Flame — HabitableZone

Flame » in reply to In Defense of Pathological Skepticism.

That's not "pathological" skepticism
Robert — (archived)

I think Johannes correctly recognizes the difference between the proper and healthy, and calmly considered, skepticism of a scientist; and the irrational denials accompanied by anger (and perhaps its flipside, fear) and hostility that define "pathological" skepticism.

I think also that the most telling indicator of pathological skepticism is the insistence that the other person is deliberately lying when they make their unscientific claims. To make that assumption without proof is as much a violation of the standards of scientific thinking as psuedoscience. Psuedoscience and pathological skepticism are two sides of the same coin. It flatters psuedoscience, and misses the point, to claim that it's the opposite of science.

The intellectual distance between science and psuedoscience is much greater than the distance between religion and psuedoscience. Psuedoscience is better treated as a manifestation of religion than a perversion of science. That interpretation puts things into perspective: Believers aren't lying about their beliefs, and even among the religious professionals, the overwhelming majority are also believers. There are very few deliberate scammers in religion...perhaps because there doesn't need to be. Religious belief accomplishes the job of getting people to behave in a certain way and to put money into the collection plate without further embellishment.

For all the rude and insulting things one could justifiably say about Richard Hoagland, the one thing you can't say about him is that he doesn't Believe. Making money from belief isn't an indication of fraud; again, the history of religion testifies to that.

I think that what suckers in the pathological skeptics is that psuedoscience is a religion which has borrowed its icons and its liturgies from science. A while back we were kicking around the idea of a "religion of science"--well, guess what, it already exists. Maybe we should rethink the notion of a religion of science? Everyone who's ever started a religion knows that it takes on a life of its own and passes beyond the control of its founder(s). I'm afraid that a religion founded on the best of scientific intentions would, inevitably, end up looking very much like psuedoscience.

Religion is a fact of human life, and therefore so is psuedoscience. My advice is to relax, and let it be.

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