A
great transformation has come over the Skeptic Movement in the last couple of
years. Several prominent Skeptic leaders have started calling for a change of
strategy; and I myself detect that most Skeptics have answered this call. This
is an interesting lecture by the communications director of the JREF, the James
Randi Education Foundation, a young woman called Sadie Crabtree, see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flUrvJPLNCI
. She is advising Skeptics that to gain converts to the Skeptic world it's
necessary to treat opponents in debates gently and empathize with their
position. She suggests a method of softer and more subtle persuasion than
simply saying: "Ghosts/UFO's/poltergeists etc aren't real and this is why
you're wrong to think that they are!" She quite rightly understands that
this makes people feel violated and put up defences that make them less willing
to accept "reason". She's incorrect to use the word
"reason" in this context because many non-Skeptics are perfectly
amenable to reason; it's just that they've reached a different reasonable
conclusion than the Skeptics have. I've said many times before that to be a Skeptic
is to believe in an ideology; not to be, as they themselves claim to be, just
"more scientifically empirical" or "more logical". These
descriptions are actually just slogans! See here for details: http://hpanwo-radio.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/programme-5-podcast-skeptics.html
and: http://hpanwo.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/london-skeptics-in-pub-141111.html
But the point here is that this is a very clever move by Crabtree; it shows
that she has a lot of the introspective abilities that Skeptics usually lack,
and she comprehends the notion that Skeptics have become a bit isolated and
"ivory tower"-ish. Skeptic events have contained an element of clannish
back-slapping rather than attempting to promote the Skeptic ideal and educate
the public (I make the same criticism towards conspiratorially-aware people who
get together and use words like "sheeple"). But today this is
different, and I've found this myself when I've attended Skeptic events. (See: http://hpanwo.blogspot.co.uk/2010/10/tam-london-2010.html
) Another example is this article on the Committee for Skeptical Enquiry
website (formerly CSICOP) by Hayley Stevens, a presenter of the now defunct Righteous Indignation podcast: http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/the_consequences_of_stupid
She very wisely says: "I speak from experience when I say that calling
people who hold such beliefs 'stupid' because of their lack of rationale does
nothing to make them reconsider the conclusions they have reached about those
subjects." Phil Plait puts it
even more bluntly here: "How many
of you used to be 'believers' in ghosts/UFO's/religion etc?" (calling for
a show of hands) "And how many of you changed your minds because somebody called
you an 'idiot", brain-damaged' and a 'retard'?" (If I may digress
on this vital point again: what goes for Skeptics goes for we non-Skeptics too.
We must not call people "sheeple" and put them down in any other way
if we want them to take our ideas seriously!)
In recent weeks there has been a new development that
could result in another revolution in the Skeptic milieu. Somebody has accused
James Randi of fraud over his Million Dollar Challenge (Details: http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge.html).
This all first emerged a few years ago, but it has been revived by "Steve
from Sydney
Steve seems to see the entire Skeptic Movement itself as
something in radical and terminal decline, see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7t_SjDIZFYI
I doubt this myself and I'm not sure I'd necessarily welcome that development
if it were true. I don't think Steve is being completely fair in the above
video. Although his descriptions are accurate in some cases, there are plenty
of Skeptics who are not "denigrating", "despoiling",
"derogatory" or "dehumanizing" at all. I've met many of
them and a couple have even been members of the HPANWO Forum. He's right though
that the Skeptic Movement has fuelled interest in the paranormal, which shows
you can't beat a good antithesis! The Canadian author Chris Carter (not to be
confused with the creator of The X-Files)
has written a book with a similar themed title: The Fall of the House of Skeptic, see: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Science-Psychic-Phenomena-House-Skeptics/dp/159477451X/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1345307625&sr=1-6
This should be an interesting read. But I don't think the Skeptic Movement is
collapsing or declining at all; it is evolving,
it is undergoing a revolution. What
is going to emerge from this remains to be seen, but it will probably be a more
open and accepting community who treat non-Skeptics more carefully and respectfully,
in line with what Crabtree, Stevens and Plait propose. I myself am a member of
the JREF Forum and I've felt much more comfortable with the Skeptic majority there
in recent times. There will always be Skeptics in this world no matter what
happens, even if a UFO lands on the proverbial White House Lawn somebody will
be ready with a swamp gas explanation; and, unlike Steve, I don't have a
problem with that.
No comments:
Post a Comment