Skepticism is stupid--a rant

[epepke]

Now that I have your attention, this rant was precipitated by a recent exchange with Eon of the Eons. However, it isn't entirely due to her. These are the thoughts that I get when I am in a community of skeptics, and they're similar to the ones that caused me to give up on sci.skeptic.

I've considered myself a skeptic for about the past quarter century, and it has always seemed to me that the basic ideas of skepticism are as follows:

1) Test everything

Test all ideas, new or old. Test old ideas over and over again, generation after generation. Anything, even if it has been believed in for hundreds of years, could turn out to be wrong.

2) Science is good

Science, for all its faults, is probably the best method anybody has ever come up with for testing things. But it's a method, not an icon.

3) Question authority

Some people have a good track record, and some of these people get to be authorities. However, being an authority is no guarantee of being right.

4) Be conservative

Not in the poilitical sense, but in the sense of not claiming more than the evidence suggests. This doesn't mean that you can't have an opinion or make a guess, just that you should be honest about qualifying it when pressed.

I've argued matters from this perspective for a long time. It's kind of a hobby, as it is for many people here. Yet I frequently become dissilusioned with the attitudes and mindsets of others who consider themselves skeptics. Of course, from an anthropological perspective, the attitudes of a community are defined by the community, so perhaps the majority defines the real skepticism, and I'm just a twit. In that case, of course, I have no sympathy when people come here and call skeptics closed-minded fools.

It is this disillusionment I write about here. It seems to me that many in the skeptical community do things that I consider the antithesis of skepticism. Somewhere in the torrent of "not me's" and strawman accusations, I hope for some actual discussion. Here is a partial list:

1) An almost totemistic fascination with vos Savant's solution of the Monty Hall Problem

This one isn't particularly serious, and it lets me win free drinks while teaching a lesson.

2) Woowoo!

OK, I like the word, and I think that it applies to some people. However, it seems to have promoted this idea that there is an easily identifiable thing called woowooism that can easily be dismissed as bogus, whereas anything that is not "woowoo" has a tendency to be accepted.

3) Authority? Yay!

Somehow, when something comes out of the mouth or from the pen of a Great Scientist or a Physician with Letters After His Name, it gets this imprimateur of Real Science or Real Modern Scientific Medicine for free.

I was actually on a skeptic board at a WorldCon a few years ago, and someone hostile to skepticism pointed out the recent discovery of H. Pylorii and its relevance to ulcers, and how it took a while for it to become accepted by the medical community. I answered the question by saying, this is why we need more skepticism, how the old practice of giving ulcer patients a cream diet was the worst thing that one could possibly do.

Yet perhaps I did not speak for the majority of the skeptical community, who as far as I can tell did not question the old practice of cream diets. Modern medicine probably has a lot of things in it as wrong as cream diets. From my view of skepticism, as I have already explained, old ideas are as suspect as new ideas and all are grist for skepticism.

4) Woowoo, boo!

The flip side of the coin. I have seen many people claim categorically that herbal preparations are worthless. I would like to see such people drink a quart of coffee, drink a quart of white port, smoke a pack of short Camels, and toke a really big spliff and then tell me that herbal preparations have no effect, if they can even stand.

There are very good reasons to dismiss herbal concoctions, that most of them are probably nugatory, that they have not been tested, that identifying and purifying the active ingredients would probably be better, and that their major selling point is being the traditional medicine for 5000 years of a people who didn't regularly live past 50 or so.

Similarly with any weird claim. Either it works out with respect to reality, or it doesn't, or somewhere between the two. The point is that it isn't possible to tell if a claim is true based on whether it is weird or not. Weird claims have a harder struggle; this is probably good and right and appropriate. It's a good thing that quantum mechanics and plate tectonics took a long time and a lot of evidence to become accepted. But it doesn't make weirdness some sort of guarantee of falsity, and non-weirdness some sort of guarantee of truth.

5) Brain and brain, what is brain?

