s JBS article, some of which I reported last year. They also note that pro-gay biases can inflect research as well. However:

In light of increasingly sophisticated attempts to manipulate the scientific record to political ends, journal editors must ensure manuscripts are sent to reviewers who know the relevant research literature and who have the requisite methodological skills. In a “Debate” section, JBS did publish a reply to Cameron by Todd Morrison (who does not discuss the problems we identified here). Unfortunately, this has further legitimized Cameron’s junk science by suggesting that Cameron is engaged in a real scientific debate. JBS, unlike Science in the Hwang Woo-suk [fraudulent stem cell research] fiasco, has failed to acknowledge or address the real issue: the severe failure of its review process.

Professors Hagen and Rames wrote to the JBS editors last August with their objections to Cameron’s article, and JBS was invited to respond to the articles in Anthropology News. The editors have not responded in either case.

But Wait! There’s More About Paul Cameron…

Jim Burroway

April 24th, 2007

It’s hard to keep up with all of this. First this morning came Dr. Warren Throckmorton’s devastating analysis of Cameron’s “Scandinavian Gay Lifespan” study. Now he has posted another response from Danish epidemiologist Morton Frisch. He notes the same problem that I cited with Cameron’s Danish samples — they only began registering same-sex partnerships in 1989. That sample cannot be compared to the heterosexually-married cohort that has existed since forever. Dr. Frisch concludes his remarks this way:

Although the Camerons’ report has no objective scientific value, the authors should be acknowledged for providing teachers with a humorous example of agenda-driven, pseudo-scientific gobbledygook that will make lessons in elementary study design and scientific inference much more amusing for future epidemiology students.

Warren Throckmorton’s Response To Paul Cameron

Jim Burroway

April 24th, 2007

There has been some new developments in regards to Paul and Kirk Cameron’s “Scandinavian Gay Lifespan” study. This was the study that Paul Cameron presented in a poster session at the Eastern Psychological Association’s convention in Philadelphia last March. His subsequent press releases later drew a sharp condemnation in an official statement from the EPA’s president, Dr. Phil Hineline, in response to my inquires.

Dr. Warren Throckmorton has carried the ball further. As I mentioned before, he contacted Danish epidemiologist Dr. Morton Frisch, who responded with a strong rebuke of the Camerons’ methods and conclusion. This prompted Dr. Kirk Cameron, Paul’s son, to mount a rather weak defense (in my opinion) in a letter he sent to Dr. Throckmorton. (This is, as far as I know, the first time we’ve heard from Kirk directly. His father typically handles such communications.)

In that defense, Kirk continues to defend the “gay obituary” methodology without actually addressing its many weaknesses — except one. He does mention the problem of closeted gay men and women, but dismisses it this way:

It was partly because of the uncertainties in self-report that we decided to examine other kinds of data. Obviously, obituaries depend upon human reporting but are not ‘self-reports.’ To keep one’s past sexual behavior secret after death can be difficult unless no one else knows, presumably even one’s own partners. As Ben Franklin wisely said, “three can keep a secret, but only if two of them are dead.”

Is this to mean that when a closeted individual dies, his or her former lovers are going to come out of the woodwork and place an obituary in the Washington Blade?  Does that even mean that the Blade will accept such an obituary?  Remember, they don’t even publish a general obituary section.

Nevertheless, Cameron the younger has the audacity to conclude:

Further, careful examination of our work and of the charges against us reveals that — while no one is perfect, including us — we have performed our work with scientific integrity and honesty.

Today Dr. Throckmorton has responded to Cameron’s letter with a thorough analysis of the Camerons’ paper. In it, he highlights a long stream of unsubstantiated assumptions and glaring weakness, all of  which builds toward what is both an unproven conclusion (that registered-partnered gays in Scandinavia die some twenty years younger than their heterosexual counterparts) and a decidedly unscientific publicity campaign:

To conclude, I have many objections to this study as well as the way you portrayed the results in the media. You define multiple assumptions which must be true in order to establish central tendency which I do not believe are reasonable to assume. The news releases convey a confidence in your findings which seems quite unscientific.

