Extra-ordinary claims require extra- ordinary evidence, or any claim
requires evidence.
e.l.
------------------------------------------------------
Naked skepticism or why debunkers are ALWAYS demonstrably wrong!!
Group: alt.alien.visitors
Date: Mon, Jul 7, 2003, 11:38pm (EDT+4) From: nospam@newsranger.com
(Sir Arthur C. B. E. Wholeflaffers A.S.A.)
Naked skepticism
From: DOwens6683 <dowens6683@xxxxxx.com>
Ever get into an argument with a skeptic only to end up exasperated and
feeling you've been bamboozled? Skeptics are often highly skilled at
tying up opponents in clever verbal knots. Most skeptics are, of course,
ordinary, more-or-less honest people who, like the rest of us, are just
trying to make the best sense they can of a complicated and often
confusing world. Others, however, are merely glib sophists who use
specious reasoning to defend their prejudices or attack the ideas and
beliefs of others, and even an honest skeptic can innocently fall into
the mistake of employing bad reasoning.
In reading, listening to and sometimes debating skeptics over the years,
I've found certain tricks, ploys and gimmicks which they tend to use
over and over again. Here are some of 'em. Perhaps if you keep them in
mind when arguing with a skeptic, you'll feel better when the debate is
over. Shucks, you might even score a point or two.
* * *
1.) RAISING THE BAR (Or IMPOSSIBLE PERFECTION): This trick consists of
demanding a new, higher and more difficult standard of evidence whenever
it looks as if a skeptic's opponent is going to satisfy an old one.
Often the skeptic doesn't make it clear exactly what the standards are
in the first place. This can be especially effective if the skeptic can
keep his opponent from noticing that he is continually changing his
standard of evidence. That way, his opponent will eventually give up in
exasperation or disgust. Perhaps best of all, if his opponent complains,
the skeptic can tag him as a whiner or a sore loser.
Skeptic: I am willing to consider the psi hypothesis if you will
only show me some sound evidence.
Opponent: There are many thousands of documented reports of
incidents that seem to involve psi.
S: That is only anecdotal evidence. You must give me laboratory
evidence.
0: Researchers A-Z have conducted experiments that produced
results which favor the psi hypothesis.
S: Those experiments are not acceptable because of flaws X,Y and
Z.
0: Researchers B-H and T-W have conducted experiments producing
positive results which did not have flaws X,Y and Z.
S: The positive results are not far enough above chance levels
to be truly interesting.
0: Researchers C-F and U-V produced results well above chance
levels.
S: Their results were achieved through meta-analysis, which is a
highly questionable technique.
O: Meta-analysis is a well-accepted method commonly used in
psychology and sociology.
S: Psychology and sociology are social sciences, and their
methods can't be considered as reliable as those of hard sciences such
as physics and chemistry.
Etc., etc. ad nauseum.
2.) SOCK 'EM WITH OCCAM: Skeptics frequently invoke Occam's Razor as if
the Razor automatically validates their position. Occam's Razor, a
principle of epistemology (knowledge theory), states that the simplest
explanation which fits all the facts is to be preferred -- or, to state
it another way, entities are not to be multiplied needlessly. The Razor
is a useful and even necessary principle, but it is largely useless if
the facts themselves are not generally agreed upon in the first place.
3.) EXTRAORDINARY CLAIMS: Extraordinary claims, says the skeptic,
require extraordinary evidence. Superficially this seems reasonable
enough. However, extraordinariness, like beauty, is very much in the eye
of the beholder. Some claims, of course, would seem extraordinary to
almost anyone (e.g. the claim that aliens from Alpha Centauri had
contacted you telepathically and informed you that the people of Earth
must make you their absolute lord and ruler). The "extraordinariness" of
many other claims, however, is at best arguable, and it is not at all
obvious that unusually strong evidence is necessary to support them. For
example, so many people who would ordinarily be considered reliable
witnesses have reported precognitive dreams that it becomes difficult to
insist these are "unusual" claims requiring "unusual" evidence. Quite
ordinary standards of evidence will do.
4.) STUPID, CRAZY LIARS: This trick consists of simple slander. Anyone
who reports anything which displeases the skeptic will be accused of
incompetence, mental illness or dishonesty, or some combination of the
three without a single shred of fact to support the accusations. When
Charles Honorton's Ganzfeld experiments produced impressive results in
favor of the psi hypothesis, skeptics accused him of suppressing or not
publishing the results of failed experiments. No definite facts
supporting the charge ever emerged. Moreover, the experiments were
extremely time consuming, and the number of failed, unpublished
experiments necessary to make the number of successful, published
experiments significant would have been quite high, so it is extremely
unlikely that Honorton's results could be due to selective reporting.
Yet skeptics still sometimes repeat this accusation.
5.) THE SANTA CLAUS GAMBIT: This trick consists of lumping moderate
claims or propositions together with extreme ones. If you suggest, for
example, that Sasquatch can't be completely ruled out from the available
evidence,the skeptic will then facetiously suggest that Santa Claus and
the Easter Bunny can't be "completely" ruled out either.
6.) SHIFTING THE BURDEN OF EVIDENCE: The skeptic insists that he doesn't
have to provide evidence and arguments to support his side of the
argument because he isn't asserting a claim, he is merely denying or
doubting yours. His mistake consists of assuming that a negative claim
(asserting that something doesn't exist) is fundamentally different from
a positive claim. It isn't. Any definite claim, positive or negative,
requires definite support. Merely refuting or arguing against an
opponent's position is not enough to establish one's own position.. In
other words, you can't win by default.
