Response from an Anti-Scientologist

On my other blog, I just received an irate response from an anti-Scientologist. I repost it here because it is a good example of some of the fallacies engaged in. I'm not suggesting that all anti-Scientologists are this way but I have seen more than one instance where this sort of attitude is displayed by over-zealous anti-Scientology activists, eager to pounce at the first sign anyone in Scientology has died. She writes:

The only thing you are apparently professional about, Ms. Pignotti, is lying. There are plenty of documented cases that illustrate how the scientology cult works to withhold medical care from its parishioners. Here are just a few examples: http://www.tampabay.com/news/article976561.ece
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/cultxpt
Why you continue to alter the facts about scientology is beyond me. When real people die, such as Lisa McPherson, Kyle Brennan and Jett Travolta, these are not "anecdotal stories", but actual cases of neglect and abuse. In the end when the cult of scientology is exposed and punished for lives damaged, abused and even lost, you will be exposed for what you really are, an ignorant debunker of the truth.

My response:

Ms. Zell appears to have missed my point, which is that generalizations from cases such as Lisa McPherson are not necessarily warranted because we do not have nearly enough information about Jett Travolta's death to jump to the kinds of conclusions she jumps to.
Ms. Zell apparently has the lay use of the word "anecdote" confused with the way the word is used by social scientists. An anecdote, in the way I am using the term, doesn't mean that the incident did not happen. Have a look at the Wikipedia article on "anecdotal evidence" for a better understanding, Elizabeth. There are two definitions of the term and I am using the second one:
"(2) Evidence, which may itself be true and verifiable, used to deduce a conclusion which does not follow from it, usually by generalizing from an insufficient amount of evidence."
Ms. Zell and other overly-zealous anti-Scientologists are deducing unwarranted conclusions in this manner.
What happened to Lisa McPherson is not necessarily comparable to what happened to Jett Travolta. Her posting is a prime example of how anti-cult activists quickly jump to unwarranted conclusions in the face of very little evidence. I have not denied that there are any "documented cases". My point is that what happened with Lisa McPherson is a completely different situation from what happened with Jett Travolta.
On the contrary, Elizabeth, I am not "altering facts". I am awaiting facts, noting what facts we simply do not have and may never have and refraining from jumping to unfounded conclusions, something you apparently, in your zeal for a cause, are incapable of doing.

Observe how Ms. Zell has already made up her mind what the truth is about Jett Travolta, thus I am a "liar" from her perspective. At the end of the day, I agree with Harvard Psychology Professor Richard McNally who wrote that the best form of advocacy is to discover the facts about an issue, rather than attempting to turn an "ought" into an "is". We do not know the facts about what happened with Jett Travolta.