Tons of people have written on this, but as this blog is really for me, I wanted to get these thoughts down. Further, the focus elsewhere has mostly been on how skepticism is, in fact a more open minded position than the woo flavor of the day. This video sums up that position perfectly, so I won't go into that here.
What I wanted to discuss is why people think that. Recently, I have been encountering a lot of this "Don't be so closed minded" attitude from people around me. When I examine my own speech, and try to put myself in the other persons shoes, I can see why they might think such a thing.
These aren't stupid people, and they aren't making money by selling alternative medicine, nor are they chiropractors, astrologers, or anything like that where they have a financial advantage for promoting a particular brand of pseudoscience. They honestly believe that Joe Mercola is a good source for health information, or that vaccines cause autism, or that doctors have one single modality for improving health (a pill).
They didn't get there through blind faith, when they read something crappy or dangerous like Natural News, they think they are doing research. How can they know differently? They didn't go to school for science, they haven't done a PhD where you necessarily have to drill down deep to get a fully understanding of a concept, they have never had a need to understand multiple perspectives of a concept (especially perspectives that you don't already agree with)in order to wean out what claims are supported by evidence and what are not.
These are tasks that skeptics tend to do all on their own, without guidance. But without that tendency shared by skeptics, or without some sort of training to do it, or without the desire to even listen to perspective that go against their preconceived notions, how can those people (and let's not fool ourselves, we are talking about the majority of people) know that doing some reading, or listening to someone who looks like a doctor, or listening to a trusted friend, isn't the same thing as weaning out truth?
So when a person has a knowledgebase, that includes something like "there is energy in your body that can be manipulated by needles", and a skeptic says "that's not true", it's not really a surprise that they would call the skeptic closed minded. Further, the person, for the most part, will not know how many blog posts, how many journal articles, how many test results, and how much research the skeptic has gone through to actually get to the position he or she holds. Without that knowledge of how the skeptic has acquired their disdain for the woo, the skeptic does in fact just seem closed minded.
For the most part, I don't think skeptics enjoy dissecting claims without having the outlet to share. That is why some of us have blogs, some do podcasts, some simply get into conversations on topics. However, if we really want to teach, if we really want to make any sort of stride into the mind of a person who is wasting money or harming themselves with pseudoscience, it is important to get your thoughts compiled into the realm of their preconceived notions.
For example, when someone talks to me about a soul, I often ask what color it is. I haven't said, "souls don't exist". When they tell me its invisible, I ask the next question about weight, then the next about size, then location, etc etc. I'll sometimes ask about how it works with twins, or miscarriages. For the most part, I can enter into a conversation on an equal plane as the woo, and not appear closed minded. These sorts of questions don't say "you are wrong", they say, "tell me more about it".
That isn't to say I can bring people to the light each time I try. Hey, I can't even be sure it has ever turned someone totally off of woo. But it sure is better than having the conversation ending with "You are being closed minded".
From my experience, if someone tells you that you are being closed minded, you are probably coming off that way. Step back, ask some questions based on your knowledge, or delineate how you came to your conclusions.
Logging you in...
Spoony · 768 weeks ago
This is exactly why I'm writing a website about teaching people how to think, but I'm actually building up to the part where I tell them it's called skepticism... I call it the 'Dogs Don't Know It's Not Bacon' approach.
One of the pages so far is about the time I tried to tell this girl that harvestmen ('daddy longlegs') have toxic spray and not venom, and I told her all about them, and she was trying to tell me that I didn't know what I was talking about because she was the one who was bitten by one, not me, and stormed out of the restaurant we were in! It's kinda funny if you want to read it - I'm planning to edit it further, though.
http://sites.google.com/site/corrigendopedia/howt...
It's very tricky getting through to some people about some things....
Also, I like the video! I might use that on my website somewhere...
Techskeptic 69p · 768 weeks ago
David Petersen · 768 weeks ago
Not necessarily the case. Is it really our concern [acting or "being" skeptical] about how people spend their money or harm themselves? This appears to be a crusade to manipulate and control the freewill of others. If they spend money for something they desire [for the sake of argument, religious salvation, comradery, acceptance], that is truly their personal business regardless of potential consequential harm. [And here, I am assuming that you are referring to the physical rather than the abstract of not being informed of the truth. People do live their whole life around a mantra of falsehoods such as political ideology or religion.] This desire to fully understand someone can at best be categorical and scattered now and then with specifics. But the bottom line is that quantification of a person is impossible and really not desired. The wisdom of achieving cognition of a person is to tolerate and respect others and what they believe.
The broader perspective of being "skeptical" is to be analytic in the presentation of events and arrive at a reasonable [logical] conclusion. It is almost Existential. That is fine for the individual and offered as a guideline for others [role of teachers]--not a mandate to express to others that they are wrong and better change their ways to mirror my perspective.
It is good to converse with you Sarah.
David Petersen · 768 weeks ago
Techskeptic 69p · 768 weeks ago
Anyway, your entire comment is basically asking "What's the harm?"
