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#1 |
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Master Poster
Join Date: Nov 2007
Posts: 2,120
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Undiscriminating Skepticism
I think this is a great post http://lesswrong.com/lw/1ww/undiscri...ng_skepticism/
(Actually I think it's a great blog too - careful and detailed consideration of rational thought in general.) I think skeptics would do well to read it and review their stances to make sure they're doing things right
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When I look up at the night sky and think about the billions of stars out there, I think to myself: I'm amazing. - Peter Serafinowicz |
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#2 |
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Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Mar 2003
Posts: 37,866
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Interesting, thanks. I will reread it later.
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I suspect you are a sandwich, metaphorically speaking. -Donn And a shot rang out. Now Space is doing time... -Ben Burch You built the toilet - don't complain when people crap in it. _Kid Eager Never underestimate the power of the Random Number God. More of evolutionary history is His doing than people think. - Dinwar |
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#3 |
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Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Aug 2003
Posts: 13,069
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Quote:
PS: physicist and other are only human. Claims should be looked at their inherent value and evidence, and not at WHO is supporting the claim. It does not matter if a majority of physicist support the claim, if there are NO EVIDENCE for or against it. Everett's interpretation fall unto this. |
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#4 |
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Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: St. Louis, Mo.
Posts: 11,745
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Recall that a number of physicists (and other scientists) were taken in by Uri Gellar. Randi pointed out at the time that scientists do not generally work with fraud and cheating; they expect nature to be sometimes obscure but never dishonest.
As I recall, this was the essential basis for the formation of CSICOP. |
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#5 |
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Jedi Consular
Join Date: Feb 2008
Posts: 3,103
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"But I do propose that before you give anyone credit for being a smart, rational skeptic, that you ask them to defend some non-mainstream belief. And no, atheism doesn't count as non-mainstream anymore, no matter what the polls show. It has to be something that most of their social circle doesn't believe, or something that most of their social circle does believe which they think is wrong. Dawkins endorsing many-worlds still counts for now, although its usefulness as an indicator is fading fast... but the point is not to endorse many-worlds, but to see them take some sort of positive stance on where the frontiers of knowledge should change."
Great idea. |
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"Faith in what?" he asked himself, adrift in limbo. "Faith in faith," he replied. "It isn't necessary to have something to believe in. It's only necessary to believe that somewhere there's something worthy of belief." |
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#6 |
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Grammaton Cleric
Join Date: Oct 2009
Posts: 7,114
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Stopped reading around the time he admitted he hadn't checked but was just going off his memories of what Project Blue Book said. The whole thing seemed to be a load of assertions that any true
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"The perfect haiku would have just two syllables: Airwolf" ~ Ernest Cline "Science knows it doesn't know everything, otherwise it would stop" ~ Dara O'Briain. |
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#7 |
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The Terrible Trivium
Join Date: May 2009
Location: Nethescurial
Posts: 7,975
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"The only thing you can do easily is be wrong, and that's hardly worth the effort." - Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth |
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#8 |
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Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: The Biggest Little City in the World
Posts: 28,349
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"Oh god...What have you done, zooterkin? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!?!?!" - Cleon |
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#9 |
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Thinker
Join Date: Feb 2010
Posts: 161
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...And I thought skepticism was not about defending beliefs (mainstream or not) but examining the facts.
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#10 |
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Illuminator
Join Date: Jun 2007
Posts: 3,787
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It's amazing how many of these "paranormal" icons seem to merge together. There always seem to be theories about how they link together in some way. I'm sure someone has a very good explanation as to how Bigfoot killed JFK to help cover Roswell.-Mark Mekes This isn't rocket surgery.-Bill Nye |
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#11 |
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Illuminator
Join Date: Nov 2004
Posts: 4,425
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Heaven forbid someone reads these words and claims to be adversely affected by them, thus ensuring a barrage of lawsuits filed under the guise of protecting the unknowing victims who were stupid enough to read this and believe it! - Kevin Trudeau |
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#12 |
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Howling to glory I go
Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 10,379
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If people needed video games to live, a national single payer plan to fund those purchases would be a great idea. |
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#13 |
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Illuminator
Join Date: Nov 2004
Posts: 4,425
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Hmmm… I understood what the article was saying.
God does not exist. Most people believe that God exists. So a belief that God exists is mainstream. A person who believes that God exists is a woo. A belief that that God does NOT exist is, therefore, non-mainstream. But a person that believes that God does NOT exist is not necessary a skeptic. A person who believes that God does NOT exist is a skeptic only if the person arrived at that belief through critical thinking and skepticism. A person who has the same belief, but who adopted that belief simply because it was popular among their friends, is a poser (pseudo-skeptic) because the person has not actually done any critical thinking or skepticism. The poser can defend skeptical positions by repeating the same arguments he has heard his friend use. So if we want to know whether the person is an actual skeptic using critical thought or just a poser regurgitating the beliefs and statements of his or her friends, then we can do so by having the person defend a position that not popular with their friends. If the person can defend a position that his or her friends do not hold, then we know that the person is establishing his or her own beliefs using critical thinking and not simply adopting the beliefs of friends. I’m not that concerned with applying labels to people or testing people’s critical thinking skills, but if you wanted to do that in this type of situation, this seems to make sense to me.
