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2nd December 2012, 12:49 PM | #1 |
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Should non-scientists speak against science at skeptic conferences? (RW again)
Our favourite banned member is at it again.
Rebecca Watson gave a talk trashing Evolutionary Psychology, entitled How Girls Evolved to shop (and other ways to insult women with "science"), at Skepticon. It has been taken apart as being science denialism.
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2nd December 2012, 12:59 PM | #2 |
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2nd December 2012, 12:59 PM | #3 |
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I don't think you can vet what people speak about, so much, as that would involve seeing the speech beforehand, etc. But you can certainly stop inviting back people who consistently talk bollocks.
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2nd December 2012, 12:59 PM | #4 |
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Interesting.
At the very least, conference organizers should make sure that the presenters are experts on the topic they are going to speak on. But then the question is what could Rebecca Watson talk about? |
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2nd December 2012, 01:00 PM | #5 |
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Oops
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2nd December 2012, 01:35 PM | #6 |
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That's actually a very good critical analysis of Watson's talk.
As a side note, I highly recommend Peggy Orenstein's, "Cinderella Ate My Daughter", for an incredibly insightful look at the history and current practices of marketing to little girls. Pink and princesses are indeed media and marketing influenced feminine desires. |
2nd December 2012, 01:43 PM | #7 |
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The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.Bertrand Russell Zooterkin is correct Darat Nerd! Hokulele Join the JREF Folders ! Team 13232 Ezekiel 23:20 |
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2nd December 2012, 02:25 PM | #8 |
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Randi and I became friends during the 1990 CSICOP conference, in which one person was allowed to challenge the panel on whether smoking cigarettes is bad for your health. Another member pointed out that the panel was composed entirely of men. I watched a series of people discuss the ethics of performing scientific experiments on animals. Things sometimes got a bit chaotic, but I enjoyed the fact that people were able to engage in free inquiry in large groups over several days without any (evident) uncivilized behavior. I hoped that's what JREF and allied groups would turn into years later when I was with Randi in Ft. Lauderdale when the former headquarters opened. If the matter of free inquiry has turned into a debate over whether reputation is more important than truth, then the entire matter of skepticism has taken a sad turn. |
2nd December 2012, 02:32 PM | #9 |
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You don't have to be a scientist, have a degree, or have special expertise to be a critical thinker or even to give a talk on a subject. Some of us are amateurs (as opposed to paid professionals) in topics outside of our usual expertise. That doesn't mean we don't have anything to contribute in a discussion or as a speaker.
I think the title of the thread and even the OP could have taken a different tack. "Science denialism at a skeptic conference", the title of Clint's blog piece, is much more to my liking. |
2nd December 2012, 02:38 PM | #10 |
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she keeps babbling all this nonsense ,and she's going to limit her speaking engagements to bra burnings and white sales
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2nd December 2012, 02:41 PM | #11 |
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When a group becomes complacent with itself, it takes little for someone to change the agenda of that group. If the members wake up to what is happening, it is a difficult and divisive time. That appears to be what is happening now. When this has died down, as it will, skepticism will be all the stronger for the next crisis. Challenging the 'old' guard is productive, if uncomfortable, for all but to be successful you have to be very adept. From the Skepticon presentation, Watson isn't good enough.
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2nd December 2012, 03:10 PM | #12 |
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So much merriment from the blogosphere/twitterverse.
The Slymepit, Not Hating You - Just Laughing At You: Periodic Table of Swearing It's a long running thread and the relevant discussion starts on the third post down. All sorts of snark follows. Someone tweeting the link to be sure RW sees it.
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Wonderist on The Rational Response Squad recopied the article. I await interesting comments that will surely follow. So far there are only a couple. There are lots of Watson defender comments here in a review of the critique by Justin Griffith on Freethought Blogs. I'm guessing we'll eventually see some of this regurgitated by Watson:
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2nd December 2012, 03:37 PM | #13 |
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From what i have read and seen RW is that type of person that loves truth and facts, unless that is , of course, said truth says anything bad about females. This type of person is not just within feminist, or even skeptic circles, and to be quite frank it is a type of person that really , on a personal level gets on my nerves.