Here is the harm: never mind that the hundreds of thousands of people at that link have hurt themselves, its worse. They hurt others and their children. Sure, someone may be dumb enough to think that praying will cure diabetes, but then they go and pray for their kid to have their pancreas magically cured, and they suffer through ketosis and die a miserable death. Or perhaps they use magic water on their daughter, who has completely treatable eczema, who eventually dies from something so stupid and preventable it would be laughable if it weren't so sad.
worse still is when this same sort of non critical thinking is applied to groups of people and governments. Where millions of dollars gets spent on magic sticks to detect bombs, providing zero added benefit and lots of lost money.
Sure it's not such a big deal if you do something to yourself. these people who fall for such silly notions, hurt themselves from con artists and charlatans, people who have snake oil panaceas foisted on them, generally don't consider themselves to be stupid.
teaching people why and how acupuncture, or homeopathy, or astrology are nonsense is not even close to the same thing as "a crusade to manipulate and control the freewill of others". Its the opposite, its a combination of science and consumer protectionism. in fact I can easily show that skepticism open free will and liberty as having the information, and having to tools to discern nonsense from reality improves your free will, give you liberties that the thousands of people who thought "what's the harm?" didnt get to have (or those little girls, or taxpayers that paid for millions of dollars worth of fake bomb detecting sticks)
The point of this post was that the people who fall for that crap, don't do it willingly, and aren't dumb, and aren't naive. They just have never bothered to question the reality of something, and often don't even care if something is real or not.
still think its a crusade of subjugation?
David Petersen · 768 weeks ago
"Sure, someone may be dumb enough to think that praying will cure diabetes, but then they go and pray for their kid to have their pancreas magically cured, and they suffer through ketosis and die a miserable death. Or perhaps they use magic water on their daughter, who has completely treatable eczema, who eventually dies from something so stupid and preventable it would be laughable if it weren't so sad." "dumb enough"...a bit judgmental exposing bias? They choose what they wish of their freewill.
"Magic Wand Bomb Detector"...Billy May must have been the salesman.
"...these people who fall for such silly notions, hurt themselves from con artists and charlatans, people who have snake oil panaceas foisted on them...." That reminds me of a desperate Steve McQueen traveling to Mexico to harvest the cancer curing benefits of, was it, peach seeds?
You just appear to impose your will of skepticism on others, robbing them of their, right or wrong, privilege of freewill.
"The point of this post was that the people who fall for that crap, don't do it willingly, and aren't dumb, and aren't naive. They just have never bothered to question the reality of something, and often don't even care if something is real or not." "...fall for that crap..."...again your bias is showing. That's true, some "never bothered to question the reality of something". So what. That is their choice.
It is a crusade of convincing someone that they are wrong and that the penultimate objective is so-called skepticism and that is the true and correct way of thinking and living one's life.
Techskeptic 69p · 768 weeks ago
Really? the 11 year old girl who died an agonizing death chose this path through her freewill? The tax payers funding 65 million dollars worth of fraud had free will? You gotta be kidding. I hope.
LOL, I didn't know who Billy Mays was. Now I do.
Steve mcqueen is not the only one who does that. In fact entire clinics have been set up to cater to the rich and foolish. Sadly lots of people go to these clinics in third world nations because they fear science based medicine. Their children suffer more and die since the treatments have zero evidence of efficacy.
"You just appear to impose your will of skepticism on others, robbing them of their, right or wrong, privilege of freewill. "
Baloney. These parents are robbing their kids of their lives and health and free will. I'm not out there slashing tires and preventing them from doing stupid things. I'm here providing a little bit of searchable content so that in some cases (like DECT fears and atheist charities), rise to the top of search results. When I post on something misunderstood (this post in particular was actually written for skeptics), it doesnt stop anyone from ignoring me, it doesn't force them to read what i write, it doesnt stop them from continuing to do dumb things. I provide evidence for almost every claim I make and if I miss something, it usually comes out in the comments. My only hope is to provide something for people who are actually on the fence on a subject. Far different from closing up you mind and essentially killing your kid.
Smarter Thanyou · 768 weeks ago
It must suck to be you.
Techskeptic 69p · 768 weeks ago
It is irrelevant if I can save everyone or anyone, the information I present here is for people who are actually on the fence, or even may not be and are smart enough to challenge their own preconceptions.
Dumb is when you have a preconception and go out of your way to keep it that way. Unlike you, i do not wish for people to remain ignorant. I wish information to be available to everyone, and I wish to encourage thinking and to challenge biases.
Further, I am not the one going into other people's blogs or email or houses to infuse my thoughts. I put it here, making it available for search if people are interested in a topic. Exactly what is the mechanism you are proposing that I am using to save people from their stupidity? If they found me, they are most likely searching about something they have a quesiton on (or ,like you, are here to blather about nothing)
You seem to wish that people who remain ignorant just stay that way. You are the one who is certainly a sad individual.
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