Skeptics are quick to dismiss Freud as nonsense. Yet a lot of them cling to a much older view of the mind as an atomistic monad, some sort of reasoning engine, which has as little support as anything that Freud ever said. In fact, the most basic thing that Freud said, which may yet be true, that the mind is made up of parts that sometimes conflict, seems to be anathema to many skeptics.

Skeptics are even skeptical of the work done on behavioral and cogntive psychology, but they are far less likely to be skeptical of their own conclusions about their own brains/minds/whatever that they get from introspection. Yet psychology by introspection is the most primitive of psychologies and not clearly any less bogus than the rest.

There's probably more, but this is probably enough for now.

[iain]

The trouble is that there's a distinction between living life normally and searching for the truth.

None of us have the time, and few the intellect, to thoroughly investigate everything, so we use rules of thumb to make judgements. Hopefully, most people will realise that a rule of thumb just gives you a guideline.

For example, I don't have the ability to make judgements about whether a medical treatment is good or not. I use the rule of thumb that if the weight of opinion in the medical community is in favour of it, it's probably OK.

This gets me through day-to-day life without becoming a sad, lonely twisted recluse unable to function in real society. What it doesn't do is to give me well founded opinions which I can trust to be accurate (I know for sure that my rules of thumb will sometimes lead to believing something which is wrong).

For this I need to go beyond rules of thumb and use scientific methodology to form hypotheses and test things. I might do this in my job (computer engineer), but probably not elsewhere very often.

In reality there's a big grey area (isn't there always) between the two. For example, I don't believe in evolution because a scientist has told me it's right, but neither have I studied it myself. I believe in evolution because I've read books and articles in which scientists tell me not only that it's right, but also how we know, what tests have been done and where the uncertainties lie. As I haven't done the research myself, it could be that there's a huge conspiracy to make me believe in evolution and it's not true at all. Hopefully not, though.

What you have pointed out (e.g. herbs, taking the word of scientists) may be situations where people confuse the two - as I know I do from time to time - and start thinking that because their rule of thumb says something, it must be that way in reality.

[Peskanov]

epepke, just 2 observations:

Quote:

2) Science is good

Science, for all its faults, is probably the best method anybody has ever come up with for testing things. But it's a method, not an icon.

There was a thread few time ago about this. IMO, categorize science as "a method" is a strong oversimplification. You know, hypothesis and theories don't born from methods. Methods are used just to validate or refute them. I view science as a set of methods, as a cultural trend, and, why not, as an icon. I don't believe science has well defined borders, btw.
Why not be skeptic about science also?

Quote:

Skeptics are quick to dismiss Freud as nonsense. Yet a lot of them cling to a much older view of the mind as an atomistic monad, some sort of reasoning engine, which has as little support as anything that Freud ever said. In fact, the most basic thing that Freud said, which may yet be true, that the mind is made up of parts that sometimes conflict, seems to be anathema to many skeptics.

I don't get this, really. Discussions about the brain on these forums have shown there is little agreement over the matter, everyone has a different opinion. I can't understand your generalization.
About the "reasoning engine": support for this view is simply huge. And there is no contradiction with a mind made of parts.
Maybe I am missunderstanding you?

[thaiboxerken]

Woowoo!

OK, I like the word, and I think that it applies to some people. However, it seems to have promoted this idea that there is an easily identifiable thing called woowooism that can easily be dismissed as bogus, whereas anything that is not "woowoo" has a tendency to be accepted

Hmm.. it seems to me that the word "woowoo" means a belief in something for which there is no credible evidence.

I have seen many people claim categorically that herbal preparations are worthless.

I think most of the skeptics here understand that some herbal remedies can work. However, since there isn't reliable data on most of the herbal remedies, we can't be sure. The herbal people make lots of claims as to the effectiveness of their herbs, yet most of their evidence is anecdotal. I'd rather stick with evidence-based medicines. I'll take Bayer over chewing Willow bark any day.

But it doesn't make weirdness some sort of guarantee of falsity, and non-weirdness some sort of guarantee of truth.

True, but weird claims demand evidence to support them. Weird claims that have failed to give credible evidence time and again really don't need any further entertainment.

