The Randi Show – “Why Skepticism Matters” – Live from Dragon*Con 2012

The mission of skepticism, with an emphasis on communicating the importance and understanding of clear thinking and science, is more vital than ever in an increasingly uncertain and politically divided world. Here are some good reasons why.

Web Picks Sceptique for March 24, 2011

• Nice! A cool little interactive terrain map of the planet Mercury, by MESSENGER…

• A study suggests the extinction of religion in nine nations. Maybe, but I’ve heard this sort of thing before…

• El Chupacabra? Not even real as a genuine myth…

• at Lousy Canuck’s blog – Presuppositional apologetics: still intellectually bereft…

• at Mad Art Lab, a Tribute to the kick-ass Fukushima 50…

• Further forays into the tantalizing possibilities of Quantum Computing – without the quantum flapdoodle…

• from our friends Down Under at ABC – Why conservatives are climate change sceptics…

• Judgment Day? Yeah, right…

• How NOT to change a climate sceptic’s mind…

• Farewell to computer pioneer Jean Jennings Bartik…RIP…

Things I’m NOT Overly Skeptical About: Part II

Image via Wikipedia

Continuing from the previous Tuesday, this part describes a few more ideas of which I’m not particularly critical unless a real need presents itself.

That being said, it can hardly be honestly claimed that I would enshrine any of them as being gospel truth, since I’ve been down that road before with paranormal beliefs, been burned by the facts, and got the proverbial tee-shirt and metaphorical scars to prove it.

Gullibility bites, even a naive, idealized conception of an otherwise genuine and verified idea, and especially if said idea is neither genuine nor verified…

No, that’s a path already far too well-traveled by Troythulu, and I’d rather make a little extra effort to have a more realistic view of the world — it makes for a stronger skepticism — and it prevents hero-worship and fallacious appeals to authority by yours truly.

While not everything should be regarded with skepticism — such as skepticism — my view is that it is a Bad Idea™ to hold anything but mathematics to be certain in truth content, and even that is highly debated by philosophers, a demographic I do not hold membership in.

So here are a few things of which I am only quasi-skeptical…pseudo-skeptical…diet-coke-of-skeptical…not-quite-skeptical-enough to please those with a distaste for skepticism, and who make this rather plain in their, well, amusing tirades filled with loaded language, factual misconceptions, and logical fallacies my two-year old nephew could pick apart with ease on a bad day.

Yes, I know — Troythulu is evil…and snarky, but just as important as seeing what’s there is not seeing what ain’t. So I accept…

• …that knowledge is superior to ignorance, though not that the knowledgeable are superior to the ignorant for we are all ignorant of something…

• …that it doesn’t take an intellectual giant to understand science provided it is taught well…

• …that no one should be regarded as a saint, even those regarded as saints…

• …that faith in the religious sense has no place in science, even though individual scientists may well happen to be ‘people of faith…’

• …that science, like all human social endeavors, is fallible as are those human beings who practice it…

• …that there are things not only that we don’t know, but likely also those we cannot know…

• …the Holocaust really happened…

• …that the pyramids of Egypt and other similar monuments found there were likely constructed by the historical Egyptians themselves, and that this is consistent with the culture, history, technologies and organizational ability that we know they had…

• …that life likely exists elsewhere in the universe, and that if true, life could well be a necessary consequence of complex chemistry…

• …that all purposeful wrong in the world is due ultimately to ignorance, irrationality, or a toxic mixture of both and often carried out by a generous helping of physical or legal aggression…

• …that taking an unorthodox position merely to be unorthodox, and the fact that one’s ideas are bold and revolutionary does not mean that one is right, nor one’s ideas a science…

• …that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were carried out by members of a conspiracy by an Islamic extremist group, and were not an ‘inside job’ by the U.S. government…

• …for everyone thought to be a crank but who later was esteemed as a scientific icon, there have been countless others in history who will forever be enshrined as nothing more than cranks…

• …that evidence-based medicine is superior in effectiveness to alleged healing modalities alternative only to those based on evidence. It saved my life twice that I can count so far, and on pain of committing the pragmatic fallacy, “it worked for me…”

• …that no supernatural claim that has ever been testable and subsequently verified has ever been found to have anything but a natural explanation…

• …that rational doubt is superior to either irrational doubt or certitude in a search for truth, that the truth is out there, and best reached through valid evidence and careful reasoning…

• …that I am one with all life on Earth through common descent, one with the Earth through chemistry, and one with the cosmos through the atoms of my body which were forged in the hearts of stars…

• …the reality of these things we dogmatically fervent skeptics call “coincidence,” and “probability…”

Unfortunately for the antiskeptic types, this demand that others be skeptical of the very things they are, in the same way that they are, to their unqualified satisfaction to be considered ‘true skeptics,’ is not based on an understanding of what modern skepticism really is, so I think that this demand itself warrants some due skepticism, and can be safely dismissed on the grounds that it is not only unreasonable, but based on seriously flawed assumptions and cognitive mistakes.

