Don't Agonize, Organize

[Jon the Geek]

I sent this letter to Randi last week:
First, I don't mean for this to in any way belittle the great work you do. You have brought freedom from superstition to many, and for that I think all skeptics are greatful to you. But you are only one man.

It seems to me that many of us in the skeptic community spend a lot of time fretting about the seeming slide of the United States back toward the Dark Ages, but, aside from the occasional letter to a chain of stores carrying a dangerous product or to a dean who puts too much trust in a charlatan, we don't do much. So I was thinking, what if you gave us a mission. Choose one prominent person making money and/or doing harm using claims of the supernatural, and set us to letting everyone who will hear us speak or read what we write know how off-the-wall and ridiculous that person's claims are. The first part of our mission, of course, would be to discover all we can of evidence to back up our claims, so we aren't just as guilty of uncritical thought as the people we are trying to bring to the real world. Armed with evidence, we can then tell everyone we can find a way to tell about the disconnects with reality that these people try to pass off. Saying "Homeopathy has been shown to be flawed" doesn't seem to work. But saying "This guy's book on homeopathy contains these things that have been proven false; he's writing junk, and people are buying it. If he actually believes this stuff, he's an idiot. If he doesn't, he's a thief" might (expanded to include actual evidence, of course).

That's just a thought I had tonight after reading your column and some claims of supernatural experiences on a forum (which, sadly, seems to have a higher percentage of skeptics than the general public, but claims of the supernatural are still all too common).

Keep up the fight!
Jon

Randi's reply:
Okay, Jon.

Start organizing....!

James Randi.
Any thoughts on the idea? Any suggestions for places to start?

[eri]

I was thinking about trying to convince more scientists/skeptics to run for the local school boards. It seems like the creationists have WAY too much time on their hands and spend it ruining the future of our children. Not that I have children, but I think I'm already mad enough at the creationists without kids. We need a few skeptics to donate some of their time to keeping this crap out of our schools. I may be moving to the Bible Belt next year, and I plan to run for school board in the local area.

What do you think?

[Soapy Sam]

I think you must be very careful that such an organised attack- because that's what it is- does not get out of control.

In any group you will have a range of personalities. Some will be less patient than the rest. (For example- here we have the entire population of this board, but only Jon- a newcomer to the board- is calling for this sort of organised action. So it's fair to wonder how typical his attitude is.)

The people who respond favourably will be, naturally, those most keen to take this kind of action. That creates a like minded group. The controls (whether wise, cowardly or lazy) are lost. The group dynamic changes. There is now a tendency to up the ante a little, to outdo each other, just a little. This can result in runaway feedback. Next thing you know, you're invading Iraq.
(This is ironic humour- but I hope you see my point).

I don't say you are wrong. It could work- but before you start you need rules and a way to enforce them.
What will you do if one person, less patient than the rest , steps over the line and does something which your target views as an actual threat to him, his family or his livelihood? What if someone gets hurt?

There's a thread on here about animal rights activists who have destroyed a family business in the UK. I don't like those people at all, but I find it possible that they started out with highly moral intentions, just as you are doing. Somewhere along the way, they lost control to a militant fringe and turned into terrorists.
What controls do you propose to stop that?

Eri is proposing action through existing channels- to get on his local school board and pay attention to what kids are taught. That seems to me like a better course.


ETA- Jon - I'm coming across very negative. I agree with you that it would be good to raise sceptics visibility in the community , but I think it needs to be handled within a framework of strict behaviour. We don't want to get the same image PETA has.

[Mojo]

Originally posted by Jon the Geek
Choose one prominent person making money and/or doing harm using claims of the supernatural, and set us to letting everyone who will hear us speak or read what we write know how off-the-wall and ridiculous that person's claims are.there are people on this forum who are already doing this sort of thing: http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=43141

[Jon the Geek]

Great work on the Kaz thing, JREFers! That's exactly what I'm talking about :)

Soapy Sam: Yes, it could easily get out of hand. That part worries me, but the goal should be to only tell the truth and inform people, never directly attacking the person who we're discrediting (the "If he actually believes this stuff, he's an idiot. If he doesn't, he's a thief" line was going a bit too close to attacking, for example, so I wouldn't recommend using that wording in anything). I just know that using the Tom Cruise fiasco as a launchpad for telling people what Scientologists actually believe moved many of my friends from thinking of them as a harmless newish religion to a crazy and rather stupid cult.

Oh, and about being new... I've stopped in from time-to-time over the last year or two, but never moved over from my usual forums until I spent some time in the IRC chat.

[BS Investigator]

Maybe there could be a sub-forum here for "Skeptical Activism," where peope can rally and organize campaigns against high-profile kooks and quacks.