[Ladewig]

Quote:

1) An almost totemistic fascination with vos Savant's solution of the Monty Hall Problem

My list of favorite websites includes the Marilyn is Wrong website.

Quote:

4) Woowoo, boo!

The flip side of the coin. I have seen many people claim categorically that herbal preparations are worthless. I would like to see such people drink a quart of coffee, drink a quart of white port, smoke a pack of short Camels, and toke a really big spliff and then tell me that herbal preparations have no effect, if they can even stand.

I have never claimed herbal preparations are worthless. I do cringe at the oft repeated claim that "there are no side effects because it is all natural," but I agree with you that herbal products do not belong in the woowoo category. On the other hand, I have no problem classifying homeopathy as woowoo. Not all unorthodox claims fall into the category of woowoo, but some are so far removed from our understanding of the world that the label of woowoo is not inappropriate.

I make no apologies for labeling the following claims as woowoo:

channeling dolphins
Scientology
homeopathy
intertstellar astral projection
past life memories
Edgar Cayce
astrology
phreneology
reading tea leaves

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Quote:

Epepke said:
3) Authority? Yay!

Somehow, when something comes out of the mouth or from the pen of a Great Scientist or a Physician with Letters After His Name, it gets this imprimateur of Real Science or Real Modern Scientific Medicine for free.

I'm confused. I presume you're talking about believers here, right? You're certainly not talking about the preponderance of skeptics on this forum.

Quote:

In fact, the most basic thing that Freud said, which may yet be true, that the mind is made up of parts that sometimes conflict, seems to be anathema to many skeptics.

Huh? Again, are you sure you're talking about skeptics? Have some of us said that the systems of the brain always operate in lovely smoothness?

~~ Paul

[Prester John]

I think part of the problem is the way arguments spread from one topic to another. Its also difficult to put caveats in every statement made. For example i think homeopathy is a load of rubbish. However i am aware that there is a (very) small possibility that there might be something somewhere in it of actual scientific interest. But saying that every time homeopathy is discussed makes your post longer and dilutes (pun intended!) the actual message you are trying to get across. Then its claimed that you do believe in homeopathy and spend the next few posts arguing minutae. Same with natural herbal stuff, but theres a greater chance that there may be something useful in them.

!
PJ

[c0rbin]

Humans are imperfect.

Skeptics are human.

Skeptics are imperfect.

IMO, any social group you run with will have its ups and downs. At least here, we don't pretend ***** doesn't stink.

::sniffing::

[Andonyx]

Quote:

Originally posted by epepke
3) Authority? Yay!

Somehow, when something comes out of the mouth or from the pen of a Great Scientist or a Physician with Letters After His Name, it gets this imprimateur of Real Science or Real Modern Scientific Medicine for free.

I'm not sure what instances you're getting this from.

I fully admit, I used ot be of that mindset. I certainly would have used authority to sway my view of things well outside the scope of that authority. One of the things that got me off that line of thinking was the logical position put forth here on this very message board.

It's entirely possible that we have had very different experiences, but do you have any specific examples here, or am I mis-understanding you and you were not talking about this particular group?

[jimlintott]

I'm not sure I believe any of this.

[epepke]

Quote:

Originally posted by Peskanov
epepke, just 2 observations:



There was a thread few time ago about this. IMO, categorize science as "a method" is a strong oversimplification. You know, hypothesis and theories don't born from methods. Methods are used just to validate or refute them.

I agree completely. Hypotheses don't come from science, usually. Sometimes they come from dreams, or wild hairs, or something like that. Science is a method of testing them.

Quote:

I don't get this, really. Discussions about the brain on these forums have shown there is little agreement over the matter, everyone has a different opinion. I can't understand your generalization.
About the "reasoning engine": support for this view is simply huge.

As far as I can tell, the best support is for the neocortex as a cognitive dissonance engine. There are some fairly significant differences between this and a "reasoning engine."

[epepke]

Quote:

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

I'm confused. I presume you're talking about believers here, right? You're certainly not talking about the preponderance of skeptics on this forum.

I can only refer you to the precipitating event here. On another thread, in the Science, Medicine etc. I asserted that the notion of a "chemical imbalance" with respect to depression was Folk Medicine, as there was not evidence to support that idea.