They tend to treat knowledge as a weapon , not a tool, in RW's case, i find it even more obnoxious, because she is trying to make herself the face of female skepticism. You can't on one hand try and be a postergirl for being rational, and on the other do everything you can to try and silence any fact you dislike. If i were to give RW a piece of advice, it would be "Don't look behind curtains, you arn't going to like what you find. ", if she can't deal with the fact that sometimes the facts are against you ( whoever you may be in any given case.) she should maybe think about simply keeping her brand of feminism as her claim to fame. Trying to be a name brand skeptic is not going to work out if she simply throws critical thinking out the window any time there is a fact she does not want to hear. And in fact is going to be doing female skeptics a huge disservice by doing so. |
2nd December 2012, 04:11 PM | #14 |
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I agree. I'm not a Watson fan, but if you'd asked me a week ago whether a talk by her was going to be a load of unscientific bollocks I'd have said "I'd be surprised if it was".
It is not that I've ever seen evidence she's a deep thinker who is good at original research, but rather that she's mostly confined herself in the past to repeating skeptical views which are trivially true (homeopathy is rubbish etc.) or feminist views which are highly palatable to her target audience. So if I invited her to give a talk I'd expect something intellectually lightweight but delivered competently and reasonably engagingly. After this however I suspect people will be more cautious about vetting her topics before they let her on stage. |
2nd December 2012, 04:11 PM | #15 |
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3rd December 2012, 01:43 AM | #16 |
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So, in my desire to be fair, I started to watch the actual video. This is the first time I've seen Watson speak, other than the "guys, don't do that" video. And I have to say that I can see why she gets the gigs she does. She's definitely funny and engaging. The problem is that she's also lightweight, vacuous, and talks from a position of "you're all going to agree with me because I'm right" rather than one of "here is what I think and this is the evidence that has led me to this conclusion". For that reason I didn't make it very far into the video despite the fact that, as I said at the start, I think her style is funny and engaging.
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3rd December 2012, 01:57 AM | #17 |
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Two responses on FtB so far. One agreeing with Ed Clint (but trying very hard not to upset anyone), and one circling the wagons and saying he got it mostly wrong, which also has the following response :
Originally Posted by rebeccawatson
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3rd December 2012, 02:10 AM | #18 |
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Yes, unfortunately to be sure of what angle she put on it, you do have to watch it, so I'm doing that now. She starts off fine, focusing on Evolutionary Psychology (and other sciences) as presented by the media; if that's the angle she'd stuck with, she'd have been fine, though hardly original. But then, round about 9 minutes in, she is very specific that she is attacking the whole of Evolutionary Psychology.
ETA: 8'45" in, rather than 9 minutes. |
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The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.Bertrand Russell Zooterkin is correct Darat Nerd! Hokulele Join the JREF Folders ! Team 13232 Ezekiel 23:20 |
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3rd December 2012, 05:01 AM | #19 |
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Should that event even be called a skeptic conference?
To explain the goals of the event organizer JT Eberhard wrote: “Skeptics conferences are an important part of the movement. They not only grant people access to the icons of the movement, they also arm those in attendance with information; the key weapon for the side of reason. They also provide a sense of community for a group of people who can often feel isolated in a largely religious population.” I'm sick and tired of the self-styled "icons of the movement". |
3rd December 2012, 05:09 AM | #20 |
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Ms. Watson seems remarkably unpopular here. I personally have no knowledge of why. The idea that she is some kind of non-scientist or non-expert that could or should have been avoided with a more rigorous attitude about things appears to be wrong,
http://skepticink.com/incredulous/20...ic-conference/
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I have not listened to any of her podcasts or read the paper this thread is linked to. Honestly, I believe evolutionary psychology is just recycled sociobiology, and produces vague trash that passes for knowledge. So for me, an evolutionary psychology of shopping is no different than an evolutionary psychology of aggression or child abuse. It's just a different side of the same counterfeit knowledge. But I do realize it's the latest craze to make evolution palatable to psychology, and almost a heresy to say anything except this. So that being the case, what grounds would there have been to exclude Ms. Watson from such a conference? That she is disliked on the JREF? |
3rd December 2012, 05:12 AM | #21 |
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You would need to produce a working definition of scientist first.
The whole concept of "scientist" doesn't work too well in the real world. Sure there are the academics who do original research, go to conferences and publish papers. Straightforward. Then there are the people in the pharmaceutical industry who do much the same but publish much less. But beyond that industry gets messy. There are a lot of people who might do a bit of science but on a day to day basis rely on tried and tested techniques. It also a bit questionable if its valid to try and group the marine biologists in with the solid state chemists. |
3rd December 2012, 05:17 AM | #22 |
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You do realise that what you quoted was from Ed Clint, not Rebecca Watson? RW has a BS in Communications.