[Francois Tremblay]

Attacking one specific person makes no damn sense. You ruin one person's career in quackery, another one will fill the need. You ruin five careers, ten will pop up. And you'll be accused of hate speech. Have you thought this out at all ?

[Mojo]

Originally posted by Jon the Geek
Great work on the Kaz thing, JREFers! That's exactly what I'm talking about :) JREFers in general can't take credit for that: it really is just RSLancastr acting alone.

Choose your charlatan and go for it!

[Jon the Geek]

Originally posted by Francois Tremblay
Attacking one specific person makes no damn sense. You ruin one person's career in quackery, another one will fill the need. You ruin five careers, ten will pop up. And you'll be accused of hate speech. Have you thought this out at all ?
By pointing out the flaws in the thinking of a particular charlatan, they become an example of the crazy things believed by people who believe the same things. Examples teach better than general statements. For example, if I'm trying to explain equilibrium, I might use an example of two competing shovelers working to empty and fill a hole, and how eventually they'll reach a steady state. This works better than just saying that two competing reactions eventually level off.

Yes, I just used an example there on purpose. See how much better it worked than simply giving a statement?

As for being accused of hate speech... it can't stand up if nobody, you know, uses anything that could be claimed to be hate speech. As I mentioned, my "idiot/thief" bit in the letter was going farther than I think we should go. Just say what they believe, and have answers ready when people ask why it matters (focusing on the harm done to people, allowing them to make their own connections to the harmer).

Mojo: I have to give more than RSLancaster credit. Yes, RSL did MOST of the work, but others offered a great deal of help in that thread.

So... choosing a charlatan. Any suggestions?

[Humphreys]

Kent Hovind.

Could there be a better candidate?

[Humphreys]

Originally posted by Francois Tremblay
Attacking one specific person makes no damn sense. You ruin one person's career in quackery, another one will fill the need. You ruin five careers, ten will pop up. And you'll be accused of hate speech. Have you thought this out at all ?

I guess the right idea would be to completely discredit the false claims a person makes, not the person himself.

That way you're not destroying a person, but a whole area of false claims, just a little more aggressively than we're doing now, because skepticism is spread very thinly.

Creationists and other gullible thinkers, tend to not be very knowledgable, and intellectually lazy. They like to follow one person (Kent Hovind, as an example), take his claims as gospel and put complete trust in him.

Edit: I suggest a strongly worded letter campaign! With insults and name calling!!

[BS Investigator]

Originally posted by Francois Tremblay
Attacking one specific person makes no damn sense. You ruin one person's career in quackery, another one will fill the need. You ruin five careers, ten will pop up. And you'll be accused of hate speech. Have you thought this out at all ?

Randi has gone after many notable individuals, like Peter Popoff, and destroyed them. Overall, it does help the cause, beause the public remembers these scammers going down in flames. Even if it only chips away at the mountain of BS, it's worth doing. Also, when you attack bogus ideas in general, sometimes it's not as compelling as actually seeing one major figure in the movement exposed as an example.

Indeed, Hovind is a perfect target. ;)

[Francois Tremblay]

Originally posted by BS Investigator
[B]Randi has gone after many notable individuals, like Peter Popoff, and destroyed them. Overall, it does help the cause, beause the public remembers these scammers going down in flames.

1. How many believers accept it ? Otherwise all these actions are ultimately just preaching to the choir.
2. Did it lower the rate of acceptance of TV preachers ? Has this been measured ? Or do you just assume it did ?

[Mojo]

Originally posted by Francois Tremblay
1. How many believers accept it ? Otherwise all these actions are ultimately just preaching to the choir. "True believers" are going to be difficult, if not impossible, to influence. They're likely to ignore anything they consider to be "negative." It's really the "not yet believers" we need to get through to. That can be done by encouraging them to think critically about the BS they'll encounter.

[LordoftheLeftHand]

Jon the Geek,

I like the idea but I think Soapy gave a valuable warning:



Originally posted by Soapy Sam

I don't say you are wrong. It could work- but before you start you need rules and a way to enforce them.
What will you do if one person, less patient than the rest , steps over the line and does something which your target views as an actual threat to him, his family or his livelihood? What if someone gets hurt?

If you’re really serious about this, maybe you should write a charter or rules for a new organization. Get a website or something and post a link here for it. It wouldn't have to be part of JREF but this could certainly be fertile recruiting ground. I'm interested.

LLH

[billydkid]

Originally posted by Jon the Geek
I sent this letter to Randi last week:


Randi's reply:

Any thoughts on the idea? Any suggestions for places to start? To my mind (and not to bring politics into this at all) skeptics are similar in character to libertarians - not inclined to want to organize and inclined toward individualism.