Now, I could certainly be wrong about that, and the way to show me wrong would be to point out research that shores this idea up. I do not think that such research exists. Still, I could be wrong.

However, in response, Eos of the Eons wrote:

Quote:

Right. Then diabetes is not caused by insulin imbalances. Schizophrenia has nothing to do with dopamine. Lack of iron has no effect on blood cells.

Folk medicine? This isn't woo wooism here. We're talking modern science and medicine, not folk medicine.

How do you explain depression?

Now, my interpretation of this statement is that, because the idea of a chemical imbalance is part of Modern Science and Medicine™ that it is by that fact not suspect.

If you have a different interpretation, I would love to hear it.

I also see some of the other shibboleths of belief in this passage. First, there are facile analogies. At the end, the "how do you explain depression" seems to me a classical argument from ignorance, not in any meaningful way distinguishable from "you can't explain the origin of the universe, therefore it's God."

Again, if you have a different take, I would love to hear it.

[Eos of the Eons]

It is not the idea of modern medical science. It is simply what has been proven.

I know you hate proof. It flies in the face of your beliefs.

Thus your sour little rant.

Go read some books and learn a few facts, and show me (against all the evidence) how depression has nothing to do with brain chemicals. Tell those women with post partum depression that they are just plain lazy.

[epepke]

Quote:

Originally posted by Eos of the Eons
It is not the idea of modern medical science. It is simply what has been proven.

I know you hate proof. It flies in the face of your beliefs.

Thus your sour little rant.

Sigh. I pretty much expected this kind of reaction. It's disappointing.

Quote:

Go read some books and learn a few facts, and show me (against all the evidence) how depression has nothing to do with brain chemicals.

Sigh. Again, I expected this kind of reaction, and it's still disappointing. I never asserted that depression has nothing to do with chemicals in the brain. Nor did I come even vaguely close to such an assertion.

Quote:

Tell those women with post partum depression that they are just plain lazy.

Ooh, good one! I'm sure there's a group somewhere where you can trade this for bonus points.

The question is whether you can get bonus points for it here. I'll wait and see. If you do, it will give me more information about this forum.

[Peskanov]

Quote:

As far as I can tell, the best support is for the neocortex as a cognitive dissonance engine. There are some fairly significant differences between this and a "reasoning engine."

Epepke, I am one of those who defend the material nature of consciousness on this board; please think a bout this a moment:
Most of those discussions take place in the R&P foums, and I am not defending skepticism there, I am defending the materialist position.
I don't know if I am skeptic enough about materialism, and I don't really care too much about it, I reckon.
The idea of consciusness being a particular operation of the brain comes from the neuronal model of brain. If you consider the model validated enough, it's natural to think the whole mind has to be the operation of the brain.
If you consider the neuronal model incomplete...then it's another story. To be fair, I think the neuronal model has so much proof behind, that it's perfectly reasonable to accept the materialist position being an skeptic.

[epepke]

Quote:

Originally posted by Peskanov


Epepke, I am one of those who defend the material nature of consciousness on this board; please think a bout this a moment:
Most of those discussions take place in the R&P foums, and I am not defending skepticism there, I am defending the materialist position.
I don't know if I am skeptic enough about materialism, and I don't really care too much about it, I reckon.
The idea of consciusness being a particular operation of the brain comes from the neuronal model of brain. If you consider the model validated enough, it's natural to think the whole mind has to be the operation of the brain.
If you consider the neuronal model incomplete...then it's another story. To be fair, I think the neuronal model has so much proof behind, that it's perfectly reasonable to accept the materialist position being an skeptic.

This is an interesting question. I'm not going to get too heavily into materialist versus non-materialist, if only because I can't always figure out what "materialist" is supposed to men. The best I can make of it it that it is something opposed to Cartesian dualism. I also think it reasonable for a skeptic not to assume Cartesian dualism.

With respect to some neuronal model, which I personally think is fine (although I might be wrong), my complaints with the neocortex as a reasoning engine are much more boring.