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The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.Bertrand Russell Zooterkin is correct Darat Nerd! Hokulele Join the JREF Folders ! Team 13232 Ezekiel 23:20 |
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3rd December 2012, 06:03 AM | #23 |
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1) As mentioned above, the credentials you quote aren't Rebecca's, they are Ed Clint's.
2) I knew Rebecca as a member of this forum, and I also met her at TAM. I don't hate her, but neither do I particularly like her. However, that's more of a personality thing. 3) I don't think that Rebecca should be "excluded" from a conference, if she's speaking on a topic about which she is knowledgeable; but by the same token, she shouldn't be invited to speak on topics about which she is not knowledgeable, just because she's a skeptic 'celebrity'. 4) Having touted herself repeatedly as a skeptic, she should be aware that she's going to be held to the same standards as those she criticizes; and from what I can see, this particular talk failed to meet those standards by a wide margin. While I can appreciate her efforts to promote feminism or gender equality, her methods -- particularly of late -- seem to be guided by emotion and political correctness than by solid fact and research. |
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3rd December 2012, 06:33 AM | #24 |
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Well aren't I a silly. It would seem then that she does not have any of the background that I was saying she has.
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3rd December 2012, 07:28 AM | #25 |
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The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.Bertrand Russell Zooterkin is correct Darat Nerd! Hokulele Join the JREF Folders ! Team 13232 Ezekiel 23:20 |
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3rd December 2012, 07:44 AM | #26 |
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There is absolutely nothing wrong with non-scientists speaking against science* at skeptic cons.
The social sciences tend to be much more accessible and capable of being critiqued by non-experts than, say, quantum physics. I say this as a former cognitive psychology grad student/research assistant who decided to switch fields to statistics. I am particularly skeptical of any social science "findings" that are written about in the media, as many of these studies are complete garbage. I don't know if people are aware of the sheer number of publications in social science journals, but in academia many professors (and graduate students too) are constantly under pressure to get studies published and peer review is far from perfect. Needless to say, this results in a ton of crap studies, which tend to be further distorted if they're picked up by the media. You don't necessarily have to be a scientist to see through a bad study. In some cases you do need science training to see the flaws, but not all cases. So if criticism of science is intelligent and not dishonest, there's nothing wrong with it at all. I haven't watched most of Watson's talk yet (just about 15 minutes) so I can't comment on whether I think her critique is smart/stupid or honest/dishonest, but I will watch the rest later and see what the article against her has to say. *By "against science" I assume we mean "against certain scientific theories/studies" and not "against science itself". |
3rd December 2012, 07:54 AM | #27 |
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I've watched a bit more of the video now. I've partially been avoiding it because I hate all these intra-sceptic squabbles that happen, and this looks like it's warming up to be a humdinger. That said, though, you can't have an opinion if you don't know what you're talking about. I don't want to be the guy saying "ban this filth" about a film I've not seen.
I watched because of the rebuttal linked, in which Watson leaves a comment saying that the rebuttal is accurate. That claims that she was only talking about evolutionary psychology in the media, and "pop" evolutionary psychology (whatever that means). However, while she does mention "pop" evolutionary psychology and does talk about its portrayal in the media, she does also unequivocally make incorrect statements about evolutionary psychology as a whole. I also have to retract what I said earlier about her presentation style. I still think that she's quite funny, but she's not as engaging as I thought she was from watching just the start of the video. She stumbles quite a lot and gives the impression that she doesn't really know what she's talking about. Which, if Clint's article is to be believed (and it's very well cited, as are his posts in the comments thread), is because she doesn't. Coming to this as someone with no prior opinion of Watson's ability as a speaker either way, I can't say that I'm impressed. |
3rd December 2012, 08:29 AM | #28 |
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3rd December 2012, 11:29 AM | #29 |
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As one of the commentators points out here, in detail, she does indeed very clearly state that she is commenting on the whole of evolutionary psychology.
(A short excerpt of a longer, more detailed comment.)
