Nature has a short news piece on the Horgan/NECSS spat. I’ve read several of the rebuttals now, and I’m not impressed: I can agree that Horgan’s talk was kind of scattershot, but let’s not go the other way and pretend that organized skepticism is a happy clappy land where all the issues are objectively evaluated and treated with the weight they deserve. There is a terrifyingly substantial number of skeptics who are rank assholes who hate anyone who introduces the concept of social justice into the organization; they are dominated by us privileged white guys, too.
Anyway, the reporter asked me to comment, and I’ve got teeny-tiny mention in the story (which is appropriate, it’s not about me), but since I sent him a longer argument, and I have a blog, I’m including it here.
Steve is correct that there has been frequent discussion about priorities. What he left out, however, is that the conclusion of such discussion has typically been to shout down anyone who argues that there are major social issues that ought to be on the skeptical slate, like war and racism, as Horgan mentions, and I would also add that feminism has been a hot-button issue. Novella is one of the more open people on these topics, so he sees a more benevolent skepticism than I do. I found the intolerance and narrowness of a great many skeptics so frustratingly oppressive, that I had to simply announce that I would have nothing more to do with the skeptical organizations, and stepped away from them as a waste of effort.
There is a fair amount of diversity in the skeptical movement. There are a substantial number of skeptics who buy into scientific racism, for instance, or are climate change denialists, or even, I’ve discovered, a few who believe in flying saucers. At least those latter people get laughed out of the movement, but the others have been dealt with by largely avoiding the topics, because they would bring on too much dissent. And when they do deal with them, they tread far more carefully than they do when addressing psychics or Bigfoot hunters.
On the other hand, Horgan commits the fallacy of relative privation. Bigfoot and chupacabra are silly topics, but as long as a significant number of people believe in them, they are part of the skeptical purview…and they also represent easy learning exercises, a kind of skepticism with training wheels. It’s just that too often, skeptics think they’re smart enough to dismiss UFOs, and then use that cockiness to also dismiss sexism or racism as equivalent. It makes for a very unpleasant environment for a lot of us.
Another concern that should have been brought up is skepticism’s treatment of women. You should definitely get a few women’s voices in your article. Karen Stollznow has had a less than happy experience with organized skepticism; Rebecca Watson has worked happily with Novella in the past, but has some general grievances with both the skeptical and atheist movements. They can tell you about another problem: that chronic harassers are tolerated and even rewarded within skepticism.
I would hope that rather than pretending all of Horgan’s objections are irrelevant, that the next meeting of NECSS makes an effort to include a few speakers who broaden the range and who gore a few dangerously sacred cows, not just the spavined beasts that make for light entertainment.
While I was extremely critical of Horgan, I agree with you on all counts here.
I suspect it has the same problem as the “atheist movement” in that it’s not really an organized movement. NECSS seems to get a lot of people together who identify as skeptics but an annual meeting doesn’t make a movement.
Maybe this will help push some of the not so easy targets into their lineup for next year though.
The only catch is, as I know from personal experience, trying to talk about issues like race or sex or genetic determinism really will get a bunch of the crowd baying for your blood. The one time I spoke at NECSS I consciously avoided any topics that would have antagonized the ‘skeptics’ in the audience.
I guess I’m not as brave as Horgan.
Maybe I’ve lived in Canada too long, because I kept reading ‘sceptic’ as ‘septic’.
Wait, you have a blog?! Lucky ducky! How on Earth does one acquire such a thing?
I remember your talk at NECSS. You deceptively titled it “Cephalopod Porn” or something just to get our asses out of bed at 8AM on a Sunday morning, kinda like church. Then it was all about zebrafish! You are terrible and you should feel bad.
It’s funny how many skeptics brag about how they’re all about being open to the evidence, and willing to change their minds, and the value of confronting different ideas, but when someone actually criticizes them….
Spavined…
I learned a new word today! That’s a good one, too!
The best way for the racist, sexist, denialists to take over skepticism is for people of good character and reasoned thought to hightail out. Don’t give up the fight, I’m not going to tolerate this crap infecting something that can be a source of good in this world. Stick around and give those talks that make people uncomfortable.
That’s a good point, but it’s pretty far removed from Horgan’s speech which doesn’t mention racism in sexism either in organized skepticism or society at large. As for ‘genetic determinism’ Horgan advocated criticism of “scientists discover gene for” journalism which Novella correctly points out is something that organized skepticism has indeed covered.
