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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 07/28/2009 : 09:45:14 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by aleph_naught
Cheers everyone, some great stuff. That openmindedness video in particular is absolutely brilliant.
The wonderful thing about Sagan is that he was so very <i>nice</i> about it all. He didn't try to bludgeon people over the head or belittle them like some of our present-day prophets. No disrespect to Dawkins, Hitchens et al - they are absolute giants of intellect and they have an important place within our movement, but if we want to bring more people round to our worldview being confrontational about it isn't gonna help.
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Skepticism is a part of the scientific method. Thanks to people like Sagan, we have a movement to show people how to use an already accepted set of tools that are also beneficial in the broader context of decision making in the day to day world. We use the tools to determine the value of a claims that are coming at us from all directions as a way to sort out what works and what doesn't work. Sagan was not primarily interested in promoting atheism. Certainly, atheism can happen if the tools of skepticism are used to challenge a personal belief in God. As a consequence, many skeptics are atheists. But in general, it's the set of tools, critical thinking and the sci method, that was being promoted by by Sagan, and continues to be promoted by us skeptics.
On the other hand, polling has shown that atheists are the least trusted people around. Hell, in this country you can't get elected if you don't profess some kind of God belief. And while it can be argued that homeopathy is just as dangerous as withholding proper treatment of a medical condition based on a belief that God will heal you, those of us who point out the danger of substituting an evidence based treatment in favor of a quack treatment like homeopathy are not suddenly marked as the bad guys by the general population. People who think homeopathy works may not like what we are saying, but they rarely accuse us of persecution and blasphemy. (Keeping creationism out of science classrooms is an example that Christians often point to of our persecution of them. The ban on school lead prayer is another.) Pointing out that religion kills has often been seen as taboo. Pointing out that religion is irrational angers the majority of people, because the majority of people are believers, at least to some degree. Those people, that you have mentioned, Dawkins and Hitchens, are fighting that fight. Writing and defending a book like The God Delusion is going to offend a lot of people and there is really no way out.
The only other choice seems to be to leave some ideas that are subject to skeptical inquiry alone, because more than a few people will be offended. As though there is some kind of critical mass, when an idea becomes untouchable simply because most people cling to that idea. And really, there is no nice way, however diplomatic we may try to be, to tell people that their entire belief system is based on an unevidenced premise and subject to the same kind of skeptical inquiry, using the same tools that we use to debunk a quack medical procedure.
As Dave said, I don't know, as skeptics, when we are not being confrontational. Challenging a belief is by its very nature confrontational. All that has changed is that more people have stepped up at this time to challenge religion. And to many, including some skeptics, doing that is still seen as taboo.
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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aleph_naught
New Member
New Zealand
4 Posts |
 Posted - 07/28/2009 : 20:55:56 [Permalink]
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I don't necessarily think that that approach is inappropriate, particularly on a broader social level.
But in my experience, on an interpersonal level, beginning a dialogue by saying "Your belief in X is wrong" is not productive. People who are not of an intellectual bent will take this as a personal criticism and immediately become defensive and unwilling to consider alternative views (at least, this is true of people I have encountered).
In my opinion it is far better to start with "Hey, check out this science thing, it's pretty rad", and guide people to draw their own conclusions based on sound reasoning. I think on a broader social level, too, it is important that as well as trying to debunk irrational and dangerous beliefs we also educate people about the history of science and why it is so important.
Ridicule and contempt are all very well for appealing to those who are already predisposed towards our worldview but I think it also puts up barriers for the layperson, who sees that attitude and ignores the content of our message.
Many of you will probably be familiar with Dawkins' theory of memes - the notion that ideas spread and involve in a fashion analogous with genes. Presuming that this is an adequate description, it seems to me that the most effective way to approach the skeptics' mission is not to scream at people "YOU ARE WRONG ABOUT THIS AND THIS AND THAT OTHER THING" but rather to introduce new, positive ideas to people which can propagate and replace outmoded modes of thought.
In no way however am I suggesting that we should pussyfoot around religious or new-age beliefs, I think we ought to be very blunt in exposing the irrationality of such things (though it is of course the sin rather than the sinner that deserves our contempt). It would be disingenuous to do otherwise and I personally would never be so dishonest as to tell somebody "I respect your belief in crystal healing" or similar such wishy-washyness.
