Archive for the 'Skepticism'

So Daniel Loxton comments on his tent. I found it exceptionally revealing, just not in the way he probably intended. (From another commenter) Again, it would result in much less heat to declare that atheism/religion in not wiyhin your focus or interest, rather than insisting on a controversial position that plenty of scientists apparently don’t agree with. (Loxton) I’m not about to accept the controversial positions of handful of atheist activists as representative of the wider view of scientists. (These are, you realize, positions novel enough to them that they felt they were good hooks for controversial books?) But regardless, many skeptics have argued just as you ask: that for reasons of division of labour, skeptics will stick to the testable paranormal claims that we do best. Paul Kurtz, for example, argued in 1999 that, As I have said, I do not believe, however, that CSICOP or the Skeptical Inquirer should in any way, except tangentially, deal with religious issues. But my reasons are pragmatic, not theoretical. It is simply a question of the division of labor. We lack the resources and expertise to focus on the entire range of scientific questions about religion: biblical archaeological, biblical and koranic criticism, linguistics, psychology, anthropology, sociology, the genetic or environmental roots of religion, etc. It would take us too far afield. We have focused on fringe science and specialized in the paranormal, and we have made important contributions here. Skeptical inquiry in principle should apply equally to economics, politics, ethics, and indeed to all fields of human interest. Surely we cannot possibly evaluate each and every claim to truth that arises. My reasons are thus practical. Atheist hardliners are no more willing to accept that pragmatic argument than any other. The only answer that will satisfy atheist activists, apparently, is that skeptics must accept that atheist activism is the most important cause in town. ...
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And he offers a historical perspective on Skepticism and Religion. Enlightenment theologians had to strike a bargain with scientific skepticism since they were terrified by a different, far older kind of skepticism: ancient Greek Skepticism. This rationalistic skepticism demanded high standards of provability before accepting anything as knowledge. The basic idea for a rationalist skeptic during the Enlightenment was something like this: Where reason and empirical inquiry cannot confirm, it must be disbelieved as unreasonable. For this rationalist skepticism, all the gods must go. The core of religion, and not just the claptrap, is entirely unreasonable and unbelievable, since no theological argument demonstrates a god’s existence and no empirical evidence is sufficient to support a god’s existence. Instead of saying "No Comment" to religion’s core claims, rationalist skepticism says "That’s unreasonable for anyone to accept." To this day, many skeptics rely on both scientific skepticism and rationalist skepticism. It’s all about the appropriate use of reason. That is why being a genuine skeptic means being a disbeliever and being open about disbelieving everything religions talk about. But joining up with this current Skeptic(TM) movement means never having to tell the faithful how their god isn’t real. Is that too big a price to pay, to get more science accommodated by society? To answer that last question, yes, it’s much too high a price to pay, especially since we aren’t getting a reasonable return on the investment. Science is a disruptive, revolutionary force, and lying about its implications does not lead to acceptance — it leads only to acceptance of an insipid shadow of science.

The skeptics are circling the wagons. I knew they would. It’s what they always do to defend their naive version of “science”. Stephanie Zvan has a good post rebutting Daniel Loxton’s defense of the skeptical delusion that atheism is “unscientific”. I can summarize his argument briefly: “I’m an atheist, skeptics have gone after some religious claims, and science can’t tell the difference between invisible dragons and nonexistent dragons and therefore doesn’t care.” And of course he props all this up with the claim that this is the official scientific view. No, it is not. There is no one true scientific method; testability is not the sole criterion that scientists use to work towards the truth; there is no absolute definition of what constitutes science (nor can there be, I would argue), which is why the demarcation problem is so difficult. Establishment skeptics love to parade their kiddie version of how science works as justification for dismissing atheism as a legitimate scientific position in a way that they would never do to homeopathy or UFOs or any of the other subjects they are willing to pursue. Why, I don’t know. I’ve always assumed it was a political ploy to avoid annoying numerous donors and the mass media, but if they insist it isn’t, I’m going to have to fall back on another explanation: they’re just ignorant. These skeptics love their little gotcha games. Their ideal is the experiment that, in one session, shoots down a claim cleanly and neatly. So let’s bring in dowsers who claim to be able to detect water flowing underground, set up control pipes and water-filled pipes, run them through their paces, and see if they meet reasonable statistical criteria. That’s science, it works, it effectively addresses an individual’s very specific claim, and I’m not saying that’s wrong; that’s a perfectly legitimate scientific...
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Ophelia reports that CFI, at least, has the right idea. ANY large group who feels like they have a particular beef with religion (or pseudoscience, or other wacky beliefs) has a legitimate interest in addressing that problem as a group. At CFI-L.A., we’ve hosted Black Skeptics, Spanish-speaking atheists, gay and lesbian humanists, and others who’ve had specific troubles in our society based on who they fundamentally are. And I say, welcome to our tent. Ideally, our whole movement is a coalition of individuals and groups who all have an interest in promoting a secular and reason-based society. And if some of those groups want to get together to fine-tune their methods for dealing with and changing this uber-religious society we live in, more power to them. How can we help? That’s the way any inclusive organization ought to be: welcome to our tent. Hey, can you help us make our tent bigger? Is there any particular patch of ground we ought to expand into? It also echoes our sentiments exactly when we set up Freethoughtblogs — we want to increase the range of voices speaking for this cause. If you’re looking for friends, it’s really easy to choose between tent-makers and tent-nazis.

In comments on PZ’s “divorce” post, Antiochus Epiphanes sez: Skepticism™ the movement and skepticism, the practice of thinking critically, shouldn’t be conflated. The latter is no great intellectual achievement and should be in the skill set of grade schoolers. That it isn’t may be the motivation of the former, but we shouldn’t expect any intellectual advances to emerge from the movement, because what it’s doing is necessarily remedial. I wholeheartedly agree with the above, and a couple years ago it struck me that skepticism (small-’s') is essentially a form of basic intellectual hygiene, something that everyone is capable of to varying degrees and something that everyone should do. “Kind of like brushing your teeth,” it occurred to me back then, and ever since I’ve quietly replaced references to Skepticism Writ Large with “Tooth Brushing” in my mind. Read more
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