Thanks for the advice. You are right to say that Piratis is full of inconsistencies and contradictions .... except in one respect. He is consistently a bigot when it comes to things Turkish or Turkish Cypriot.
Not having had enough of baseless ad hominem attacks on PRIO he then makes ad hominem attacks on the individual researchers - on what grounds ? That Mete Hatay is Turkish Cypriot - that alone in Piratis' eyes is enough to condemn him and his research. Piratis, because he is quite incapable of dealing with method and problems in demographic research - no reason why he should have that competence, it is a specialist field after all - does the only thing that Piratis seems able to do, namely attack people personally.
He's equally mistaken about PRIO funding. He assumes, because he is lazy and prefers to confirm his bigotry rather than even do one moment of investigation, that because all funders are not listed on the website that it must mean that funders are 'undisclosed' and that - next big leap in his imagination - that must mean that a hidden funder is T or TC. (Following his last reply he clearly has not read or understood the research disclaimer that PRIO publish). The fact is that tens of thousands of independent organisations do not publish a full list of funders, mainly because of lack of space and time, but that does not mean that they are hiding or refusing to disclose. If Piratis could be bothered to get up off his bigotry he could ask PRIO for a full list of funders, including for this particular project, and see what they say.
The PRIO report itself was written by a Turkish Cypriot Mete Hatay, with the help of his wife, other Turkish Cypriots, and some foreigners.
So Piratis being a foreigner now also disqualifies a person from being independent ? Being married to a Turkish Cypriot also disqualifies one from being independent as well ? Well it looks as if in the Piratis-Fantasyland an independent researcher (i) cannot be Turkish, (ii) cannot be Turkish Cypriot, (iii) cannot be related to either T or TC, (iv) cannot be a foreigner, (v) cannot use T or TC data .... the sum of these brings Piratis to the inescapable conclusion that the only independent researcher or research is a native GC only using RoC data. (And god help the GC who came to similar conclusions to the PRIO report, for in Piratis' eyes that would only be evidence of him/her being a traitor or a T/TC in disguise)
And this all goes to show what Piratis is fundamentally incapable of understanding : the notion of independent research does not arise from or derive from the person of the researcher - Turkish, Greek, Russian, Bolivian, Catholic, Jew, Hindu - but from the nature of scientific method.
Does anyone still want to claim that the above report is an independent one?
Yes, Piratis, I do because the scientific method is more robust than other demographic studies that I have seen. Piratis has failed to point to any other demographic research - from whatever source - which could have lead me to change my mind. If he can I'll be interested to read it ... but I won't be holding my breath.