To me it is merely a question of where we devote our time and resources. It *is* important that we draw attention to ourselves and that we expose quackery, but I think that there's a big chunk missing from our current approach. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 07/28/2009 : 22:54:41 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by aleph_naught
But in my experience, on an interpersonal level, beginning a dialogue by saying "Your belief in X is wrong" is not productive. People who are not of an intellectual bent will take this as a personal criticism and immediately become defensive and unwilling to consider alternative views (at least, this is true of people I have encountered). |
And there's another group of people who will take "your belief in X is wrong" as a personal criticism, immediately become defensive, but after you show them why it's wrong you'll turn into their go-to guy for finding out whether this or that whacky thing is worth spending time and/or money on (usually not). Which group is larger in the general populace is arguable, and obviously, local pockets of near 100% incidence of one type or the other exist.| In my opinion it is far better to start with "Hey, check out this science thing, it's pretty rad", and guide people to draw their own conclusions based on sound reasoning. |
The real problem, though is when people actively flaunt their unscientific ideas. Show 'em a cool and scientific YouTube video about ion-wind "lifters" that explains how they work (and even shows how they're the more-or-less the same technology in the "Sharper Image Ionic Breeze Quadra Silent Air Purifier"), and they'll come back with "so scientists have created an anti-gravity device" or "so that's how UFOs work, right?" People draw their own conclusions all the damn time, and often the conclusions they reach are simply dead wrong.| Ridicule and contempt are all very well for appealing to those who are already predisposed towards our worldview but I think it also puts up barriers for the layperson, who sees that attitude and ignores the content of our message. |
We've been talking about this here, recently. Ridicule and contempt can also help the people who haven't even considered a particular proposition. Seeing it ridiculed may be their first prompt to assess a question, and to do so critically. Those who immediately jump to support the ridiculed position simply because the ridiculers are being mean aren't likely to be swayed by a respectful scientific debunking, either. Many people have a "root for the underdog" attitude (or even worse, an "all ideas have equal merit" attitude) which gets in the way of any criticism, no matter how gentle.| ...it seems to me that the most effective way to approach the skeptics' mission is not to scream at people "YOU ARE WRONG ABOUT THIS AND THIS AND THAT OTHER THING" but rather to introduce new, positive ideas to people which can propagate and replace outmoded modes of thought. |
I try to do both. Except it's mostly "That idea is wrong, and here's why," without the all-caps shrillness.  | To me it is merely a question of where we devote our time and resources. It *is* important that we draw attention to ourselves and that we expose quackery, but I think that there's a big chunk missing from our current approach. |
A long time ago, I thought it was a waste of resources to have more than one organization devoted to psoriasis education, outreach and research. I came to understand that the different groups around the world have different methods of reaching the same goal (elimination of the disease and/or public acceptance of its victims). And while I could still fault some group or other on very specific details of how they tried to accomplish the primary goal, it was eye-opening for me to realize that the broader methods were all about equally untried, so having multiple pathways to the same end allowed for a sort of crude, real-life competition between different sociopolitical mechanisms to solve a problem. So while it would be fantastic if my personal "favorite" psoriasis charity got 100% of the money and volunteering donated to psoriasis charities around the world, it would also mean that a whole lot of ideas about how those resources should be directed wouldn't get tried out unless whatever "my" group happens to be doing is undeniably a failure (which rarely happens in real life).
So later, when I began to get into the skepticism "movement," and the same sort of question popped up (namely, "why should there be more than one skeptical group/charity? Doesn't that lower the level of outreach we could do if all our donations went to one place?"), the answer was already available to me ("yes, but if that one group/charity is doing things the wrong way, then all of our donations are going to waste. 'Don't put all your eggs in one basket' isn't good advice only because it's old advice").
To sum up, while the "sweetness and light" approach to spreading skepticism may reel in some people who would be turned off from the "ridicule and contempt" approach, the latter will appeal to still other people. The only argument is over the people who encounter the approach that disgusts them before the approach that appeals to them, but if they're unwilling to change their minds then I don't think we really want them, anyways. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 07/28/2009 : 23:43:47 [Permalink]
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aleph_naught said:
In my opinion it is far better to start with "Hey, check out this science thing, it's pretty rad", and guide people to draw their own conclusions based on sound reasoning. I think on a broader social level, too, it is important that as well as trying to debunk irrational and dangerous beliefs we also educate people about the history of science and why it is so important.
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This method has been in use for a long long time. In the big picture it is not all that effective, apparently. On a person to person level (where your audience is actually the person you are talking with) the niceguy approach may be better.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Good introduction to skepticism?
