Sowing Seeds

When a died in the wool skeptic is confronted with an obvious piece of woo there is always the temptation to stomp in with all guns blazing and reduce the offender to quivering shreds of illogicality. In the words of the XKCD cartoon, someone is wrong on the internet, and it is very tempting to spend your time and energy putting them right. I am guilty as charged in this respect, as anyone who has ever experienced one of my rants over on my blog will know.

The question is, does it actually do any good?

I had an experience not so long ago, where I got into an argument about the nature of magical thinking particularly as it related to homeopathy. I posted one jibe too many and I ended up being defriended by somebody that I had known for a while. I was actually quite keen to know his views on the matter but obviously it was a very touchy subject for him.

There is also the issue of confirmation bias.

When somebody is confronted with an opposing view to their own they will often ignore all arguments to the contrary and just look for evidence that supports their preconceptions. It is all too easy for anybody to publish something on the internet without any evidence to back it up, and somebody searching for something to confirm what they want to hear will pay more attention to it than a contradictory source.

My view is that our job as skeptics is not to act as evangelical guardians of the truth (whatever that might be) but to encourage others to ask questions, look for evidence and develop a skeptical worldview of their own.

I recently got talking to a pair of young Jehovah's Witnesses that came to the door one Saturday morning. As part of the conversation one of them said that an increase in devastating earthquakes in recent years was a sure sign that the end times were approaching. Rather than going for a slam dunk, I suggested that he looked at the US Geological survey for earthquake data from the year 1900 to the present and plot it on a graph for himself to see what the truth of the matter is.

I hope that in this case a bit of patient encouragement will have sowed a seed of skepticism that will be more productive in the long run than a blazing argument (however satisfying that might be at the time!).



(Chart data from Miguel Vera)

Tools for a Skeptical Life

What are we doing differently when being a skeptic than at other times in our lives? Are we inherently closed minded to new ideas or are we skeptics simply more cautious than other people?

What I wish to argue with this piece is that rather than acting as a belief system or philosophy skepticism is simply a process. As such the skills involved in the process can be learned and acquired by anybody who is minded to learn them. Whether we choose to apply those skills to all or only some areas of our life is a decision we have to make on a case by case basis.

Religion is a case in point. It may be argued that faith by its nature is a sub rational voluntary surrender to the unknowable. A scientist who is exactingly rational in their professional life may be be supported and sustained by their faith personally and may feel that using the tools of critical thinking in this area is entirely missing the point of the endeavor. Falling in love or selecting which football team to support may also be acts resistant to close analysis.

Rather than closing our minds to new ideas the gaining of critical thinking skills can be a wonderful journey towards new, interesting and original perspectives on our lives. Although we are all capable of making an assessment of information placed before us I would suggest that the quality of our assessment can be enhanced through the acquisition of new tools of analysis. The result of this may be that we are taken in less often by dubious claims, and less inclined to collude in fooling ourselves which as you will see we do all too often.

There are three main skill sets we need to examine

• Logical Fallacy
• Cognitive Bias
• The Scientific Method

Rather than attempting my own inexpert summaries of these I intend to point the reader to some excellent resources that have helped, and are still helping me to become a better critical thinker.

Logical Fallacy

This wonderful father and son team walk us through a myriad of different fallacies both in their podcast and free Skeptics Field Guide pdf
 
http://www.skepticsfieldguide.net/


Cognitive Bias

This is an excellent visual and written guide to pretty much the full range of cognitive biases our human nature makes us vulnerable to

http://www.scribd.com/documents/30548590/Cognitive-Biases-A-Visual-Study-Guide-by-the-Royal-Society-of-Account-Planning

A great hummable cognitive bias song that I use at the end of my talk on CAM Treatments for Tinnitus with the artists kind permission

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RsbmjNLQkc&feature=player_embedded

The Scientific Method

Very clear description with good examples. Lots of Skeptical FAQ's to enjoy too! Looks very web 0.1 though...

http://skepticx.myweb.uga.edu/skepticism.html

The Skeptics Dictionary is an invaluable tool for any aspiring rationalist as this entry on the scientific method clearly demonstrates.

http://www.skepdic.com/science.html


Hopefully if you have followed some of these links you will see that the skeptical process is closer to an opening rather than a closing of our minds. This is not to the exclusion of excitement and wonder in our existence, quite the reverse. Our universe is sufficiently complex to allow us to be continually amazed whether we choose to engage our critical thinking skills or not. As an example of how even the most rational among us can be selective in our engagement with critical thinking I offer you the illustrious Crispian Jago Esquire...

http://crispian-jago.blogspot.com/2010/05/science-reason-critical-thinking-and.html

Go veggie, you know it makes sense...

Skeptics in The Pub

Just a quick post to let you all know that Sheffield Skeptics in the Pub on Monday May 10th will now be held at the University Arms, 197 Brook Hill. This is a change in venue from the one previously advertised.

We've got a great speaker, the fantastic Simon Perry who has been a great force in skeptical activism, and will be entertaining us with stories of his adventures.

He was also a great help when we were setting up Sheffield Skeptics in the Pub and continues to help SitPs get started.

We hope to see you there.