The fallibility of skeptics

[Titus Rivas]

I've repeatedly noticed that certain skeptics won't admit errors in their witten representation of parapsychology or psychical research. In this thread I would like to invite anyone to describe occasions on which a skeptic denied or admitted that he made an -established- important mistake (whichs means not a simple spelling error, but a major error with consequences). Please note that we're talking about recognizing one's personal fallibility, which should generally be seen as a virtue. I'm curious to know how aware an avarage skeptic or debunker is that (s)he is fallible just like everyone else.


Titus

[T'ai Chi]

Quote:

Originally posted by Titus Rivas
I've repeatedly noticed that certain skeptics won't admit errors in their witten representation of parapsychology or psychical research. In this thread I would like to invite anyone to describe occasions on which a skeptic denied or admitted that he made an -established- important mistake (whichs means not a simple spelling error, but a major error with consequences). Please note that we're talking about recognizing one's personal fallibility, which should generally be seen as a virtue. I'm curious to know how aware an avarage skeptic or debunker is that (s)he is fallible just like everyone else.

Titus

It is clear why: debunkers don't like to debunk themselves. It kind of ruins their image.

[!Xx+-Rational-+xX!]

Even though this could also apply to some believers it seems too many skeptics are way too egotistical to ever admit being wrong with their views or arguments. It would be nice to see if there are some cases of this.

[EdipisReks]

Quote:

Originally posted by T'ai Chi


It is clear why: debunkers don't like to debunk themselves. It kind of ruins their image.

you've obviously read very little by James Randi. he is perfectly willing to admit his mistakes.

[XRX]

Quote:

Originally posted by Titus Rivas
Please note that we're talking about recognizing one's personal fallibility, which should generally be seen as a virtue.

Titus

Agreed. Everyone really does make mistakes. More than we'd like to admit, usually.

Would you say that skeptics should ideally be more right than others, ie that they should be extremely careful and as as thorough as possible when it comes to research and checking their facts? I used to think this was unfair, because it's damn hard to check everything that comes your way. Oh well...

[XRX]

Quote:

Originally posted by EdipisReks


you've obviously read very little by James Randi. he is perfectly willing to admit his mistakes.

This is something I especially like about Mr Randi.

[reprise]

Susan Blackmore has certainly largely retreated from the "dying brain" hypothesis in respect of NDE's, so that would be an example of a skeptic modifying their position as more information became available and admitting that their original position was erroneous.

Does your question relate to skeptics altering their position in respect of research conducted from a scientific starting point, or are you talking about situations where skeptics have essentially created a strawman and "debunked" claims which were not actually made by believers?

As any skeptical conclusion should always be subject to review in light of new information, I would say that recognition of fallibility is one of the essential principles of skepticism.

Theoretical models exist which suggest that the use of "worm-holes" could address some of the problems of inter-stellar travel. The models have a sound scientific basis, but that doesn't mean that they are "correct". In skeptical terms, it's an interesting hypothesis which further research will either prove or disprove. At the moment, there is no "proof" that worm-holes in space even exist - at best, their existence is theoretically possible.

As skepticism generally relies on empirical proof of a scientific nature, it must be fallible - science itself is fallible, and many notable scientists are remembered only for the theories they got right, even though many of their other theories were ultimately proven wrong.

I think that the skeptical stance of "there is no credible evidence of X" is often interpreted to mean "X cannot be true", even though those two statements are vastly different.

[SRW]

I do not know about a "skeptic" but when you talk about science well it's constant. Science by its nature is flexible, because knowledge is always changing and evolving. And as new discoveries are made, theories become facts and a new view is developed.

There is a difference between dismissing a concept and dismissing a specific event. That is to say a scientist will not dismiss the possibility of NDE's but at the same time dismiss an account of someones NDE experience as not proved (insufficient evidence) and as such not worthy of further investigation.

[XRX]

Quote:

Originally posted by T'ai Chi


It is clear why: debunkers don't like to debunk themselves. It kind of ruins their image.

