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ASp, how seriously can one take Mr. Foster's claim that the "The Night Before Christmas" was authored not by Clement C. Moore (as has been accepted for well over a century) but rather by Major Henry Livingston Jr.? There's nothing new here: The Livingston family has been claiming authorship for years -- and finding no takers. "No one has questioned the authenticity of this account [of Moore's authorship] except the descendants of one Henry Livingston, born in 1748...The Livingston family stoutly maintained that their ancestor was the true author of the ballad. Somehow it found its way into Moore's hands, they claimed, and More was unable to disown it once it had been attributed to him. Stevenson carefully considers the Livingston claim and roundly rejects it. The sole basis for it seems to be that Livingston did write some verses in anapest meter, but, as Stevenson says, all anapestic verse sounds the same."* (Martin Gardener (1991), relying upon Burton E. Stevenson, (1924). That seems solid authority: Mr. Gardner for years authored a monthly column for Scientific American; Mr. Stevenson (1872-1962) is prominent enough to be listed in bartleby.com.) The Livingston claim had been thoroughly investigated -- and rejected -- when a Livingston descendant triggered Foster's interest. Could Foster have simply concluded that a "man bites dog" story would garner him more attention, and royalties, than "dog bites man"? As best I can tell, he neither offered new evidence nor published in any academic journal, subjecting his view to peer review and critique -- and his claim has not achieved scholarly acceptance. ------- * "Anapest" is in the original; not meant in the slightest as a punning reference to any ayleur! 
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Dear Keiva and Anna:
Have the psycholinguists investigated the poem? Can't they pin down just about anything to determined authorship? If they can't, if their powers are so weak, then there goes another favorite illusion of mine, up in morphs!
Best regards,
Wordwisher
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psycholinguists
Seems like just such a linguistic analysis was at the heart of Mr. Foster's research. A century of belief in a lie does not make it the truth. Witness long held beliefs that the common belief during the 15th century was that the Earth was flat and that Columbus was right in his opposition to those beliefs. Columbus and everybody else who cared to look at the evidence knew the Earth was round; Columbus was off by quite a bit regarding the size of the Earth.
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A century of belief in a lie does not make it the truth. Come now, faldage: that's a straw-man argument.
No one suggested that the "general belief" is automatically true. But the betting is that way, and one who would refute that belief has a heavy burden of proof -- particularly if the general belief has survived the test of serious scholarship.
Old notions can be crackpot -- but new notions can be crackpot too, and often are.
As to the specific case, see post below.
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As to the specific case: Foster, though a professor, apparently did not subject his claims to peer review and critique (he went straight to the popular press). He does not even mention Stevenson's contrary study. The book bears a strong smell of self-aggrandizement, a sense that his words are a godlike revealed wisdom: e.g.: "Foster reveals [that] our identities are encoded in our own language. Foster has discovered how to unlock that code, and has invented an entire new field."
IMHO, Foster suffers from what I call "smart person's disease": a diminished ability to recognize that one's own views might conceivably be mistaken. I emphasize that that is just MHO -- but it is a HO opinion backed by specific evidence.
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old hand
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one who would refute that belief has a heavy burden of proof
I don't know if you're saying that's how it should be, but I certainly don't think so. Most people use Occam's Razor and only cut off the piece that they can swallow most easily. Why should the person who actually applies a critical eye to discover the truth be forced with the burden of proof just because the illogical answer is what's socially accepted?
This doesn't mean I'm taking sides in the 'Twas the Night Before Christmas indecision.
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Why should the person who actually applies a critical eye to discover the truth be forced with the burden of proof just because the illogical answer is what's socially accepted?
My logic, jazzo, is that when you opinion differs from the vast majority of informed people, which is more likely: (a) that one person (you) is illogical, or (b) that every one of hundreds (them) is illogical? A decent humility suggests the former; it seems a tad presumptuous to suppose otherwise. That's not dispositive, but it does indicate where the burden of proof lies.
This, or course, does not equally apply to those areas where an opinion is likely to be reached for emotive rather than informed reasons. And please note that I am speaking of informed opinions.
Put more pithily: In a dispute between one person and the universe, I will (absent special reason) put my bet on the universe.
(Parenthically: you and I may be using the phrase Ockham's Razor differently. As I understand the term, the razor also argues for presuming (a) over (b).)
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Wow, I just watched "Grumpier Old Men" for the first time, and one of Burgess Meredith's lines was about your former residence. He had just told Sophia Loren's "mother" that he'd been to Hawaii, and she asked, "Which island?". His reply: "Kummunnawannalayya". Sound it out if you need to! 
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when your opinion differs from the vast majority of informed people
Aside from the fact that the great majority of the people in this issue have been informed by the byline on the reprinting of the poem I must admit sufficient ignorance of the whole argument to ask you for some references for your dissent to Mr. Foster's claims. All I know is that he claimed to have done an analysis of the language in Mr. Moore's work and that of whoever he claims "really" did it and, on the basis of his work, believing that Mr. Moore wrote TNBC would be like believing that Dr. Seuss wrote the Declaration of Independence.
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Faldage, you ask ... for some references? Please see citations I provided above. They have stood the test of time. Why do you find them less convincing than Foster?
You note that the great majority of the people are ill-informed, merely believing what they have read.
1) So what? The "great majority of people" have the same basis for believing that the world is round -- but that does not disprove (or prove) their belief. Your point carries not logical weight.
2) I, however, specifically referenced and cited "informed" opinion.
3) By normal scientific standards, the opinion of one person (e.g., Foster) does not merit accepting his conclusion until it has been tested in the crucible of peer review.
You seem to have accepted Foster (without reading him); you say that disagreeing with him is like believing that Dr. Seuss wrote the Declaration of Independence. Faldage, your statement is IMHO credulous and snippy.
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