Dr. David Anderson on Coast to Coast AM, 1/31/10

I listened to the "Dr." David Lewis Anderson, "PhD" interview that was on Coast to Coast AM on 1/31/10 and I have the say the guy was not convincing in the slightest. Wanting to see what kind of evidence he fabricated and planted on the web, I googled and wound up with squat. C'mon, the first thing a modern huckster should do before drawing attention to himself is plant things around the interwebs for Google to find so when people look up your story they find something, anything, that appears to validate at least some of your claims. It's rule number one in this day and age.

There are so many things about Anderson's presentation that sounded too phoney to enjoy, I'm at a loss as to how to go about expressing my disappointment. It'd be easier to just list what I was able to find believable about his story. I believe that he runs the andersoninstitute.com website. That's all, just that. It's obviously a fake-as-shit site, but it's at least there. Seriously, though, just look at it. The grossly obvious attempt to look futuristic, the "Encyclopedia of Time", the crappy thumbnails. Is this the best a 2010 huckster can come up with?

I've made a list of some of the many things that this guy did that prevented me from suspending disbelief in his potentially fun presentation:

• He was overly gracious and agreeable, to a fault. He often contradicted himself just to pander to Art Bell, who would occasionally ask for confirmation on something he clearly misheard. It happened several times and each time it happened I lost interest in the story. I realize the Huckster Handbook states, "the sucker is always right", but you can't be careless about how you handle them.
• It often sounded like he was reading from a script. At numerous points it seemed that he misread, either by starting on the wrong sentence or mispronouncing a word. He would often catch himself and start over, repeating himself in the process. Also, his pace would change when he seemed to switch from talking to reading and back again. It was distracting, to put it mildly.
• He didn't actually give any straight science as to how any of his supposed goodies did what he claimed they did, he only gave pseudo-scientific explanations for things he claimed to have been "proven" in his lab. Throw me a bone, man. He made countless bold claims about physically utilizing various novelty theories that apparently nobody other than him have ever been able to utilize. It's as if the guy read a book or two on theoretical physics and cherry picked a seemingly plausible combination of novelty theories that would explain how his wonder device did its magic. Pure horseshit, but I suppose I shouldn't have expected more since the Huckster Handbook states, "throw enough scientific jargon at them and they'll believe anything"
• He often used the word "could" instead of "can" when talking about things he allegedly does on a regular basis, and used the word "can" instead of "could" when speculating on possible applications of time control technology. I mean, seriously, this is a distinction you'd think a PhD wouldn't have a problem discerning. Likewise, even mildly decent hucksters remember which word to use when they're talking out their ass.
• Art Bell repeatedly, yet mistakenly, referred to the guy as "Professor" and yet Anderson never once corrected him. The man, by the way, is not a professor. Straight out of the Huckster Handbook, "when someone believes you're more qualified than you've claimed to be, don't be the one to correct them"
• He claimed to have "obligations", that he "gave his word" he wouldn't share certain details about the current state of the technology.. yet he did anyway. I don't know what governments and partners this guy claims to work for but in the real world we tend to: A) use Non-Disclosure Agreements to make sure people keep their mouths shut; B) make sure the NDAs prevent them from talking AT ALL about the hush-hush stuff. Your word doesn't mean squat. This was clearly a tactic out of the Huckster Handbook under the section on securing future bookings. I can hear it now, "hey fellas, I'm allowed to talk now, do you want to do another show? ...Please?"
• He, too often, used words like "peers", "scientists", and "fellows", often in combination, solely for the purpose of reminding the audience that he claimed to be a real, live breathing educated scientist fellow, PhD. It was usually said just before or after he made a wild claim about something, just to lend himself a little extra credibility. All it did was make me roll my eyes and think, "not this fellow scientist peer shit again.. he's about to say something nutty."
• He overused certain terms, phrases, analogies, and self-quotes. Shit like "transparency", "time control technology", "human race", "human mind", "time war", "moving through time is like walking across your yard/garden", "we don't see things the way they are, we see things the way we are", "there are cultures that don't have a word for time", etc. That type of crap got awfully old, mighty fast.

All-in-all, it was a disappointing show. I expected better quality time travel tales than this. It had no oomph. I think an assertive, matter-of-fact delivery would have been considerably better than what went down. Opportunity squandered.

Meh.