Originally posted by EdipisReks

you've obviously read very little by James Randi. he is perfectly willing to admit his mistakes.

Oh but wait...hasn't he said that he's not a debunker? I know what you meant by your statement, but I don't think Mr Randi thinks of himself as a "debunker". So we might as well leave him out of this.

[reprise]

Titus, one thing which is common on this and other messageboards which have a bias towards skepticism is the periodic starting of threads directed at skeptics dealing with the topic of "what would change your mind?". Skeptics can almost always give concrete examples of the kinds of things which would cause them to change their mind on a given paranormal issue.

In return, someone usually starts a thread directed at believers with a similar theme. It's often very difficult for believers to come up with examples of specific examples of things which would change their beliefs about the paranormal.

I'll see if I can hunt up some of the old threads.

[Titus Rivas]

XRX said:

Quote:

Oh but wait...hasn't he said that he's not a debunker? I know what you meant by your statement, but I don't think Mr Randi thinks of himself as a "debunker". So we might as well leave him out of this.

What would be the difference for him between a skeptic and a debunker? Any quotations perhaps?

Titus

[Titus Rivas]

Quote:

Susan Blackmore has certainly largely retreated from the "dying brain" hypothesis in respect of NDE's, so that would be an example of a skeptic modifying their position as more information became available and admitting that their original position was erroneous.

Could you give me some quotations or references, reprise?

Quote:

Does your question relate to skeptics altering their position in respect of research conducted from a scientific starting point, or are you talking about situations where skeptics have essentially created a strawman and "debunked" claims which were not actually made by believers?

Well, both actually. But mainly about whether they acknowledged that they were wrong.

Quote:

As skepticism generally relies on empirical proof of a scientific nature, it must be fallible - science itself is fallible, and many notable scientists are remembered only for the theories they got right, even though many of their other theories were ultimately proven wrong.

You're certainly right about science.

As is SRW:

Quote:

I do not know about a "skeptic" but when you talk about science well it's constant. Science by its nature is flexible, because knowledge is always changing and evolving.

Titus

[XRX]

Quote:

Originally posted by Titus Rivas
XRX said:

What would be the difference for him between a skeptic and a debunker? Any quotations perhaps?

Titus

Yup.

http://www.ghostvillage.com/legends/...06282003.shtml

Quote:

I asked Randi for his definitions of "skeptic" and "debunker." Randi said of the skeptic, "Someone who doubts in absence of evidence. A debunker is someone who goes into a situation with the attitude that 'This isn't so, and I'm going to prove it to be not so.' That's why I don't accept the term 'debunker' to define myself."

Of course, the whole thing could be a dirty lie. What do I know...



http://www.holysmoke.org/sdhok/randi00.htm
which contains an "Interview of James Randi by Eric Krieg"

Quote:

JR: Debunking. Now let's discuss that term. I don't consider myself to be a debunker. A debunker would be someone who says "Here's something that isn't so, and I'm going to show it to be not so." I can't have that attitude. If I have that attitude, it means that I've already presumed that there is no phenomenon here that can be studied, that it doesn't exist.
I can't have that attitude. That's too easy an attitude for me to have. It's too convenient. I can't afford that convenience. I have to say, essentially, "I don't know whether this is so, but I'm willing to look into it to find out whether or not it is so."

EK: The term investigator being better than debunker.

JR: Oh, much better. I never use the word debunker. A debunker means a preconceived opinion on the thing. No, [??], I have a preconceived opinion about Santa Claus. I do not sit by my chimney on the evening of December 24 waiting for a fat man in a red suit to bounce down the chimney.

But the reason being, and common sense tells me, it's not likely to be true. And I have had some experience in the field, as we all have. So I'm prejudiced against belief in Santa Clause. I also, from my previous experience with things like dowsing and acupuncture and therapeutic touch and various other things of this ilk, I am predisposed to believe that it probably is not so. But I cannot say that it is not so. I can't prove a negative.

The onus of proof is on them. Show me that it is so, then we've got a different matter.