Further, I object to what appears to me to be your effort to establish the homosexually inclined as a distinct, monolithic group of people. It seems to me that gays and lesbians are quite diverse in their behavior and values. Being same-sex attracted tells me very little, if anything about the way one lives or the activities one chooses. One might find some small effect size for a risk factor, say depression, but that cannot say much about a “typical” homosexual. I think it fine to crusade against sexual promiscuity, risky sexual behavior, drug abuse, smoking, using seat belts, etc. You will have many people join you, both same-sex attracted and opposite-sex attracted. However, to say that being in a class of people is to expose oneself to risk via membership in that class is a misleading use of measures of central tendency, in my opinion. Hogg et al’s statement seems worth repeating here:

“It is essential to note that the life expectancy of any population is a descriptive and not a prescriptive measure. Death is a product of the way a person lives and what physical and environmental hazards he or she faces everyday. It cannot be attributed solely to their sexual orientation or any other ethnic or social factor. (Hogg et al, 2001, p. 1499).”

You can read Dr. Throckmorton’s splendid analysis here.

Danish Epidemiologist Morton Frisch Slams Cameron’s “Scandinavian Gay Lifespan” Study

Jim Burroway

April 13th, 2007

Here’s something new to add to the Paul Cameron “Scandinavian Gay Lifespan” Timeline, courtesy of Dr. Warren Throckmorton

Dr. Throckmorton asked Danish epidemiologist Morten Frisch to review Paul and Kirk Cameron’s paper, “Federal Distortion Of Homosexual Footprint (Ignoring Early Gay Death?),” the paper that Paul Cameron claimed to have presented to the Eastern Psychological Association. Dr. Frisch, had been the lead author of a recent report comparing childhood experiences between those who marry heterosexually and those who marry homosexually in Denmark. Dr. Frisch generously responded to Dr Throckmorton’s request with an unusually blunt assessment:

Cameron and Cameron’s report on ‘life expectancy’ in homosexuals vs heterosexuals is severely methodologically flawed.

It is no wonder why this pseudo-scientific report claiming a drastically shorter life expectancy in homosexuals compared with heterosexuals has been published on the internet without preceding scientific peer-review… The authors should know, and as PhD’s they presumably do, that this report has little to do with science. It is hard to escape the idea that non-scientific motifs have driven the authors to make this report public. The methodological flaws are of such a grave nature that no decent peer-reviewed scientific journal should let it pass for publication.

You can read the whole thing here.

Paul Cameron “Scandinavian Gay Lifespan” Timeline

Based on his last press release of April 10th, it appears he already knew the EPA's statement was in the works.

Jim Burroway

April 13th, 2007

When Paul Cameron participated in a poster session at the Eastern Psychological Association’s convention on March 23rd, he sumultaneously issued a press release entitied, “1.4% of Adults Homosexual?” which matches what the EPA says he presented. So far, so good, as far as the EPA is concerned.

But after the convention is over, he began a very regular schedule of issuing press releases, touting evidence of a “shortened lifespan” that he claims to have presented at the EPA, a claim that the EPA now disputes. Every Tuesday and Thursday for the next two weeks, like clockwork, he issued four press releases claiming that gays in Scandinavia die young.

I first contacted the EPA on April 4th with several questions about Cameron’s participation at the convention. I also told them about the press releases. We exchanged just a couple of brief e-mails through Saturday, April 7th, during which I kept them apprised of his later releases.

On Monday, April 9th, I released my report on Cameron’s paper that he claimed to have presented to the EPA.

Noticing Cameron’s pattern of issuing press releases on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I eagerly awaited last Tuesday’s press release from him. That morning on April 10th, it arrived right on time. Except this time, I noticed that he returned, more or less, to his original subject for the title, “Are Governments Misreporting To Advance Gay Rights?” He drops the Danish and Norweigan statistics from his press release, although he continues to conclude that gays experience an “early average age of death.” But by dropping those statistics, this press release returned to a theme which more closely matched what he presented at the convention’s poster session — at least in content, if not necessarily in tone.

I also noticed something else that was odd about that press release. While he still included the title of the paper he claimed to have presented at the EPA, he didn’t mention his participation at the EPA’s convention. He dropped all mention of it.

On Wednesday, April 11, the EPA responded to my inquiries with an official statement, disputing Cameron’s description of his participation at the convention.

