Paul Crowley

I think to some extent she may be overly charitable to both cultures - some New Agers really are idiots, and some "skeptics" really are assholes - but I'm certainly a big fan of identifying the cultural differences between groups that seem unable to comprehend each other. I feel fortunate that for the most part I'm able to have both sides of that particular one treat me as an insider. I'm not sure exactly how that works, but if I can figure out how to share it, I hope to.

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She now seems to feel very much that she doesn't belong in either - she believes the New Age culture is deeply mistaken to the core in a damaging way, while she finds the atmosphere of the skeptical culture intolerably poisonous. You don't feel either of these things?

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Depends on how broadly you define the cultures, especially on the "skeptic" side. There are very few people who call themselves that who I respect. I'd probably agree that among the people who actually use that word, the culture is very close to intolerably poisonous. But I work every day doing research among people whose job titles include the word "scientist" (my own doesn't, but some of the jobs I'm currently paid for do have "Research" in their titles), and I think the people who call themselves "skeptics" believe themselves to be part of the same culture as the people I work with.

It's harder to define New Age because members of the culture I think she's talking about don't necessarily have a single term for the entire culture - many who I'd include as part of the same general category would distance themselves from the particular term "New Age" - but it includes both fluffbunnies and others.

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It sounds like you feel that the skeptics are mistaken to the core too.

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Well, I think most of the "skeptics" are. I wouldn't go as far as everyone who is skeptical being wrong, but these days, being a "skeptic" seems to mean something other than being skeptical.

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What is it that it means besides being skeptical? Could you give an example of something a skeptic has said that illustrates the kind of mistake you're talking about?

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One example would be the precession canard frequently used by people who try to "debunk" astrology. It goes something like this:

"Astrologers don't know about the precession of the equinoxes, nor that there are actually thirteen constellations in the Zodiac instead twelve. So when they say the Sun is in Aries, it's actually in Pisces, and they ignore Ophiucus completely. Ha, ha!"

That's comparable to saying "Chemists don't know that there are actually four elements, they think there are over a hundred, ha ha!" except that the people who propagate the precession canard actually expect to be taken seriously on it.

Some people who say it are just repeating what they've heard from other "skeptics" and haven't looked into the facts behind it. Some people who say it honestly believe that after thousands of years of making precise observations of the skies, astrologers really haven't noticed that the equinox moves and really don't know where the constellations are. And I think some, hoping to make astrology look bad, are deliberately lying about the whole thing while being aware that astrologers use a coordinate system in which 30-degree intervals of longitude measured from the equinox wherever it happens to be at the time are named after but not identical to constellations that were roughly in those longitude intervals at the time the names were chosen.

None of those three explanations reflects well on the person making the claim. Blind faith in authority, failure to check or even think about surprising factual claims, and deliberate political lies are all among the things "skeptics" claim to be against.

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Further to previous, some examples of people calling themselves skeptics and propagating the precession canard: 1 (http://www.skeptics.org.uk/article.php?dir=articles&article=astrology_and_precession.php), 2 (http://www.skepticfriends.org/forum/showquestion.asp?faq=6&fldAuto=42), 3 (http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/zodiac.html).

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Yes, even Dawkins gets this wrong on "Enemies of Reason" - it always makes me wince now.

In general I think looking for internal inconsistencies like this is always the wrong path for skeptics (or atheists for that matter) to take - it can be entertaining, but unless you know the subject very well you expose yourself to having points like this scored off you. I would always advise instead highlighting the disconnect from evidence.

I don't think this is a matter of extremism - it's not that they are too skeptical of astrology at all - it's just poor rhetorical technique. It's also of course poor rhetorical technique in exactly the way the above articles highlight - it may entertain your fellow skeptics but it's not going to convince any astrology believers; it will rather drive them away in fact.

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It's also poor rhetoric in the same way as saying "drugs kill", "half a glass of wine in pregnancy will deform your baby" or "Catholics are cannibals", in that people who know something about the subject know that you're wrong, so they won't listen to any good arguments you may have.

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Thank you for recommending that - a lot of it feels very like some of the things I've been saying less cogently over the years.

One experience I would strongly recommend to skeptics I know is to watch as much as you can stand of the Penn and Teller Bullshit show on climate change. I found the experience very like what I imagine a committed and non-fraudulent new-age practitioner gets from some of the other skeptical shows.

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Mmm, I've read plenty of climate-denier stuff and I think I know what you mean.

I watched Dawkins's "The Enemies of Reason" and found it very frustrating. I wasn't hoping it would convert the former Karla McLaren's of this world, but with that tone it would make very ineffective evangelism even for the people who half-believe without really having seriously considered whether it was true. I wanted to take the images and re-dub it with my own soundtrack that was intended really to persuade. And of course it wasn't that I disagreed with barely a single word of it.

It's funny; I've never heard him criticized for being strident about general superstition, while he gets the harshest words about his supposed stridency specifically about religion. In fact, he goes a lot easier on religion than he does on superstition, but people expect it about the latter and not about the former. That could be an argument that it's important to be more strident than people expect about religion, and less strident than they've got used to and tuned out on about superstition.