[CFLarsen]

Quote:

Originally posted by T'ai Chi
It is clear why: debunkers don't like to debunk themselves. It kind of ruins their image.

Not correct.

At TAM1, BadAs(s)tronomer Phil Plait signed his books, and made a point of marking out the errors in them. With a green marker, just to make sure it was noticed.

E.g., on page 182: A big fat "WRONG" about a paragraph about the Hebrew calendar. On the opening page: "Don't be too hard on me for the mistakes on this book".

It's clear that Phil was not concerned with his image, but about getting the facts right.

Try again.

[XRX]

Quote:

Originally posted by CFLarsen


It's clear that Phil was not concerned with his image, but about getting the facts right.

Isn't that a major part of 'the image'? To be able to revise and reform one's views? To work towards the 'truth' no matter how many of one's own beliefs are crushed in the process? That's essential to the scientific attitude.

Well, ideally.

[XRX]

double post

deleted

[CFLarsen]

Quote:

Originally posted by XRX
Isn't that a major part of 'the image'? To be able to revise and reform one's views? To work towards the 'truth' no matter how many of one's own beliefs are crushed in the process? That's essential to the scientific attitude.

Well, ideally.

Not just ideally. You should have heard some of the terms Phil used to described himself...

BTW, I caught Phil making another mistake in his book....let's see what he has to say...

[Darat]

Quote:

Originally posted by Titus Rivas
I've repeatedly noticed that certain skeptics won't admit errors in their witten representation of parapsychology or psychical research. In this thread I would like to invite anyone to describe occasions on which a skeptic denied or admitted that he made an -established- important mistake (whichs means not a simple spelling error, but a major error with consequences). Please note that we're talking about recognizing one's personal fallibility, which should generally be seen as a virtue. I'm curious to know how aware an avarage skeptic or debunker is that (s)he is fallible just like everyone else.


Titus

I see the behaviour you describe as a result of being a human being, it has nothing to do with being a "sceptic" or any other gross generalisation.

Reading many of your recent posts I find myself curious to know why you have such a compelling need to group people who don't agree with you into a big group of "them".

[XRX]

I just looked up Phil's website. It's fun!

[XRX]

Quote:

Originally posted by Darat



I see the behaviour you describe as a result of being a human being, it has nothing to do with being a "sceptic" or any other gross generalisation.

It has to do with being a "certain skeptic", I guess.

[Titus Rivas]

Darat said:

Quote:

I see the behaviour you describe as a result of being a human being, it has nothing to do with being a "sceptic" or any other gross generalisation.

As XRX has said already, I was talking about certain skeptics.

By the way, I'm aware of several currents within skepticism, one of them being the zeteticism of people like the late Marcello Truzzi . Also see his paper On Pseudo-Skepticism

I even know of a Dutch skeptic (I won't reveal his name here) who acknowledges there is enough evidence (mainly collected by Dr. Ian Stevenson and his associates) to make a rational case for the existence of reincarnation.

Finally I'm aware of an excellent website of the Association for Skeptical Investigation which defends and promotes so called 'genuine skepticism' and has many non-debunking experts on the paranormal among its associates and advisors, e.g. Dick Bierman, David Fontana, Stanley Krippner, Gary Schwartz, Rupert Sheldrake and others.

So don't worry about my capacity to differentiate.

Titus

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I think there might be some confusion here between admitting a mistake and agreeing to the claim. Regarding psi, for example, skeptics propose possible information leaks all the time, then back off when compelling evidence is shown that that particular leak was controlled. That does not mean that the skeptic now agrees that the experiment demonstrates psi.

For example, I proposed to Pam Smart that the telephone telepathy experiments have a leak regarding the times on the callers' and callee's clocks. She responded:

Quote:

This issue came up a few weeks ago and Rupert is looking into it. I agree that it would be a good idea to deprive the subject of a clock.

If it turns out that they did control for the clocks, or that the subjects had no clock, then I'll freely admit my idea was wrong. But I still won't think that people are psychic about who's calling them on the phone.

The definition of debunk is so loaded that the word has become almost useless.

