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Skeptic Summary #240

Completely idiotic, hunting witches, Oprah's whacky world of health, em are deity, opinions are like... and more!

The list of complete idiots - Not to be confused with the much longer “Complete List of Idiots.”

Witch hunt! Destroy the evidence at once! - If it ducks like a quack…

The world according to Oprah - It’s actually a sick, sad world.

Editor’s Choice: Mr. Deity season three, for god’s sake! - He’s still got it.

“My Opinion on Opinions,” by Robert T. Carroll. Excerpt from the essay:

Since first using Kahane’s text I have been sympathetic to the view that critical thinking instruction should be about more than just skills like recognizing contradictions and identifying fallacies. I tried to encourage my students to develop a disposition to critically examine the presuppositions of their own culture as expressed in textbooks, TV news, daily newspapers, political speeches and policies, religions, science, and in their personal values and beliefs. I wanted my students to have no sacred cows and to become skilled in making judgments about whatever subject they were investigating. I wanted them to understand that a critical thinker doesn’t just have opinions, but has cogent reasons for those opinions. Skepticism is a useful tool in the process of evaluating evidence and arguments, but it is not the goal of critical thinking. Suspending judgment until all the evidence and arguments have been fairly evaluated is essential to arriving at the most reasonable judgments. Suspending judgment, which may have been the goal of some of the ancient Greek skeptics, is not the goal of critical thinking. Making informed judgments is the goal.

A question I was asked frequently over my thirty-five years of teaching college students was: Do you want our opinion in our essays? My stock answer was: Of course. I want your well-reasoned opinions. But I don’t want a list of your beliefs. Many of my students had been wrongly taught that facts are good, opinions are bad. How many times have we heard: “that’s not a fact; that’s just your opinion.” We’ve seen this sentiment expressed by many creationists, who think that theories are opinions and evolution, being a theory, is not a fact but an opinion. Evolution, however, is both a fact and an opinion (a theory). It is a fact that evolution has occurred and there are various theories that try to explain how it occurred. There is a common misconception that facts are opposed to opinions. This error seems to be one of the chief cognitive deficits of those who think they have offered a meaningful criticism of something they disagree with by simply asserting that their opponent is expressing his opinions.

We have had several discussions here at SFN on the subject of opinion. Some have been contentious, to say the least. So here Robert Carroll puts the role of opinion into perspective as it applies to critical thinking and skepticism. That’s my opinion of his opinion, anyhow…

SkeptiQuote: Beliefs are scarcely more private than actions are, for every belief is a fount of action in potentia. — Sam Harris

Wednesday: We started the night off with a quote by David Hilbert, “We must know. We will know.” From this emerged a philosophical discussion on math and science, as well as whether or not math is a science. Once everyone fulfilled their geek quota for the day, talk moved on to Yellowstone and supervolcanos. I suppose if anything is close to a “Rapture,” that has to be it. With people getting married, moving across the country and various job changes, chat became mostly about future plans of members, both short and long term. Especially short term with TAM7 coming up in just two weeks.

Come chat with us.

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Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America — and Found Unexpected Peace, by William Lobdell.



“A former religion reporter for the Los Angeles Times, Lobdell recounts in this plainly written memoir how he became a Protestant evangelical, nearly accepted Catholicism and, in the end, rejected faith altogether. Central to the arc of this memoir is the unfolding sexual abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church, which Lobdell covered in depth during his time as a religion reporter, beginning in 2000. Despairing of the role of priests and bishops in that scandal, he refashions his identity as a crusading reporter out to cleanse the church of corrupt leaders. But after finding that his investigative stories about faith healer Benny Hinn and televangelists Jan and Paul Crouch appear to make no difference on the reach of these ministries or the lives of their followers, he gives up on the beat and on religion generally. Lobdell subjects his faith to the rigors of rationalism. If Christians are no more ethical than atheists, why belong to a church? It’s a curious utilitarian argument that sounds more like a rearview explanation than a revealing account of loss of faith. Still, the memoir’s strength lies in the wrenching emotional toll exacted by the Catholic abuse scandal. If nothing else, it suggests reporters may have been victimized by the scandal, too.”

— Publishers Weekly

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