The cognitive-dissonance reducing function of the neocortex, which I think is well supported by experiments done in the 1950s (though, again, I could be wrong), is only part of a rational model of the neocortex. Classical logic has a number of different ideas, such as the notion of something that is logically prior, which do not seem to be basic functions of the neocortex. Therefore, while the operation of the neocortex resembles logic in some ways, it does no resemble it in enough ways to be treatable as a logical system.

With classical logic, one starts off with some axioms or observations that are presumed to be true, and then goes, making syllogism and the like, from there. This does not appear to happen, by default, in the brain. The neocortex appears to be about as likely to throw out evidence from the senses as it does to throw out beliefs, all other things being similar. Which wins, it seems, it the result of a complex process that cannot easily be interpreted by assuming reason.

[Peskanov]

Epepke, obviously I missunderstood your argument about the "reasoning engine".
I agree that the notion of the neocortex acting as a "logical machine" is quite naive, no problem with that.
I thinked you were referring to a lower level, the idea of the brain as a computer, that is, a machine which processes information. There is a lot of people here who oposes this view due to a narrow understanding of what a computer is...

[voidx]

I get the impression you really have more of a problem with Eos than with "skeptics". Like was said, people that say they are skeptics are just people, and have all the inherent faults therein. This means that at times when they hop into a topic they know very little about, they may be tempted to talk out their arse, rather than just say...this isn't an area I know much about, I simply don't know. But in general most of your examples are kind of vague so its hard to tell. You have the Eos example, and the reasoning example, it seems many have already come out saying they aren't seeing the problem you're putting forth. As I mentioned in the another thread I at times dislike the term "skeptic" as much as I dislike the word "woo-woo". I would say if you have a problem with certain people, and their level or version of "skepticism" then make your arguements directly against those people. To make them agains "skeptics" is to unfairly, and in many cases to falsly apply them to the whole community. I've noticed some of the things you mention to an extent, some people are very hardline in their version of skepticism and sometimes break the rules that they try to apply to others. But I wouldn't say its the majority of the posters here. But hey, I could be wrong .

[asthmatic camel]

Epepke, if I understand you correctly, your point is that sceptics are not sceptical enough for your satisfaction. I agree to some extent. No-one alive has the ability to approach every single issue without some preconceptions though, whether they be culturally based, a product of experience or even due to what is commonly referred to as "mental illness".

Most posters on this board at least make an effort to question the "givens", which is not a common trait in the general population.

Surely you'd agree that discussion with sceptics, of whatever variety, is preferable to banging ones head against a brick wall in an attempt to talk sense to the believers ?

Interesting post by the way.

[Suggestologist]

Quote:

Originally posted by epepke
Sigh. Again, I expected this kind of reaction, and it's still disappointing. I never asserted that depression has nothing to do with chemicals in the brain. Nor did I come even vaguely close to such an assertion.

There's an epidemic of either/or thinking among the "skeptics" on this forum. They need a dose of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Aristotelian logic leads to the epistemological use of either/or distinctions.

Quote:

Originally posted by Ladewig


My list of favorite websites includes the Marilyn is Wrong website.



I have never claimed herbal preparations are worthless. I do cringe at the oft repeated claim that "there are no side effects because it is all natural," but I agree with you that herbal products do not belong in the woowoo category. On the other hand, I have no problem classifying homeopathy as woowoo. Not all unorthodox claims fall into the category of woowoo, but some are so far removed from our understanding of the world that the label of woowoo is not inappropriate.

I make no apologies for labeling the following claims as woowoo:

channeling dolphins
Scientology
homeopathy
intertstellar astral projection
past life memories
Edgar Cayce
astrology
phreneology
reading tea leaves

Ah excellent! I'm a woo woo then. Better then being a complete pr*ck i.e a so-called "skeptic".

[Clancie]

Quote:

Posted by Ladewig

I make no apologies for labeling the following claims as woowoo:

channeling dolphins
Scientology
homeopathy
intertstellar astral projection
past life memories
Edgar Cayce
astrology
phreneology
reading tea leaves

Plus

Christianity
Judaism
Hinduism, (to name a few, right?)