~~ Paul

[Titus Rivas]

Paul,

I was only talking about admitting one's own errors, not about admitting that another person is right (about anything else than one's own errors).

Titus

[plindboe]

That's how people are, skeptics and nonskeptics alike. Noone likes to admit when they are wrong, so it's quite a rare occurence on any kind of message board. Personally I admit when I am wrong, which has already happened twice in this forum. But it would certainly be nice to see more people with the courage to do the same.

Peter

[Jeff Corey]

Quote:

Originally posted by Titus Rivas
I even know of a Dutch skeptic (I won't reveal his name here) who acknowledges there is enough evidence (mainly collected by Dr. Ian Stevenson and his associates) to make a rational case for the existence of reincarnation.
JC: Why no name? Is this "Dutch skeptic" real? Can we examine her qualifications?
Finally I'm aware of an excellent website of the Association for Skeptical Investigation which defends and promotes so called 'genuine skepticism' and has many non-debunking experts on the paranormal among its associates and advisors, e.g. Dick Bierman, David Fontana, Stanley Krippner, Gary Schwartz, Rupert Sheldrake and others.
JC: Interesting website, if misleadingly named.
If you go to Home and then Sceptical Organizations and Publications, look under JREF. Toward the end of the item, the difficulty with the past censorship of the board is discussed and a quote that looks like S Grenard's email smear campaign is given. The trouble is that the source of the quote is ambiguous - the way it reads, one could at first mistake the source to be Mr. Randi.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Titus said:

Quote:

I was only talking about admitting one's own errors, not about admitting that another person is right.

Indeed, and if my idea about the unsynchronized clocks turns out to be wrong, I'll admit it.

This conversation would go alot further if you would give us an example where a skeptic was wrong but wouldn't admit it. And for it to really mean anything, you need to show us that believers rarely make the same mistake.

~~ Paul

[Pyrrho]

Quote:

Originally posted by Jeff Corey
JC: Interesting website, if misleadingly named.
If you go to Home and then Sceptical Organizations and Publications, look under JREF. Toward the end of the item, the difficulty with the past censorship of the board is discussed and a quote that looks like S Grenard's email smear campaign is given. The trouble is that the source of the quote is ambiguous - the way it reads, one could at first mistake the source to be Mr. Randi.

In fact, part of it is almost a direct quote from one of Grenard's posts to Usenet:

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm...&output=gplain

Quote:

The reason for this blocking is the incessant discussions involving obscenities, vulgarity, pedophilia, material of a sexual nature as well as a general lack of respect among members for each other which occurs on the bulletin board.

We are asking you to visit this board and make a thorough search of its content. If you agree that this should be an adults only board, as some have implied it is, we urge you to ask your schools and libraries to block this site so that your children cannot be influenced by its content.

Sorry for the OT, but it's somewhat related. I think there exists on both "sides" a tendency to take any admission of error and inflate it far out of proportion. Randi's statements about this site being blocked, and Grenard's subsequent use of those statements is a prime example. I, myself, have been involved in long discussions that went nowhere because the other party consistently became intent upon forcing me to "admit" that I was wrong. Well, when the discussion begins to focus on personalities instead of the scientific issues, the discussion becomes an act of futility.

We can waste loads of time discussing who is or is not better at admitting mistakes -- or how stupid, cynical, gullible, irrational, and illogical so-and-so is -- but I think it's pointless, given the extreme polarization of believer and skeptic.

Regardless of errors committed by skeptics or by believers, the bottom line remains the same: those who make claims must provide convincing evidence, not sophisticated arguments about why bad evidence is really good evidence. Those who make such arguments will simply have to accept the reality that their arguments will be challenged. This is science, folks. You cannot BS your way to a Nobel Prize.

[Jeff Corey]

Pyrrho,
Thanks for the citation. I knew it looked like Grenard's post, I just didn't have it saved anywhere..

