Review of the Enigma of the Biblical Shafan, pt ii: What else did Dr. Betech conceal from his readers?

In the first post in this series, by examining Dr. Betech presentation of a klal regarding fins and scales, I showed that while seeming to present a comprehensive discussion of the issue, in fact the discussion was one-sided. It omitted a critical portion of Tosafot that might provide nuance, omitted a Rishon who argued with one of the central points, and banished the contrary Acharonim almost to a brief mention in a footnote.

While he may or may not intend this, the presentation is similarly one-sided through the rest of the book. As one example, as someone recently observed to me (slight editing):

Dr. Betech's book cites hundreds and hundreds of obscure sources that have very little to do with the subject matter. But he doesn't cite Rabbi Slifkin's book even once!

We might not expect Dr. Betech to, given that he was active in the ban. But, for example, does he mention the video evidence, from Rabbi Slifkin, of a hyrax making chewing motions when it had not received recent food? He does not.

In fact, while he knows full well that there is this possible video evidence, in two places in his book, he does not mention it and very carefully words it so as to not technically lie, but still mislead his readers.

One page 118, in the chapter Why The Hyrax Cannot Be The Biblical Shafan, he writes (emphasis in the original):

"The hyrax cannot be the shafan or the arnebet, because even the proponents of identifying the hyrax as the shafan acknowledge that there is no evidence that the hyrax practices rumination, caecotrophy, or even merycism; thus, the hyrax is not "maaleh gerah"."

Who are these unnamed "proponents" who "acknowledged" this?

Is there no evidence? So, this video, is not evidence of possible merycism? The hyrax did not eat recently, and it is performing chewing motions.


 

And Rabbi Slifkin has another video, in which you can actually see motion in the hyrax's throat while it is doing this chewing:


Dr. Betech's answer may be:
a) The answer is that it is evidence of possible merycism, not certain. We cannot know for certain unless we also X-ray the hyrax while it is engaged in this.
b) What Dr. Betech actually said in a comment on my blog, in response to this video evidence:

Sorry for my short answer, I am still abroad lecturing day and night...

Do you have any scientific source supporting your suggestion that the hyrax practices merycism?

As it emerged, he did not consider this video evidence to be a "scientific source", and thus it may be discounted. As he wrote me in a somewhat later response:

You suggested that the hyrax practices merycism, so I asked for a scientific source.
If for you a video it is enough evidence, fine, but please do not expect this to be enough in any scientific forum.

This is what he meant when he misleadingly wrote in his book:

even the proponents of identifying the hyrax as the shafan acknowledge that there is no evidence that the hyrax practices rumination, caecotrophy, or even merycism

Later, on page 162, he once again pulls the wool over the reader's eyes. He writes:

"Practices ectental mastication, however the hyrax does not practice rumination, caecotrophy, or every merycism."

And then, in footnote 469 on that same page, the coup de grâce:

"I couldn't find in the published literature available to me, any scientific source for redigestion practiced by the hyrax."

Note the three evasions that Dr. Betech uses here:

1. "I couldn't find"
2. "in the published literature"
3. "any scientific source"

In long running, annoying threads, Dr. Betech used just this evasive and dishonest tactic #1, saying that he couldn't find something (reference to zoologists who observed hyraxes regurgitate small quantities of food for remastication) in Rabbi Slifkin's books:

I am sorry but I could not find the names of the zoologists that have observed that hyraxes do in fact regurgitate small quantities of food for remastication.

As it turned out, he knew precisely all along what Rabbi Slifkin was referring to but disagreed with the relevance or categorizations. This might be a "good" debating tactic or a way to antagonize your opponents, but in a book written for a neutral audience, saying "I could not find" to obscure information is a fancy way of lying -- (a) using carefully crafted words to hide his intent, and (b) deliberately concealing information that the reader would quite likely find relevant.

When Dr. Betech says "any scientific source" and "published literature" he is excluding the video evidence since it was not published in a scientific journal by a zoologist. As he noted in the comment on my blog.

And he is surreptitiously excluding various items mentioned in Rabbi Slifkin's book, The Camel, The Hare, And The Hyrax, pages 97-101. For instance, Dr. Betech excludes the eighteenth-century explorer James Bruce, and zoologist Dr. Hubert Hendrichs, who claim to have seen hyraxes ruminate. And he excluding "personal communication" to Rabbi Slifkin (since it is not "in the published [scientific] literature"?) from Dr. Hendrik Hoek and Dr. Christine Janis, with observation of chewing motions, which might (depending on interpretation) be evidence towards merycism.

A fair and honest presentation would mention the video evidence and why he chooses to exclude it; it would mention Bruce, Hendrichs, and others, and explain why he does not deem it to be good evidence. Instead, he deliberately conceals the existence of this evidence from the reader. It is a dishonest book.