Comments on: Mission Drift, Conflation, and Food For Thought

By: The real reason I took on ‘Healing on the Streets’ | Hayley is a ghost

Fri, 08 Jun 2012 13:19:40 +0000

[…] Scientific Skepticism, CSICOP and the local groups | Steve Novella & David Bloomberg, August 1999 (h/t Kylie Sturgess) Carl Sagan’s Religion of Science (h/t Kylie Sturgess) ‘What Matters’| Barbara Drescher, ICBS Everywhere blog Mission drift, Conflation & Food for Thought| Barbara Drescher, ICBS Everywhere blog […]

By: Lara

Lara — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 01:20:31 +0000

I am curious to know what your basis for claiming that “feminism has harmed women” is.

The people who came before me who fought for my right to vote, own property, obtain an education, not be treated as property, decide my own destiny without having to ask a male family member for permission, decide whether or not I should have a child, and who simply asserted that women were equal to men and should be treated as such has helped me beyond my capacity to express.

By: Barbara Drescher

Barbara Drescher — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 01:12:43 +0000

Your statement about application does not make sense. Skepticism IS applied. It’s applied in evaluating evidence/information. I’m assuming that you meant that you have no use for skepticism/science if it does not extend to deciding what “should” be true. Well, that’s a problem, since it literally can’t tell you.

What it seems to me that you and others are arguing, however, is that what you really want is for skepticism to tell other people that your values are facts. They are not.

My argument is not and has never been “skepticism belongs in a vacuum”. It is and has always been that values have no place in the evaluation of information. When you cannot separate your values from skepticism (which is the process of evaluating information) and skepticism from conclusions, you risk confusing one for the other. That’s how human beings work and science was created to avoid those problems. That’s why these arguments are so silly and ironic.

Your values are not information. “Gay people should be allowed to raise children” is not information. “Gay people are not more or less likely to raise healthy children” is information.

By: laursaurus

laursaurus — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 22:44:00 +0000

If I may speculate about the purpose of Comment’s comment, perhaps she interested in what you think about it.
Guess we’ll have to stay tuned and hope to read your words of wisdom in a separate post. Maybe you’re leading by example by not reacting to her not-really-calling-for-a-boycott boycott.
This is a real life example of confusing skepticism with one’s social justice issues.
If it’s possible to troll in real life, the Skepchick’s tombstone will read, “U mad?”

By: Leo

Leo — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 20:05:58 +0000

Well I was trying to make a somewhat similar point (but it appears Freethought Blogs is not the only place that blocks my blog's URL). I do believe I understand your point, but my value judgement does not find skepticism without application very useful. OK, so we can conclude that homeopathy (in reference to an earlier comment) does not work. So do I take homeopathy or not? That would be a value judgement. Actually, I think S. Madison's comment was well said. But it is a value judgement of mine that I don't need to be spending my time or money on skepticism that leaves out application. (Which probably relates to me being an engineer and being the type that applies science as well.)

By: Barbara Drescher

Barbara Drescher — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 18:57:29 +0000

I am not sure how relevant that is to this discussion.

By: Barbara Drescher

Barbara Drescher — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 18:55:55 +0000

Sarcasm doesn’t make sloppy logic or shallow thinking magically appear reasonable.

By: Seth Manapio

Seth Manapio — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 18:32:31 +0000

So a skeptic can say–speaking AS a skeptic, I mean–that the cancer quack is a quack, but we can’t say he “should” be stopped in any way, we can’t even wring our hands or be upset, we can only, as skeptics, point out dispassionately that he is making dubious claims. Nor can we put any particular emphasis on those dubious claims versus some other… after all, to do so would put some kind of a “value” on human life, and skepticism is NOT ABOUT VALUES! The cancer quack is equivalent to the homeless guy who won’t actually work for food, and there is no measure (after all, all measures imply a value judgement) to determine which talk is most worthy of appearing at TAM.

By the way, that was the title of my TAM proposal: “That Guy Won’t Work for Food”. It didn’t make it through what I assume was a random selection process. I didn’t take it personally, after all, it’s not like anybody made a value judgement about it.

By: Comment

Comment — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 13:05:39 +0000

I'm certain someone will mention this at some point, but here it is. http://skepchick.org/2012/06/why-i-wont-be-at-tam-this-year/

By: Barbara Drescher

Barbara Drescher — Wed, 30 May 2012 23:06:28 +0000

I think, though, that we haven’t always been clear in our message that the conclusions we reach through the application of the scientific method aren’t the scientific method and aren’t skepticism.

Which is exactly why I write these posts. If we are not clear, we cannot expect new community members to understand them and many feel compelled to jump in with both feet in today’s world in which blogs are free.

(And, when we promote those conclusions we should make sure that we are providing the scientific evidence accurately. As an example, vaccines are our best defense against disease, but they are not 100% safe so skeptics should not claim that they are.)

I could not agree more. Well said.