....Yes?

Quote:

Originally posted by Ladewig



channeling dolphins
Scientology
homeopathy
intertstellar astral projection
past life memories
Edgar Cayce
astrology
phreneology
reading tea leaves [/b]

How utterly ludicrous can you get, including "reading tea leaves" with "past life memories"?

Quote:

Originally posted by c0rbin
Humans are imperfect.

Skeptics are human.

Skeptics are imperfect.

You ain't kidding!

[Kerberos]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Ladewig
channeling dolphins
Scientology
homeopathy
intertstellar astral projection
past life memories
Edgar Cayce
astrology
phreneology
reading tea leaves [/b]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Quote:

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


How utterly ludicrous can you get, including "reading tea leaves" with "past life memories"?

Yes shame on you Ladewig, tea leaves are no good Everyone knows that crystal balls are the only way of seeing the future *gazes into the misty debth of the ball*: "I see a fire" http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showt...threadid=34701

[thaiboxerken]

Quote:

Originally posted by Clancie

Plus

Christianity
Judaism
Hinduism, (to name a few, right?)

....Yes? [/b]

This is true, religions are woo woo as well.

[thaiboxerken]

Quote:

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


Ah excellent! I'm a woo woo then. Better then being a complete pr*ck

But Ian, you might not be a "pr..." but you certainly are an a-hole.

[Eos of the Eons]

epeke just has a problem with taking what he gives. It riles him that he can't prove his stance.

I don't call myself a "skeptic". I came to these boards because I found it admirable that people here don't go on about their beliefs and how they know the "truth" because so and so said so.

Quote:

Nor did I come even vaguely close to such an assertion.

Now you are outright lying. You yourself said that depression having anything to do with brain chemicals are a "folk story".

You also poo pooed any evidence that there is. You can't prove your stance, so you point fingers and lie.

Nice.

The only thing I've asked for is proof. You just stand around saying "just as I expected".

Yes, you expected that I ask for proof, so give some already.

Don't run for cover in here and lick your wounds by whining to everyone about how it is "typical" for a "skeptic" to ask you to prove your point with evidence instead of saying

"that's not true, that's not true, you are just saying that because you heard someone else say that."

Then you rant on about flies instead of stating why brain chemicals have nothing to do with depression.

I'm not here to get "points". I'm only pointing out why you can't come here, tell someone they are totally wrong contrary to the evidence, and then not back it up.

[epepke]

Quote:

Originally posted by Peskanov
Epepke, obviously I missunderstood your argument about the "reasoning engine".
I agree that the notion of the neocortex acting as a "logical machine" is quite naive, no problem with that.
I thinked you were referring to a lower level, the idea of the brain as a computer, that is, a machine which processes information. There is a lot of people here who oposes this view due to a narrow understanding of what a computer is...

Not a problem. Of course, I'm well aware that any mathematical system can be approximated to an arbitrary degree of precision with gates. I also don't see that there is anything about the brain that is a smoking gun such that there is a good reason to assume that it cannot also be approximated to an arbitrary degree of precision with gates. Of course, there could be, but I don't see any compelling evidence, and in the absence of that, I'm more comfortable proceeding with the tools that we have.

[epepke]

Quote:

Originally posted by Eos of the Eons
Now you are outright lying. You yourself said that depression having anything to do with brain chemicals are a "folk story".

No I didn't.

What I said was that the concept of a "chemical imbalance" as the cause of depression was a case of folk medicine. I did not make any assertion that it had nothing to do with chemicals. This would be a stupid assertion, because just about everything in the body has something to do with chemicals.

Look. It's really very simple. The notion of a chemical imbalance went out of mainstream medicine a couple of hundred years ago, when people stopped believing that disease was caused by an imbalance of the humors.

Serotonin is not part of the diet, although hallucinogenic mushrooms have a metabolite which is a serotonin analogue. Therefore, any serotonin in the brain is made by something in the body.

Are you with me on this so far?

Now, because depression can effectively be treated either by increasing the amount of available serotonin (with MAOIs) or by inhibiting reuptake of serotonin (with SSRIs), of course it has something to do with serotonin, but this is not an etiology.

