I actually think that it’s difficult to fall into those traps if you are afraid to. What gets people into trouble the most is their own egos and biases – failing to face and/or admit them (to ourselves, especially). It’s not just admitting to yourself that you might not be thinking rationally, but also allowing your friends and ‘heroes’ to be wrong, too. And even allowing that people you haven’t admired could be right.

I’m a ‘fledgling skeptic’ myself… very much a part of the 2.x wave fueled by the internet and personal research on the web, which is obviously self-limiting and seems like it’s inherently biased. Most of the skeptical information I’ve come across falls into that middle part of the self-proclaimed atheist-and-skeptic Venn diagram, almost to the point that the two are entirely conflated in my mind.

I have very little experience with critical thinking and I’m trying hard to self-educate myself. I really want to avoid falling into the thinking traps you’ve described in these posts.

I also see a lot of value in the Skeptical movement and want to do my best to support it/take part in it. I also recognize that the heady rush of my first tastes of rational discourse, critical thinking and the scientific method could motor me right off another cliff-edge of irrationality and dismissiveness. I’m not sure how to temper this in myself, and/or recognize it in others, outside of the blatantly hateful or insulting instances.

It seems that the more I read/watch/listen, the more I realize just how LITTLE I actually know about these things, and how much more there is to learn. I almost feel like I should bite my tongue at all times, for fear of imposing my own unrecognized blind spots and irrationality on others.

What’s a young, under-trained but curious and motivated person who values these ideas to do? (I recognize there are no hard-and-fast answers to this and it’s a murky question to begin with, but any advice or rambling thoughts would be appreciated.)

So he indicates we are to reject the hypothesis barring further evidence. Was he wrong to advocate reaching tentative conclusions? Was Sagan ignorant of science, skepticism and suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect as well?

No, of course not, but you cherry-picked from the story and misapplied the ‘lesson’.

Go back to the story. It is about an exchange between two people – one attempting to share personal knowledge with another. Sagan discusses a reasonable conclusion for an individual who is confronted with an empirically untestable claim. He does NOT state that it is reasonable to tell the claimant that they are lying or stupid or even wrong. In fact, he states otherwise. He goes on to discuss the need to acknowledge (not accept, but acknowledge) consistent theories (i.e., invisible dragons) in the absence of empirical testing. He then discusses the process of explaining empirical evidence in naturalistic ways (which can be shared).

Later in the book Demon-Haunted World (which contains “The Dragon in My Garage”), he discusses the many scientifically testable tenets of some religions and notes that many religions are “in no way challenged, but rather uplifted, by the findings of science. There is no necessary conflict between science and religion.”

AGAIN, skepticism is not a set of conclusions. Skepticism is an empirical method for evaluating claims.

I don’t know where you learned about skepticism, but I learned from Carl Sagan.

There is more to science than what can be explained by a paragraph in an essay. I am not suggesting that you are not well-read, but this is a pretty disingenuous thing to say in the comments of a blog post, especially one written by a scientist. It takes a hell of a lot more than a paragraph or two to explain the issues which are involved with the restriction of science to empirical claims.

You can question my expertise all you want, but that won’t change the fact that you are arguing for a re-definition of science and scientific skepticism. If you think that I’m wrong about how these things are defined, you won’t be able to support that claim by quoting Carl Sagan.

I am angry because an influx of people who have stumbled upon or been recruited to the work of Skepticism are making it much more difficult. We’re moving backwards. This is happening, in part, because some of these rookies insist that their understanding of that work is as good or better than the understanding of people who have studied and worked in the field for years. Many have little or no education in the basics of science or the scientific process. Some claim to follow the teachings of people whose works they have never read. Some believe that the ‘old guard’ have more to learn from them than the other way around.

I don’t know where you learned about skepticism, but I learned from Carl Sagan. I presume you will acknowledge he was part of the “old guard” and very familiar with how science works. In his essay The Dragon In My Garage, Sagan demonstrates that any claim can be made to be untestable with enough ad hoc excuses. He uses the example of an invisible, incorporeal dragon which breathes heatless fire and maddeningly never leaves behind any physical evidence of its existence. The parallels to other alleged supernatural agents are obvious. What position does Sagan suggest skeptics take when faced with such an unevidenced, untestable claim? Well, he says:

Once again, the only sensible approach is tentatively to reject the dragon hypothesis, to be open to future physical data, and to wonder what the cause might be that so many apparently sane and sober people share the same strange delusion.

So he indicates we are to reject the hypothesis barring further evidence. Was he wrong to advocate reaching tentative conclusions? Was Sagan ignorant of science, skepticism and suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect as well?

Brian, Science does NOT “operate on the basis of”, or even consider, errors in reasoning. It avoids them (when conducted properly).

How do you avoid something that you don’t consider?

You can’t: consideration is necessary for avoidance. Furthermore, science that doesn’t ‘even consider’ errors in reasoning is known either as “bad science” or “pseudoscience”.

Thus: contradiction.

You keep accusing people who disagree with you that they don’t understand what they are saying. (i.e. Either I don’t understand Pigliucci’s position, or I don’t understand yours)

How about you open yourself up to the possibility that you are wrong? That you are unfamiliar with the writings of Philosophers of Science?

That the moment you claim that ‘science = empiricism’ (note the single quotes before I get accused of misquoting you), you dump all the Fallacies out of your toolbox. It’s not good skepticism to point out an Appeal to Popularity?

It’s not good science to point out that results are (or may be) due to the Fallacy of the Common Cause (aka: one is witnessing a correlation, not necessarily a causation)?

In skepticism you’re going to walk away from all of these, because they are not ‘Empiricism’? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies#Informal_fallacies

If you are *not* equating ‘science’ with ’empiricism': then I have misunderstood you.

If you are *not* equating ‘science’ with ’empiricism’, then your argument that ‘god exists’ is untouchable falls apart.

You want to talk about intellectual rigor? I’ve made my points as clear as I possible could (with the exception of my last post): if you *still* feel that I’m misunderstanding you, then rather than merely assert your opinion *show* me the error in my characterization of your post.

All this vague “you don’t understand”, as it stands right now, is unsubstantiated verbiage.