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Heaven forbid someone reads these words and claims to be adversely affected by them, thus ensuring a barrage of lawsuits filed under the guise of protecting the unknowing victims who were stupid enough to read this and believe it! - Kevin Trudeau |
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#14 |
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Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: The Biggest Little City in the World
Posts: 28,349
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The person was stating that atheism cannot claim to be non-mainstream, as his/her definition of non-mainstream is something that "most of their social circle doesn't believe, or something that most of their social circle does believe which they think is wrong." However, as the blogger noted, most polls show that most people do think atheism is wrong, hence by the blogger's own definition it is non-mainstream. Granted, the blog is based in the UK where the demographics are different, but to make that a general claim is self-contradictory.
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"Oh god...What have you done, zooterkin? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!?!?!" - Cleon |
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#15 |
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Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: The Biggest Little City in the World
Posts: 28,349
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Close, but the blogger it taking it a bit further than that. They are suggesting that "skeptipoints" should only be awarded to those who defend an idea that no one takes seriously, at least not yet. Really, really fringe stuff. As such, their definition of non-mainstream needs a bit of tweaking. The blogger is looking for people who support things that are actually ground-breaking. |
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"Oh god...What have you done, zooterkin? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!?!?!" - Cleon |
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#16 |
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Persnickety Insect
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Sunny Munuvia
Posts: 16,346
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I don't believe things that no-one's even thought of yet.
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Free blogs for skeptics... And everyone else. mee.nu What, in the Holy Name of Gzortch, are you people doing?!?!!? - TGHO |
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#17 |
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Illuminator
Join Date: Nov 2004
Posts: 4,425
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I see. I interpreted it differently.
I interpreted “no, atheism doesn't count as non-mainstream anymore, no matter what the polls show” as saying that even though polls show that most people (in the US) are not atheists, that it doesn’t count as non-mainstream anymore (because skeptic cliques have accepted atheism as normal, while atheism used to be a more borderline position among skeptic cliques). |
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Heaven forbid someone reads these words and claims to be adversely affected by them, thus ensuring a barrage of lawsuits filed under the guise of protecting the unknowing victims who were stupid enough to read this and believe it! - Kevin Trudeau |
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#18 |
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Illuminator
Join Date: Nov 2004
Posts: 4,425
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Yes. I agree that the article does take that too far.
I would also have issue with exactly how you find out “something that most of their social circle doesn't believe, or something that most of their social circle does believe which they think is wrong.” Perhaps I, and all my friends, happen to believe the same things because we only believe things that are true. If we all only believe things that are true, then we all believe the same thing. So you can’t “find the poser”. That’s where he seems to get into pushing things into wanting to question about fringe stuff that “he” seems to believe in. It logically won’t work. And, as I said in a previous post (and Pure_Argent probably expressed more eloquently with the post “Why?”), I don’t see the need to “find the poser”. The only purposes seems to be a juvenile task of labeling people into cliques so that you can decide who to like and who to hate rather than actually listening to and understand individuals that you are communicating with. If someone is a poser regurgitating pseudo-skeptic, but they make a solid argument for something, I don’t know why it matters whether or not they are a “real” skeptic or not. |
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Heaven forbid someone reads these words and claims to be adversely affected by them, thus ensuring a barrage of lawsuits filed under the guise of protecting the unknowing victims who were stupid enough to read this and believe it! - Kevin Trudeau |
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#19 |
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Master Poster
Join Date: Aug 2009
Posts: 2,914
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I prefer a different article:
http://amasci.com/freenrg/bead.html Critical thinking implies a willingness to change one's belief in the face of new evidence: this is the antithesis of the groupthink that the reference in the OP claims is the motivation for scepticism. A |
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"Everyone takes the limits of his own vision for the limits of the world." - Arthur Schopenhauer "New and stirring things are belittled because if they are not belittled, the humiliating question arises, 'Why then are you not taking part in them?' " - H. G. Wells |
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#20 |
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Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: The Biggest Little City in the World
Posts: 28,349
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__________________
"Oh god...What have you done, zooterkin? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!?!?!" - Cleon |
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#21 |
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Grammaton Cleric
Join Date: Oct 2009
Posts: 7,114
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__________________
"The perfect haiku would have just two syllables: Airwolf" ~ Ernest Cline "Science knows it doesn't know everything, otherwise it would stop" ~ Dara O'Briain. |
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#22 |
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Illuminator
Join Date: Jun 2007
Posts: 3,787
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Why is it such a bad thing to be mocking cryonics? The amount of assumptions one has to make is way past the border of point where it is actually sane to undergo the procedure.
Take this quote from his lovely article:
Quote:
Quote:
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It's amazing how many of these "paranormal" icons seem to merge together. There always seem to be theories about how they link together in some way. I'm sure someone has a very good explanation as to how Bigfoot killed JFK to help cover Roswell.-Mark Mekes This isn't rocket surgery.-Bill Nye |
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#23 |
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Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Jul 2006
Posts: 18,495
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Quote:
I very much doubt scientists are more likely to believe in woo than the general population. However, it seems very likely that scientists will be represented much more among those presented as examples of believers in efforts to persuade others. |
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