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climate-denier

Which would be either 10 or 40 depending on whether we lose the gulf stream or not?

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damerell.livejournal.com

Now I like P&T, but Bullshit's more of a mocking show than a debunking show, and when it gets into that Cato Institute crap it shows; there isn't any serious attempt to prove the point, and that does help when their point is unprovable.

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Oh I agree - and I find it noteworthy that few skeptics will point this out when the mocking is in their favour. (And the show does claim to have evidence, of course.)

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damerell.livejournal.com

I don't know. I rather went off Bullshit when more than a few of the season 2 episodes were mocking tragically deluded individuals rather than cynical moneyspinners, but I certainly remember saying "well, yes, but such-and-such doesn't actually follow..." once or twice.

I think it would be a mistake to hold Bullshit up as a shining example of skeptical rhetoric. If I don't make that mistake I don't really feel obliged to point out every time the rhetoric is weak. :-)

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It sounds like the precession error

mskala is talking about above is very similar to the climate change experience you're discussing.

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Somewhat. Or people who think the old testement says Pi=3

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friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com

Some interesting comments from her there, but I am a little unsure of the phrase "converted to scepticism" myself. It implies that it's more like a faith than a methodology.

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I recognise the problem - what might be a better way of putting it?

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I prefer 'convince' to 'convert' myself

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This is the problem that I have with some of the skeptics. A few of them were hardcore something else, and they did "convert" like someone would change religions. I feel that way especially about Michael Shermer.

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Interesting - could you give an example?

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I think in one of his books Shermer discusses how he was an extreme cyclist. Extreme cycling and extreme marathons are basically see who can cycle/run the furthest without dying in 24 hours. These are absolutely nutty things to do. He has taken on his skepticism of everything with the same zeal.

For example, he goes and does something like this (http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/07-01-17.html). I mean it is okay to be skeptical, but you would think that skeptics would look at the sources of their information before swallowing stupid stuff whole.

I think Karla McLaren achieves a better balance than Shermer does.

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Sadly, lots of people fall for hoaxes - how many people on your friends list fell for the story that there was a Happy Endings Foundation that planned to burn childrens books with unhappy endings?

Falling for a hoax can be very illustrative of your state of mind. It's interesting that people fell for the Sokal hoax, or a recent similar hoax on global warming denialists, because they shouldn't have found it plausible on the face of it and it's telling that they did.

Shermer should have checked his facts before forwarding this, yes. I wish I could say that Shermer should have seen it wasn't plausible on the face of it, but with the Republican war on science being what it is I'm not sure I can.

It sounds like you're saying that you expect a higher standard of care towards fact-checking from skeptics than from the general population, and that it's an indictment of skepticism as a philosophical position that individual skeptics don't meet this higher standard. I'm not sure that makes sense.

In any case, it's a long way from showing that skepticism needs less extremism. If anything, the problem you're showing here was that Shermer wasn't extremist enough.

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Shermer isn't just falling for a hoax. He is propagating the hoax by publishing it in his magazine.

I am more concerned about doubt without any particular method behind it. For example, the global warming deniers doubt global warming not because there is evidence that supports them but because it doesn't fit with their political position. The evolution doubters are not doubting for any reason other than it doesn't fit in with their religious theory.

I want people who are going to go about doubting things to do it a little more scientifically.

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Shermer isn't just falling for a hoax. He is propagating the hoax by publishing it in his magazine.

Sure, and that makes it worse, but how does that make it an illustration of extremism?

I want people who are going to go about doubting things to do it a little more scientifically.

Now you seem to be saying he doubts too much, but your example illustrates him not doubting enough.

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I think that we are disconnecting on the language. Shermer didn't doubt enough if you are measuring depth of doubt and researching the source of the information he is trusting. My concern is more of breadth of doubt going from someone who believes whatever people tell them to instantly not believing anything anyone tells them.

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Nevertheless the connection to extremist skepticism seems tenuous at best; being overprepared to believe the worst of the Bush government isn't necessarily anything to do with skepticism. Do you have a more direct example of how Shermer's skepticism is too extreme that might better illustrate the problem you're trying to highlight?

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I don't know if it is extreme skepticism or his willingness to latch onto dumb ideas in the first place that bothers me. I feel he is wishy washy. For example, he was a global warming skeptic after reading one book until he listened to Al Gore (http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=13&articleID=000B557A-71ED-146C-ADB783414B7F0000). He was a fundamentalist Christian until he was an athiest. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Shermer)

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Have edited to use slightly different wording, though even this isn't wholly free of the overtone you note.

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angeoverhere.livejournal.com

That's fabulous. I can't wait until she *does* get round to doing that PhD..

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Interestingly Barbara Walker [1] is another person I would recommend to people who fine some kinship with New Age culture without wanting to believe things that aren't true. Maybe we should do a list fo resources? I've been looking for some stuff to use my new web pages for...

[1]Particularly The book of sacred stones: fact and fallacy in the crystal world and The skeptical feminist: discovering the virgin, mother, and crone

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