[Checkmite]

I've made a mistake, a while ago on this board. It was in regards to the so-called "James Ossuary", a bone box submitted by a private collector (and, it turns out, professional forger) of antiquities, whose inscription reads "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus". I argued that it was fake, based on the fact that it appears to be written by two different hands - which remains true. However, I argued that the first half of the inscription (James, son of Joseph) is genuine, and that the second half (brother of Jesus) was forged. It turns out I was wrong - the entire inscription was forged. I'm in the middle, believe it or not, of typing up a synopsis of the Israeli investigation of the ossuary and what they found (look for it Monday night). However, I thought this thread was a unique opportunity to both make an early admission and a plug for my upcoming thread.

[Skeptical Greg]

Quote:

Originally posted by Titus Rivas
Paul,

I was only talking about admitting one's own errors, not about admitting that another person is right (about anything else than one's own errors).

Titus

Do you have some specific examples ?


Errors should be pretty obvious in the presence of conflicting facts..

Anyone who clings to such errors, is going to look pretty foolish..

The premise of your topic " The fallibility of skeptics", is really pretty vague.

It implies you are aware of a skeptic who claims to be infallible.

I must say, I have never seen anyone squirm as much as you have, with regard to the implications of the Pam Reynolds case.

I see it as a failure to admit an error, when you propose a hypothesis, and then claim your hypothesis has changed, when the original claim turns out to be without merit..

[Skeptical Greg]

Quote:

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

This conversation would go alot further if you would give us an example where a skeptic was wrong but wouldn't admit it. And for it to really mean anything, you need to show us that believers rarely make the same mistake.

~~ Paul

What you said....

[T'ai Chi]

Quote:

Originally posted by CFLarsen

It's clear that Phil was not concerned with his image, but about getting the facts right.

Try again.

I was talking about debunkers, not skeptics. M'kay?

[XRX]

Which ones?

[davidsmith73]

Quote:

Originally posted by Titus Rivas
I've repeatedly noticed that certain skeptics won't admit errors in their witten representation of parapsychology or psychical research. In this thread I would like to invite anyone to describe occasions on which a skeptic denied or admitted that he made an -established- important mistake (whichs means not a simple spelling error, but a major error with consequences). Please note that we're talking about recognizing one's personal fallibility, which should generally be seen as a virtue. I'm curious to know how aware an avarage skeptic or debunker is that (s)he is fallible just like everyone else.

Titus

On a discussion of ganzfeld ESP experiments, Stimpson J Cat wrote this:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I can say that for all of the experiments whose methodology I have read about, there was no blinding on the part of the experimenter. In principle, the subject should have No contact with anybody who knows which film was shown. In many of the experiments, there was also the problem that it was not at all clear that the target films were selected from the same population as the control films. I don't have access to the papers, but the criticisms raised, as well as the responses from the experimenters, seem to indicate that this was not the case. That could easily account for the results right there."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


To which I replied this:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Well, I don't know which sources you have been reading. Here's the best link I could find that gives a description of the flaws and criticisms in methodology.

http://comp9.psych.cornell.edu/dbem/does_psi_exist.html

With respect to what you wrote above I'll quote a bit:

Because the ganzfeld is itself a perceptual isolation procedure, it goes a long way toward eliminating potential sensory leakage during the ganzfeld portion of the session. There are, however, potential channels of sensory leakage after the ganzfeld period. For example, if the experimenter who interacts with the receiver knows the identity of the target, he or she could bias the receiver's similarity ratings in favor of correct identification. Only one study in the database contained this flaw, a study in which subjects actually performed slightly below chance expectation.

And thats in connection with the original ganzfeld studies which have the most flaws !"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------


I never got an admission of a mistake from Stimpy nor has he stated where he got his incorrect information from.

I can only assume that he is embarrased that his information was totally false, or his information was just made up on the spot to strengthening his argument. There's a reason he "doesn't have access to the papers". They don't exist.

[Jagger]

Quote:

I must say, I have never seen anyone squirm as much as you have, with regard to the implications of the Pam Reynolds case.

