One thing I love about the skeptic community is that there is no end of things to learn from it. In one sense, I mean that there are so many different things to focus on, from medical pseudoscience to cryptozoology to Holocaust denial, and so much learning material about them — podcasts, blogs, books, lectures on YouTube, etc. (As someone who mostly works from bed, I am really thankful for how much of this is readily available on the Internet.) In another sense, and especially for someone who has only just started writing about her skepticism, there is always something new to learn about critical thinking, and how to improve it. It seems to me that criticism of one another can be just as useful as criticism of those we consider “the enemy,” at least as far as encouraging the community to improve its own practices.
I should properly cite and link some of what follows, but it was Paul’s birthday yesterday and I chose to celebrate with him instead of writing a really cogent post. The nutshell for those who haven’t been keeping up, and who will hopefully not mind Googling if they want to read for themselves: James Randi, a beloved and esteemed skeptical leader, wrote a post in which he expressed doubt about the existence of anthropogenic (human-caused) global warming (AGW). There was a firestorm of reaction to both this and his follow-up post, in which other skeptical leaders expressed disappointment, betrayal, and even anger. Some of this reaction had to do with the logical fallacies and apparent lack of critical study on the matter; some with the notion that the AGW “denialists” — an epithet hurled by many commenters at Randi — have had their position bolstered by one of the true icons of the skeptical movement.
There has been much opining, and I don’t need to add my voice to the chorus. The reason I mention it is because I’ve found it all to be extremely educational. I’ve learned a lot from those who have picked apart Randi’s post to demonstrate its fallacies. In a different way, I’ve learned a lot from the different personal views espoused by commenters such as PZ Myers, Phil Plait, Orac, and Massimo Pigliucci. It seems to me, and I mean this without judgment on anyone’s reaction, that skeptical leaders have a lot to teach their students when a challenge in the community arises like this. What is the purview of skepticism, and what isn’t? Should notable skeptics be restricted only to their area of expertise, or are they just as entitled as anyone else to air their opinion, controversial as it may be? When the community is forced to debunk one of its own leaders, certainly students like me should work even harder, learn even more, to guard against the kind of thinking that we like to think we are immune from. Because this week it really hit home that none of us is. And this is also how we form our opinions about how skeptics do and should respond in these situations.
Along those lines, I’ll have my belated post about alternative medicine for CFS and similar illnesses on Monday. Or more accurately, alternatives to some of the best known, but least useful, “alternative” treatments. For now, as a total non-sequitur, I send you off with the birthday boy and the incomparable Zen.