Originally Posted by furiouslysleepy
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3rd December 2012, 11:31 AM | #30 |
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3rd December 2012, 12:06 PM | #31 |
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Okay, after finishing I am going to say:
-RW does seem to make some false and misleading claims -RW seems to unfairly generalize a small sample of studies to Evolutionary Psychology/Psychologists as a whole -RW makes many good points regarding the flaws of the specific studies she chose to talk about -EC is over the top and hyperbolic with his use of terms such as "science denialism". What scientific findings does he think RW is denying, specifically? "Conspiracy theories" struck me as hyperbolic too, although it may be a bit more defensible. -RW not being a scientist is irrelevant. A scientist in a related field to evolutionary psychology might have a better chance of knowing a lot about the subject than someone who is not a professional scientist, but it is not guaranteed. There is no reason a lay person (especially one used to doing research which I assume would be the case for a skeptic blogger) cannot do the proper research for a talk like this. -I didn't hate RW's talk (surprising considering I am very much not a fan of hers), but it definitely had some glaring, annoying flaws that I mainly chalk down to laziness and lack of proper research on the subject. -I'm not a fan of Evolutionary Psychology. Admittedly I'm not widely read in the field at all, but based on it's defining characteristics I don't see it as particularly valuable or interesting. Human psychology is what it is and we can study what it is in the present. Speculating about why our psychology is the way it is based on adaptive principles doesn't add much of value IMO. |
3rd December 2012, 03:21 PM | #32 |
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Snarky sarcasm and, "I'm better than everyone else", is how I read her style, in this talk, anyway.
When I heard her give a Sunday papers session at TAM 5 I thought she was more reasonable. I didn't get as much from it as others might have, it was a talk about starting a blog and/or the Skepchick brand to promote skepticism. My interest is in framing, and branding is a part of that, but I think educating the communicators gets us farther than simply increasing their numbers. I think I had a better message in my Sunday paper but she was definitely a better speaker. I was intimidated by the size of the audience and had more to say than I could fit into 15 minutes so I went over. She was a good speaker as far as speaking to a large auditorium goes. |
3rd December 2012, 04:41 PM | #33 |
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3rd December 2012, 11:45 PM | #34 |
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I watched her talk live on the skepticon stream.
In the live comments chat, there were a few of us raising eyebrows at the well-poisoning going on. I made a couple of comments after on blog posts that reported on her talk. What disappointed me the most was why skeptical people wernt challenging it before Eds recent rebuttal piece. You didnt have to be qualified in EP to see what she was doing |
4th December 2012, 02:05 AM | #35 |
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Any bets on whether the SGU will circle the wagons again? Last time was embarrassing to the point where I was squirming for them
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4th December 2012, 02:32 AM | #36 |
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Most people are hesitant to speak on subjects that they have little knowledge of. They are not aware that little to no knowledge is just the right qualification nowadays to speak on a rational conference... I also don't blame people who are hesitant to speak up against someone who has a history of publically shaming anyone in disagreeance.
Btw, just after PZ Myers joined into bashing that awful discipline of evolutionary psychology, a field that has not and will not ever contribute much of substance, substantiating his claims by bitching against Edward Clint like a little girl and saying that it was all a "vendetta" against RW, they realized they messed up. Now they row back, flat out denying that RW ever attacked EP as a whole. Though the video is out there for anyone to see. The sad thing is that they get invited to rational conventions, and that they will probably get even more invitations now. Because commonly the success of rational conventions isn't measured by the quality of the presentations but by the number of attendees. And the cultists don't just attract their followers but also many people curious to see the next train-wreck of a presentation. |
4th December 2012, 04:31 AM | #37 |
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rebeccas take on evolutionary psychology. i know nothing on the subject but it seems like a poor high school exam talk.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9SvQ29-gk8 anyone in the know? lxxx |
4th December 2012, 04:40 AM | #38 |
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Seriously, there is nothing wrong with attacking EP. The only problem is attacking it using false and misleading statements. I don't think it was the best idea for RW if she didn't actually know much about it. If she was mainly interested in studies picked up on by the media then she should have simply restricted herself to that as a point of topic. The talk could have focused on a message like "Beware of bad evolutionary psychology in the media that promotes sexist stereotypes" and avoided the generalizations and false criticisms of EP as a whole while retaining most of its content. I really think it was almost a decent talk, but that RW was just a bit too careless, sloppy and lazy with several of her claims.
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4th December 2012, 04:42 AM | #39 |
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Already mentioned in this thread, and there's a separate thread about it, too.
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4th December 2012, 04:54 AM | #40 |
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