If Cameron were to continue his pattern on press releases, we should have seen another one yesterday. But yesterday came and went with blessed silence. (On the other hand, he did respond to the EPA’s statement via an on-the-record e-mail to Dr. Warren Throckmorton.)

Press releases can cost a lot of money, and Cameron’s Family Research Institute doesn’t have very deep pockets. After issuing six press releases, maybe he felt he got all the mileage he could out of it, and the stream of press releases would have come to an end anyway. Six press releases really are an awful lot. He’s never issued so many to promote a single paper before that I’m aware of.

Whatever the case may be, one thing’s for certain — we’ll definitely hear from him again.

Eastern Psychological Association’s Statement on Paul Cameron

Jim Burroway

April 11th, 2007

I received the following statement from Dr. Phil Hineline, president of the Eastern Psychological Association, concerning Paul Cameron’s poster presentation at their recent conference. I am posting it in full, followed by my original email of April 4th to the EPA. I followed up with another email on the 7th, to which Dr. Hineline kindly responds.

Dear Jim Burroway,

Following up on your message of 7 April, the following is a statement suitable for public distribution, provided that quotations from it are not lifted out of context.

Thank you for bringing the matter to our attention.

Phil Hineline

Paul Cameron and Kirk Cameron have posted for circulation a controversial and lengthy  manuscript that purports, via the tagline at the bottom each page, to be the account of a presentation at the March 2007 meeting of the Eastern Psychological Assocition.  The title of that manuscript, as well as its main emphasis, focuses upon an issue that was not present in the title nor was it in the supporting materials that were submitted by the Camerons for a poster presentation at EPA.

The submitted title, which appears in the EPA printed program, is: “Federal distortion of homosexual footprint.” The accompanying Abstract asserts that the proportion of the Canadian population identified as lesbian, gay and bisexual is substantially lowered if adults over age 60 are included than if they are excluded from the sample.  The asserted implication is that federal agencies are exaggerating the size of the homosexual proportion of the population by excluding adults over 60 from the assessments.

In contrast, the manuscript at issue carries the title: “Federal Distortion Of Homosexual Footprint (Ignoring early Gay Death?).” Two of the three paragraphs in its accompanying Abstract focus upon the topic of the added parenthetical phrase, which is an inference — indeed a topic — that was not present in the materials submitted to EPA. Irrespective of its potential for controversy, it is highly unlikely that the augmented/altered version would have been accepted for presentation, for there clearly are many reasons other than differential longevity that could result in the under-reporting of homosexuals over 60.

Whatever its content, even the format of the manuscript to which the EPA identification has been affixed — a manuscript of more than 7000 words plus three tables and six graphs, would have been completely inappropriate as a poster presentation, which was the venue in which Dr. Cameron proposed to participate in the meeting.

To clarify the relevant history and circumstances:

After putting out the call for submissions to be proposed for the EPA meeting, we typically receive over 700 submissions as was the case this year. These submissions are divided into categories (e.g. Animal Learning, Social psychology, etc ..) and each section is reviewed by a volunteer on the program committee.  As each submission typically has at least two authors, vetting authors against other organizations’ lists of people with problematic ethical records is simply an impossibility, especially given the time-frame of preparations for an annual convention.

For acceptance, a work had to be complete, be methodologically sound using proper data collection techniques and/or experimental methods, the conclusions had to be derivable from the presented results, and the topic deemed to be one that could stimulate interest and discussion among those attending the meeting.

The submission by Dr. Cameron indicated that there was a possibility that the prevalence of homosexuals in the population had been overestimated by previous techniques.  Data were presented, reportedly using a broader defined sample than that used by government agencies, which indicated that the prevalence of homosexuality in the population was smaller than had been previously suggested.  The submission by Dr. Cameron was for a poster presentation, and it was accepted as a poster, not as a paper or address.  Whatever the Camerons ultimately presented, occurred in an hour-long “poster session” among approximately 70 posters.

There was nothing in the materials submitted by the author for review by EPA that indicated that the work could, or would, be informative with respect to the longevity of homosexuals.

Sincerely,
Philip N. Hineline
President, Eastern Psychological Association


The following is my original e-mail sent to the EPA on April 4th. I followed up with another e-mail on the 7th, to which Dr. Hineline replied above.