Why bother to defend Horgan’s irrelevant/incorrect criticisms at all?
waydude @8,
Organized skepticism isn’t the same as skepticism. There are journalists who don’t consider themselves “skeptics” and don’t belong to any organization who accomplish more for “the cause of skepticism” in a single article than all the skepticism conferences ever held.
When PZ announced his “divorce” from the skeptical movement, he didn’t stop criticizing pseudoscience, creationism, or all-around nonsense.
Perhaps they could have a little equine up there with the bovines, while we’re at it.
#7: But now what are you going to rhyme it with?
@12
Might I suggest binned, grinned, or limned?
There were a few things in the Horgan speech thing that raised my eyebrow a little – the medication thing was certainly, if not wrong, over simplified and incorrectly universalised, in my opinion – but he definitely had a point. I’m not sure we should be thinking up lists of things that also need our attention, though – that’s a list that we’re never going to complete if we only rely on ourselves to fill it. I think it would be better to promote and show the value of skepticism itself, as a tool for anyone and everyone, and show the importance of applying our skeptical tools to ourselves, including and especially when we’re being criticised, rather than allowing ourselves to knee-jerk to, “how dare you say I’m not perfect – you’re obviously Hitler!” Mind you, I have no idea how or if it’s possible to sell that idea, even to skeptics, let alone the human population in general.
I agree that no one gets to dictate what other skeptics get to debunk — I think Ben Radford’s talents are perfectly suited to just whining about chupacabras, forever, for instance. The problem is that so many within skepticism actively and loudly scorn many serious concerns that don’t fit neatly into their mantra of “testable claims”, and there’s a painful strain of mindless hero worship at play.
I note what the reporter, Chris Woolston, did with your advice there.
Who are the movement skeptics who believe in flying saucers?
That is, that some UFO’s are extraterrestrial spacecraft or from a parallel universe or something similarly exotic.
I agree with PZ about many of the problems in skepticism, but I didn’t get any of that from Horgan’s article. Instead, I read someone complaining that Skepticism doesn’t cover all these various topics, but they were almost universally topics that I already knew about because of the skeptic movement.
Weird. Steven Novella links to this post and says that I of relative privation, when I thought I was fairly clear that I disagreed with Horgan on that point.
Seemed clear to me.
I don’t see why skeptics shouldn’t believe in flying saucers. I threw a saucer the other day and it flew nicely…until it hit the wall. I recommend testing theories about flying saucers with plastic, not china, saucers.
@PZ #18:
“Weird. Steven Novella links to this post and says that I wrote approvingly of Horgan’s fallacy of relative privation, when I thought I was fairly clear that I disagreed with Horgan on that point.”
I, for one, didn’t read it that way. You did mention that Horgan committed that fallacy, but you followed immediately with a gentle but patronising dismissal of “Bigfoot sceptics”, leaving the reader with the impression that Horgan was mostly right in your mind.
By the way, since you mentioned Karen Stollznow, she’s one of the “Bigfoot sceptics” herself. Her novel about exposing psychics, her work on the Monster Talk podcast… Classic scepticism material! Oops. (Oh, yes, that same podcast uses monsters and mystery creatures to explore issues as varied, and as weighty, as biodiversity & conservation, race, colonialism, feminism, the moral panics of the 80s, cults, the influence of religion in society… All items fit for people who need “training wheels”, eh?)
I got that impression, too, namely that Horgan’s use of the fallacy of relative privation was excusable or not that bad because Bigfoot and Chupacabra are such silly and facile topics.
Surely the point of the fallacy of relative privation is that some topics actually are less pressing than others, but that their being less pressing doesn’t make addressing them the wrong thing to do? It seems quite clear to me, from the part where he writes, “they are part of the skeptical purview…and they also represent easy learning exercises,” that he thinks they’re part of the skeptical purview and also represent easy learning exercises, which seems directly counter to the claim that they’re not topics worth addressing.
How long was it before you found a place to use “spavined?”
What’s interesting about your post on this whole issue is that you actually prove the skeptics right: had John Horgan done his job, he would have criticized organized skepticism for the real problems they have, not the fake ones he made up.
Another point, I’m not sure that by debunking Horgan’s article, skeptics are trivializing or ignoring those other real problems you’re talking about. It’s just that the scope of Horgan’s criticism is quite specific, and so is their response.