Dionysis, I was going to say this sort of statement is what gives skeptics a bad reputation. But that wouldn't be true. This type of statement gives you a bad reputation. It combines gloating, sense of superiority and getting a kick in simulataneously. But when combined with the inaccuracy of the statement, it makes me question your ability to judge any sort of reality. It must be enjoyable to have your own pseudo-reality while everyone else has to deal with normal reality.

Just a minor helpful observation which you can use to self reflect or not.

[Yahzi]

Quote:

Originally posted by XRX
Oh but wait...hasn't he said that he's not a debunker? I know what you meant by your statement, but I don't think Mr Randi thinks of himself as a "debunker". So we might as well leave him out of this.

Can we start calling it the "No True Skeptic" fallacy now?

[Yahzi]

Quote:

Originally posted by Joshua Korosi
It turns out I was wrong - the entire inscription was forged.

Are you serious? That's insane - was it two forgers at work, or is the original guy just really, really stupid?

[Titus Rivas]

Quote:

This conversation would go alot further if you would give us an example where a skeptic was wrong but wouldn't admit it. And for it to really mean anything, you need to show us that believers rarely make the same mistake.

You miss the point, I am not claiming that skeptics admit less often that they are wrong than believers do. I just

Quote:

repeatedly noticed that certain skeptics don't admit errors in their witten representation of parapsychology or psychical research.

So there is no question of a comparison.

One of my own personal examples is that of a Dutch skeptic -no, I won't mention his name, as we have been having enough trouble with each other by now- who claimed in a well-known (Dutch) article about reincarnation research that Dr. Ian Stevenson had not sufficiently considered normal explanations for his cases, such as cryptomnesia. In an online article I pointed out that this is very wrong, as Stevenson has explicitly called cryptomnesia the main counter hypothesis for certain cases and even wrote a whole article about the phenomenon. I never received any reply either from him or from any other local "top"-skeptic that he simply was wrong about Stevenson and thorougly misrepresented the latter's theorizing.

Similarly, though I don't have any concrete examples now, I've often read articles and passages in skeptical books which were erroneous and about which psychical researchers had written replies which conclusively established that the skeptics were wrong. In those cases I never encountered a public admission that the skeptic had been wrong. I may have missed of them of course.

Again, I'm not claiming that skeptics would do this more often than believers. I'm just curious to know if the phenomenon is very widespread or whether there are also skeptics who are fully aware of their fallibility and have repeatedly shown that awareness publicly. That's all.

For example, I liked the example by davidsmith73, but also the information about Susan Blackmore, James Randi, Stimpson and even Joshua on this thread.

Diogenes, you said:

Quote:

I see it as a failure to admit an error, when you propose a hypothesis, and then claim your hypothesis has changed, when the original claim turns out to be without merit..

It would be strange if you hadn't said that your hypothesis had changed (which I had for example on the other thread you're referring to) and perhaps if your first hypothesis was not importantly related to your second one (it certainly was in the example mentioned by you).
Actually, in other cases I couldn't even imagine why admitting an error would be a failure.

Quote:

JC: Why no name? Is this "Dutch skeptic" real? Can we examine her qualifications?

I like your anti-sexist language , Jeff, but it is actually a male skeptic. I won't mention his name here as that might compromise him. I've no idea if I could. His admission was confidential as I understood it and I happen to have lost his contact information (meaning of course that he's not one of the best-known skeptics over here). But you can be sure he's there alright. The point is that his admission was not a public one. We're primarily talking about public, overt admissions here.

Titus

[CFLarsen]

Titus Rivas,

You won't name this Dutch skeptic.

You don't have any concrete examples.

What do you base your claim on, then?? Do you have anything else but baseless rumors?

[Titus Rivas]

Quote:

You won't name this Dutch skeptic. You don't have any concrete examples. What do you base your claim on, then?? Do you have anything else but baseless rumors?

Who's talking about any claims here, CFLarsen? I don't claim my personal examples are good ones (for anybody else than myself), as I admit I can't identify the skeptics mentioned. But maybe you should read my postings again. I've invited anyone to give examples in which skeptics denied or admitted having been wrong.

I don't suppose you would claim that skeptics are actually infallible, would you?

Titus