I've written all this before.

There are a number of possible etiologies. Perhaps there is not enough serotonin. This suggests that the mechanisms for producing serotonin might be faulty in some way. Perhaps there is a difference in anatomy or physiology, one such possibility I have already written about, according to which even normal levels of serotonin are ineffective in depressed patients. Perhaps there is some other basic mechanism, unknown and possibly not guessed at.

Any of these, if there were good evidence for them, might constitute a real etiology, or cause, of the condition. But there is insufficient evidence, and so the cause is not known.

Are you still with me?

This is what I said, and it is what I continue to say.

Come on! Even the Zoloft commercials admit that the cause of depression is not known.

Quote:

The only thing I've asked for is proof. You just stand around saying "just as I expected".

How can I possibly give you proof for anything if you aren't even willing to read and understand what I write?

[epepke]

Quote:

Originally posted by asthmatic camel
Surely you'd agree that discussion with sceptics, of whatever variety, is preferable to banging ones head against a brick wall in an attempt to talk sense to the believers ?

Interesting post by the way.

I'm not so sure. This exchange feels a lot more like a brick wall than when talking to believers. At least with believers, you know where you stand.

I mean, I think I'm talking in clear English, but what comes back is something totally different from what I said.

[epepke]

Quote:

Originally posted by voidx
I get the impression you really have more of a problem with Eos than with "skeptics". Like was said, people that say they are skeptics are just people, and have all the inherent faults therein. This means that at times when they hop into a topic they know very little about, they may be tempted to talk out their arse, rather than just say...this isn't an area I know much about, I simply don't know. But in general most of your examples are kind of vague so its hard to tell.

That's fair criticism. Since there's a thread now, I'll try to post specific examples in the future. Obviously, presenting a vague impression is not good evidence to convince people; but in this thread I mainly wanted to start and get some feedback.

[epepke]

Quote:

Originally posted by Suggestologist
There's an epidemic of either/or thinking among the "skeptics" on this forum. They need a dose of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Aristotelian logic leads to the epistemological use of either/or distinctions.

I'm going to deal with only this assertion; it's my habit to deal with specific assertions.

I think you may be right about this. I have great respect for Aristotelian logic, but like everything, it only works in a certain kind of box, and you have to appreciate the parameters of the box.

I'm reminded of the time a few years ago when I gave a talk about "The Psychology of Belief and Unbelief." It was mostly a taxonomy talk; I presented a dozen or so models of belief and compared and contrasted them. Of course, Aristotelian logic was one of them; I had to include it, because it is so well known. If there was an opinion presented, it was that people generally don't use reason unless they have an emotional attachment to it.

I expected this opinion to cause controversy, but, as usual, the most interesting thing came totally out of left field. I recounted a story of someone I had known by the name of Eugene, who considered himself a chanting Buddhist, the kind that says "Nam Myoho Renge Kyo" over and over again. There was an exchange between him and a roommate of mine, which seemed to me emblematic of evidence-unawareness, but that doesn't bear going into. When I speak, I like to liven things up informally, and as Eugene claimed that he could get anything he wanted, I reported my thinking at the time, which was, "Eugene, why don't you wish for a chin?" It was a bit of a cheap shot, I'll admit, but seriously, if I could get anything I wanted by chanting, I'd wish for more hair first of all, and Eugene's most unprominent feature was his smooth and protruberance-free mandible.

Anyway, a member of the audience came up to me and told me that she was about ready to come up on stage and beat me up for being sexist. I was interested in why she came to that conclusion, as while I may be sexist, I didn't think that I had made that a point of the talk, and I am always looking for ways to improve my public-speaking skills. She responded with the idea that I had said, "Eugene, why don't you wish for a chick?"

It turned out that she was hard-of-hearing, which she admitted. More interestingly, she was a logic teacher and had trouble following my talk past the Aristotelian bit (though nobody else did). I found it ironic and amusing that someone ostensibly committed to logic could have come to such an emotional, irrational conclusion that resulted from a sensory defect that she already knew she had.