In part III, I’ll go over some of the above mentioned assumptions and errors in more detail. I’ll see you then. Fnord.

Related Articles

• The skeptical community (blogs.discovermagazine.com)
• Oprah & Dr. Harriett Hall: Not BFF (randi.org)

Things I’m NOT Overly Skeptical About: Part I

It often pays to be skeptical, to doubt, but there are some things that it pays to normally accept until reasons for doubt present themselves…

We skeptics are occasionally accused by those impatient with us as being true believers in the lies of Big Science, Big Government, Big Pharma, and a veritable host of other wealthy, powerful institutions that present easy targets for criticism by our opposition, or that we are deniers of or naive about the Truth that the antiskeptical hold with such certitude.

Well, I’m perfectly aware of the fact that nobody can be totally skeptical of everything, for if we were, making no assumptions and accepting nothing as true, we’d be unable to interact with the world around us.

I’m also perfectly cognizant of the fact that I cannot be totally rational, but reason is not some ideal I hope to achieve, a goal to reach, an objective — it is a tool, a means of acquiring knowledge and making decisions together with my memory, perceptions, introspection, and when they serve me well, my intuitive faculties — reason is a means to an end, not something I ultimately aspire to.

I let reason and awareness be my guide when I determine if something or someone I trust requires me to exercise my doubt, not mere suspicion, and I’m very conscious — there’s that introspection thingie going on, when it’s reliable — about allowing ideology, my personal belief-system and values to contaminate my assessment.

So, here are a few things, some in all seriousness and some in jest, that this skeptic does not question unless a need to do so presents itself to my scrutiny.

• my cats, especially Mistykins and our Katrina-refugee mamas-boy, Gumbyman…

• skepticism, especially when my introspective ability is more acute during moments of mulling over something, like scrutinizing my own ability as a critical thinker…

• experts in a field with real, relevant, and verifiable qualifications, unless evidence of questionable competence or motivations is apparent…

• the need for evidence over faith and anecdotes in assessing claims, and the evidence had better damn well be sufficient to the requirements of the claim…

• factual claims with a consistently successful previous record of verification…

• the existence of the probable consequences of human activity on global climate change, though with the concession that there is still much room for debate on the matters of the exact effects and what should be done about them…

• the general human need to have an immediate answer, even if it’s wrong…

• the existence of delusions, especially paranoid ones, as a real psychological phenomenon in a universe where things can be whole or mixed truths and falsehoods…

• those limits on what is possible stemming from the laws of the universe, the laws of logic, and the limits of human beings with regard to those laws…

• quantum mechanics, as physicists understand it, not as mystics or paranormalists claim to…

• the fact that I too can be fooled, and must stay alert to possible scams and other assorted attempts at deceptions…

• conventional explanations for allegedly supernatural occurrences, provided that they are both plausible, probable, or better yet, confirmed beyond reasonable doubt…

• that protecting the biosphere of our only current homeworld is more important than short-term, short-sighted, and inefficient, economic growth…

• both the fact of evolution and the theory that describes it – not only as Darwin saw it – but as it exists in its modern form today far beyond what he imagined…

• the fact that the Earth is round, even if not a perfect sphere, and that the Earth revolves around the Sun, not vice-versa, and that we are not at center of the universe…

• the existence of atoms as the basic constituents of chemical elements, as opposed to all matter in the universe being composed of jesutrons and only four elements…

• the existence of gravity, even Newton’s theory, even though it was essentially conceptually wrong, but still produced useful working predictions that we make use of today in launching spacecraft…

• that AIDS is caused by infection by the HIV virus, and not any god’s wrath for a sinful lifestyle or diet, or caused by sitting on dirty toilet seats…

• that vaccines to not have any causal connection with autism disorders…

• that astronauts have landed, walked on the moon, left things there and brought back samples…

• that the ‘face on mars’ is really just a rock formation that looks nothing at all like a face in photos with superior resolution…

• that conspiracies happen, though the successful ones you never even know exist…until they’re no longer successful, then everybody knows about them…

• that the alleged evidence for the paranormal even over time just gets bigger, not any better over the years despite claims of proponents…

• that mainstream astronomers neither ignore nor deny an electromagnetic cause for anything in the universe when observations show this to be most likely the case…

• that the universe began some 13.7 billion years ago in an explosion of spacetime called the Big Bang, until a better model of the universe’s origin is confirmed and established by future observations…

• that the establishment is not bad or sinister just because it’s the establishment…

• that facts we can know about reality are not absolutely yes or no, not really completely true or false, but come in degrees of truth and falsehood…

• that reason is far superior to irrationality in complex decision making with important consequences…

I’ll finish this in two more parts, part II this Thursday evening, to note a few other things I’m less critical about, and explore different intellectual approaches to doubt, those of denial, credulity, and sound critical thinking in part III. Take care, and I’ll see you then. Fnord.

Michael Shermer tests the Polygraph and Lie Detection