As arch-skeptic Carl Sagan himself said, absence of evidence is not
evidence of absence. If someone wants to rule out vistations by
extra-terrestrial aliens, it would not be enough to point out that all
the evidence presented so far is either seriously flawed or not very
strong. It would be necessary to state definite reasons which would make
ET visitations either impossible or highly unlikely. (He might, for
example, point out that our best understanding of physics pretty much
rules out any kind of effective faster-than-light drive.)
The only person exempt from providing definite support is the person who
takes a strict "I don't know" position or the agnostic position. If
someone takes the position that the evidence in favor of ET visitations
is inadequate but goes no farther, he is exempt from further argument
(provided, of course, he gives adequate reasons for rejecting the
evidence). However, if he wants to go farther and insist that it is
impossible or highly unlikely that ET's are visiting or have ever
visited the Earth, it becomes necessary for him to provide definite
reasons for his position. He is no longer entitled merely to argue
against his opponent's position.
There is the question of honesty. Someone who claims to take the
agnostic position but really takes the position of definite disbelief
is, of course, misrepresenting his views. For example, a skeptic who
insists that he merely believes the psi hypothesis is inadequately
supported when in fact he believes that the human mind can only acquire
information through the physical senses is simply not being honest.
7.) YOU CAN'T PROVE A NEGATIVE: The skeptic may insist that he is
relieved of the burden of evidence and argument because "you can't prove
a negative." But you most certainly can prove a negative! When we know
one thing to be true, then we also know that whatever flatly contradicts
it is untrue. If I want to show my cat's not in the bedroom, I can prove
this by showing that my cat's in the kitchen or outside chasing
squirrels. The negative has then been proven. Or the proposition that
the cat is not in the bedroom could be proven by giving the bedroom a
good search without finding the cat. The skeptic who says, "Of course I
can't prove psi doesn't exist. I don't have to. You can't prove a
negative," is simply wrong. To rule something out, definite reasons must
be given for ruling it out.
Of course, for practical reasons it often isn't possible to gather the
necessary information to prove or disprove a proposition, e.g., it isn't
possible to search the entire universe to prove that no intelligent
extraterrestrial life exists. This by itself doesn't mean that a case
can't be made against the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence,
although it does probably mean that the case can't be as air-tight and
conclusive as we would like.
8.) THE BIG LIE: The skeptic knows that most people will not have the
time or inclination to check every claim he makes, so he knows it's a
fairly small risk to tell a whopper. He might, for example, insist that
none of the laboratory evidence for psi stands up to close scrutiny, or
he might insist there have been no cases of UFO's being spotted by
reliable observers such as trained military personnel when in fact there
are well-documented cases. The average person isn't going to scamper
right down to the library to verify this, so the skeptic knows a lot of
people are going to accept his statement at face value. This ploy works
best when the Big Lie is repeated often and loudly in a confident tone.
9.) DOUBT CASTING: This trick consists of dwelling on minor or trivial
flaws in the evidence, or presenting speculations as to how the evidence
might be flawed as though mere speculation is somehow as damning as
actual facts. The assumption here is that any flaw, trivial or even
merely speculative, is necessarily fatal and provides sufficient grounds
for throwing out the evidence. The skeptic often justifies this with the
"extraordinary evidence" ploy.
In the real world, of course, the evidence for anything is seldom 100%
flawless and foolproof. It is almost always possible to find some small
shortcoming which can be used as an excuse for tossing out the evidence.
If a definite problem can't be found, then the skeptic may simply
speculate as to how the evidence *might* be flawed and use his
speculations as an excuse to discard the information. For example, the
skeptic might point out that the safeguards or controls during one part
of a psi experiment weren't quite as tight as they might have been and
then insist, without any supporting facts, that the subject(s) and/or
the researcher(s) probably cheated because this is the "simplest"
explanation for the results (see "Sock 'em with Occam" and
"Extraordinary Claims"; "Raising the Bar" is also relevant).
10.) THE SNEER: This gimmick is an inversion of "Stupid, Crazy Liars."
In "Stupid, Crazy Liars," the skeptic attacks the character of those
advocationg certain ideas or presenting information in the hope of
discrediting the information. In "THE SNEER," the skeptic attempts to
attach a stigma to some idea or claim and implies that anyone advocating
that position must have something terribly wrong with him. "Anyone who
believes we've been visited by extraterresrial aliens must be a lunatic,
a fool, or a con man. If you believe this, you must a maniac, a
simpleton or a fraud." The object here is to scare others away from a
certain position without having to discuss facts.
* * *
To be fair, some of these tricks or tactics (such as "The Big Lie,"
"Doubtcasting" and "The Sneer") are often used by believers as well as
skeptics. Scientifc Creationists and Holocaust Revisionists, for
example, are particularly prone to use "Doubtcasting." Others ploys,
however, such as "Sock 'em with Occam" and "Extraordinary Claims," are
generally used by skeptics and seldom by others.
Unfortunately, effective debating tactics often involve bad logic, e.g.
attacking an opponent's character, appeals to emotion, mockery and
facetiousness, loaded definitions, etc. And certainly skeptics are not
the only ones who are ever guilty of using manipulative and deceptive
debating tactics. Even so, skeptics are just as likely as anyone else to
twist their language, logic and facts to win an argument, and keeping
these tricks in mind when dealing with skeptics may very well keep you
from being bamboozled.
---
www.angelfire.com/me/lucianarchy