I got symbolic revenge a couple of years later, when she gave a talk which basically reduced to showing the "When God was a Woman" videotapes. Some of the attendees, knowing that I was not entirely ignorant of physics, jokingly asked me how you tap into those energy meridians. I jokingly replied, "Well, you just drive a spike down with a wire," and they appropriately replied, "No, a spike is too phallic."

Quote:

Originally posted by epepke


I expected this opinion to cause controversy, but, as usual, the most interesting thing came totally out of left field. I recounted a story of someone I had known by the name of Eugene, who considered himself a chanting Buddhist, the kind that says "Nam Myoho Renge Kyo" over and over again. There was an exchange between him and a roommate of mine, which seemed to me emblematic of evidence-unawareness, but that doesn't bear going into. When I speak, I like to liven things up informally, and as Eugene claimed that he could get anything he wanted, I reported my thinking at the time, which was, "Eugene, why don't you wish for a chin?" It was a bit of a cheap shot, I'll admit, but seriously, if I could get anything I wanted by chanting, I'd wish for more hair first of all, and Eugene's most unprominent feature was his smooth and protruberance-free mandible.

Anyway, a member of the audience came up to me and told me that she was about ready to come up on stage and beat me up for being sexist. I was interested in why she came to that conclusion, as while I may be sexist, I didn't think that I had made that a point of the talk, and I am always looking for ways to improve my public-speaking skills. She responded with the idea that I had said, "Eugene, why don't you wish for a chick?"

It's sexist to want to have a girlfriend??

[epepke]

Quote:

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


It's sexist to want to have a girlfriend??

I wondered about that, too, as Eugene didn't have a girlfriend, either. His social engagements seemed to consist of Stammtisch, where I met him, and semi-weekly travels to Albany, Georgia, where apperently saying "Nam Myoho Renge Kyo" is a popular thing to do. But I did not mention this.

I guess, inasmuch as I can guess at irrational reactions, that it was simply to the word "chick."

Quote:

Originally posted by epepke


I wondered about that, too, as Eugene didn't have a girlfriend, either. His social engagements seemed to consist of Stammtisch, where I met him, and semi-weekly travels to Albany, Georgia, where apperently saying "Nam Myoho Renge Kyo" is a popular thing to do. But I did not mention this.

I guess, inasmuch as I can guess at irrational reactions, that it was simply to the word "chick."

When I was doing my first degree at University I remember being called a sexist for the most ludicrous reasons. For example, on one occasion when I was talking to this female student, I referred to men being physically stronger than women. And I deliberately emphasised the word physically as I knew that students, especially female students (albeit not exclusively so), would call me a sexist and argue that women were just as strong as men. But invariably it transpired they were using the word strength in some vague obscure metaphorical sense. Anyway, despite me saying physically stronger, I was still called a sexist by this female. And even when I got her to eventually realise I was simply talking about physical strength, and physical strength alone, there was considerable reluctance on her part to acknowledge the truth of this. Actually I remember one male student getting very aggressive with me, on another occasion, about this and screaming "where's your evidence!"

Actually, at University I have at various times been called a sexist, a racist, a fattist and an ageist! The guy who scremed at me "where's your evidence" once accused me of being all 4! LOL Needless to say, none of these accusations had the remotest merit.

At least I've never been accused of being a speciesist!

[asthmatic camel]

Quote:

Originally posted by Interesting Ian

~SNIP~
Actually, at University I have at various times been called a sexist, a racist, a fattist and an ageist! The guy who scremed at me "where's your evidence" once accused me of being all 4! LOL Needless to say, none of these accusations had the remotest merit.

At least I've never been accused of being a speciesist!

But you are II, you detest camels.

[epepke]

Quote:

Originally posted by c0rbin
Humans are imperfect.

Skeptics are human.

Skeptics are imperfect.

IMO, any social group you run with will have its ups and downs.

I keep hoping for an up that is greater than zero. It's probably a peronality defect of mine.

[Soapy Sam]

You're a Peronist as well?

[epepke]

Example:

http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showt...1&pagenumber=3