h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

http://jackofkent.blogspot.com/2010/07/image-of-skepticism.html

Jack of Kent has posed a few questions (at the above link) that are worthy of answer and debate.

To give anyone that can't visit outside link the gist, a couple of them are:
"To those whose views are challenged by an evidence-based and critical approach, could it be that skeptics appear to be the "nasty party" in the battle of ideas?"

and

"Is skepticism getting a reputation for arrogance and smugness? Is it enough just to be right?"

i would answer them but i doubt anyone would be interested

"...Battle of ideas.."

What.A.Maroon!

Perhaps I should have posted this in <./>MiscChat</.>

Interesting question.

I think there's a false dichotomy between "sceptics" and "woo communities" as if most people are either one or the other. Apart from the activists and professionals on each side, I think most people actually fall between the two camps. And sceptics can be guilty of being tremendous arrogant and elitist, and very belittling of others. Oddly, I think it tends to be the "followers" rather than the "big names" of the movement/collection of movements who are worse.

Ben Goldacre, for example. In his writings, I think he bends over backwards to be fair to his opponents, and he saves his ire for those who deserve it - those profiting from bogus claims. He uses humour rather than vitriol as his main weapon, and he's someone who can attract support. Others on the sceptical side of the fence seem much less concerned with gaining support and making their case, and much more concerned with forming some kind of elite, separate from the swinish multitude.

I'd like to see more of the "positive" aspect to the scepticism/ rationalism movement - more celebration of science and its achievements, more celebration of nature, and more stress on the view that being rational and sceptical doesn't reduce the majesty of the natural world.

One of my favourite pieces of sceptical writing is comedian Tim Minchin's beat poem "Storm" (find it on youtube if anyone's not heard it - it's amazing. Don't be put off by the length - it just flies by. Or by the fact that it's a beat poem). I won't try to summarise it, but there's a section where Tim (or the character that Tim is playing in the poem) is talking about the beauty of nature, and how it doesn't need augmentation through the invention of the supernatural for it to be amazing. There's one line that goes.
"Isn't THIS enough? Just this world?"
And even though it's a comic poem, and even though I've heard it plenty of times before, this final section - positive about the beauty of the world and the value of scientific and medical advances - always moves me more than the earlier (very funny) critique of woo.

sorry jack, just me, reworking a joke i said to clive about not going to a sceptics assoc., i was sceptial anyone would show

There´s plenty of people who´d prefer a pleasant lie to a harsh truth. To them skeptics would seem to be the bad guys. It still needs to be done though.

~*~What.A.Maroon!~*~

Maroon? He's a maroon? Does he use body paint?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_Kh7nLplWo

I regard this talk by Phil Plait as vague, riddled with emotional appeals and logical fallacies, yet I can't reject that I do like the general rule-of-thumb 'Don't Be A Dick':
http://vimeo.com/13704095

But Phil Plait describes what being "a dick" means in such absurd extremes, it is of no use in cautioning against errors of judgement that real celebrators of scepticism may make.
Everyone has different idea on where the line is before someone is being "a dick".

I think you use the divided views on Hoo/SoRB/Tiggy as an example. Some regard him as witty, harsh but fair, others even those who share his love of science, scepticism and atheism feel goes further than is needed, but still wouldn't call him "a dick". Others again share his values, but would say "dick" just isn't strong enough to communicate his failings.

He (whoever he might be, can't say I've heard his name before...) asked 'is it enough to be right', to which the answer is obviously yes, although in this country at least in the past 15 years intelligence and knowing 'stuff' seems to have had its 'standing' gradually eronded as if knowing stuff or being clever is now sometimes viewed as a 'bad' thing...
Of course, knowing stuff, and being right, doesn't stop that person behaving like an utter twonk... like that stupid nutcase atheiast guy who's wrote all the books, probably quite clever en all and stuff, but behaving like an utter arse really isn't goign to do much to convince people that God doesn't exist, err actually in some ways I guess he's not that clever, as he seems to have missed the point of it all by the way he's gone out of his way to portray himself..