President Hineline, President-Elect Sternberg, members of the Program Committee;

I was quite astonished to see a number of press releases from the Family Research Institute’s Paul Cameron in which he cites a paper that he presented to the Eastern Psychological Association March 13-16. Given Dr. Cameron’s well-established track record for misrepresenting legitimate scientific research — and his well-documented ethical violations of the APA’s preamble — I found it very odd that his paper, “Federal Distortion of Homosexual Footprint” would be accepted by the EPA.

I am not writing to discuss the merits of the paper. However I do have a number of questions about the process that allowed the paper to be accepted. Please be assured, it’s not my intention to draw anyone into a debate. I am asking only to understand the circumstances behind the acceptance of Drs. Cameron’s paper.

1) Do the papers themselves undergo any sort of peer review before they are accepted by the EPA?

2) If the paper undergoes a peer review, are there any checks or specific processes by which this review takes place?

3) How is acceptance of a paper determined?

4) Are authors vetted to ensure there are no ethical complaints lodged against them by other professional organizations (for example, the American Psychological Association)?

5) Does the EPA maintain a repository of the papers that have been accepted? I ask this because I would like to verify that the paper the Drs. Cameron make available on the Internet is actually the paper that was presented at the conference.

Any information you can provide me would be most appreciated.

Sincerely,
Jim Burroway
www.boxturtlebulletin.com


I am grateful for Dr. Hineline’s thorough response to each of my questions.

You can read my critique of Cameron’s paper in my latest report, “Paul Cameron’s Footprint.”

Paul Cameron’s “Scandinavian Gay Lifespan” Study Debunked

Jim Burroway

April 9th, 2007

Paul CameronIn 1993, Paul Cameron, of the Family Research Institute, began touting a paper he said he presented at the Eastern Psychological Association entitled, “The lifespan of homosexuals.” Using obituaries from various gay newspapers around the country, Cameron claimed that the average lifespan for gay men was a mere 42 years. For lesbians, the average was 44.

While that study was roundly criticized for its ridiculous methodology, those statistics have persisted as a sort of macabre urban legend among some anti-gay activists. Among them include Christopher Rosik, a California psychologist who cites Cameron’s lifespan figure as justification for sexual orientation conversion therapy.

Well, Cameron’s at it again, hijacking the Eastern Psychological Association’s reputation once again to claim that gays and lesbians in registered partnerships in Denmark and Norway experience a lifespan up to 24 years shorter than their heterosexual counterparts. His latest claims are already being picked up by anti-gay activists, conservative news organizations, blogs, and pundits. Conservative columnist Armstrong Williams commented on Cameron’s claims and asked, “Considering these statistics, do you now believe that vulnerable children should be raised in such an unstable environment?” It’s only a matter of time before these statistics make their way into the mainstream media.

Cameron’s paper, “Federal Distortion of Homosexual Footprint,” is filled with all the strange and bogus statistics we’ve come to expect from him. I examined his methods and in my latest report, “Paul Cameron’s Footprint,” I show you why the claims he makes based on data from Denmark and Norway are completely worthless. My conclusions:

Yes, Cameron is up to his same old tricks again. You can bet that this won’t be the last time we hear from him. And no matter how ridiculous his methodologies may be, he will continue to provide statistical fodder for the anti-gay lobby. But with his latest paper on the “Homosexual Footprint,” he doesn’t have a leg to stand on. This time, as always, his “footprint” is planted firmly in his mouth.

You can read my full report here.

Advocate/PlanetOut Errs In Report On Cameron

Jim Burroway

April 4th, 2007

The Advocate (via PlanetOut) got some facts wrong about Paul Cameron’s study that was presented at the Eastern Psychological Association last month. The unnamed reporter writes:

In fact, he did not present and was not on the agenda at this meeting. Cameron was neither a registered speaker nor a member of the convention faculty. If he “told” anybody of his latest research, it was likely to have been uninvited and interrupted by the listener’s swift departure.

Unfortunately, Cameron really was at the conference. He presented his paper at a “Poster Session” on March 23. Sixty-six papers were presented at that session. I don’t know exactly how a Poster Session works, but if he had a chance to speak he wouldn’t have had much more than a minute to do so. But it looks like he really was there.

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