I've heard similar arguments about racism.

"Things are'nt as bad they used to be"

"All this stuff about equality will only stir up more bad feeling"

Dawkins isn't as sensitive and as diplomatic as some would like and it's true that his style is playing into the hands of his detractors. Dawkins, Hitchens other secularists and atheism in general are now being attacked not on intellectual grounds but more and more in personal terms. Theists talk about their smugness and "soul-less" attitude. Obviously because in an intellectual ass kicking contest Theists don't have a leg to stand on.

Now that contradicting lies is seen as offensive by many promoters of ignorance many atheists are beggining to join the chorus of disapproval.

I for one won't be. Knickers if looking for truth raather than ignorantly accepting lies is eliteist I'll bare that name. Just as I'll be rude enough to state the opposite every time somone lies about the bigG miraculously saving some kid in well or whatever.

I think you'll find that 'It's a miracle!!' tends to be applied possibly even *more* often in the case where one baby survives the (divinely-inspired?) collapse of a children's hospital in an earthquake, or one child survives a mudslide that wiped out the rest of its village, including all its relatives.

To be honest, I think most of the believers who complain most loudly about Dawkins, etc are the people who'd simply come up with some other excuse for ignoring other people who dared to disagree with them, however polite those other people were.

Dawkins being forthright might be /convenient/ for them, but faced with someone less aggressive, they'd happily put up with the greater /inconvenience/ of disagreeing with them if it meant being able to maintain their beliefs.

>Dawkins being forthright<

Did you not happen to catch his recent brief chit chat thing on 5live? He was anything but forthright, indeed curiously reticent, when invited to be forthright about our new, highly educated at Oxbridge, Prime Minister's decision to send his young daughter off to a school founded upon superstition and lies. This was a bit strange because he'd said earlier, when asked why faith endures, that Faith schools are a factor.

But he was his usual forthright self when talking about the 'disgusting burqa' and his caring about women's rights. He also talked about the 'revolting women' performing female circumcision, and that authorities in the UK are turning a blind eye to this practice. He was strangely less than forthright in offering any evidence for this, any any hard statistics. He was also less than forthright in talking about the 'men' that maybe in positions of power in such religions that sanction the acts of these 'revolting women'.

Still Dawkins, and of course all of us educated types, know how brief and simplistic these interviews can be. But of course all these type of snippet affairs can be useful in advertising programmes and selling books to the masses.

(I believe Jack has a link to the 5live interview. I only heard it in a slightly hung over state on a sunday morning.)

>>I believe Jack has a link to the 5live interview.

No more than anyone with access to the internet and basic cognitive abilities has it.
I'd doubt it is still on iPlayer.

>>I only heard it in a slightly hung over state on a sunday morning

So you didn't taken any opportunity to contrast your hungover recollections with the record available to you?


Since you last brought up your alcohol-influenced views on the matter, have you given any thought to why a reasonable person may be more forthright in their condemnation of the illegal mutilation of girls than the entirely legal choice -- such that it is, when it comes to making choices amongst state primary schools and the prevalence of churches in that sector -- about schooling that does no direct long-term physical harm?


As to the rest of your posting it appears to be a scatter-gun of hyperbole, misrepresentation and biased nonsense, reminiscent of the ramblings of a conspiracy-nut.

Hi Jack.

As I explained to you before, it's power structures in religion that I think need to be addressed. It's all very well creating vivid emotive images in the mind of the average 5live listener, concerning 'revolting women' performing such acts. But these women can only do this because of a whole structure behind them that has the real power. None of this was mentioned by Dick..except when he was asked why faith endures at all, he mentioned 'faith Schools'. And I agree with him.

He did however refer to the authorities turning a blind eye to these activities, which again is about 'power'. If these 'revolting women' are allowed to commit criminal acts with the connivance of the state, surely he should be talking far more about that and give us all the evidence he has concerning that, otherwise it starts to appear that he might be a bit of a 'conspiracy-nut'.