Debunking Denialism

Defending science against the forces of irrationality.

Category Archives: Skepticism

The Robustness of Scientific Skepticism

1 Comment Posted by on May 9, 2013

skepticism and testable claims

Recently, scientific skepticism has come under attack. PZ Myers has announced that he does not want to be a part of the skeptical community any longer. His decision stems from a long-standing disagreement with Jamy Ian Swiss about the proper mission of skepticism. While I do not think that his characterization of scientific skepticism is accurate and that his action is a result of anger rather than reason, I will entertain his arguments, point-by-point.

Testable claims and sacred cows

[...] it is clear that “scientific skepticism” is simply a crippled, buggered version of science with special exemptions to set certain subjects outside the bounds of its purview. [...] But what else can you call this logic? Skepticism has no sacred cows! Except that skepticism only addresses “testable claims”. By the way, the existence of gods is not a testable claim. That’s a pretty explicit loophole by definition.

Skepticism has no sacred cows in the sense that no particular set of beliefs that make testable claims is shielded from skeptical scrutiny. Theistic and religious beliefs often do make testable claims, such as the efficacy of prayer, the origin of biological diversity, the nature of the human brain and so on. These are absolutely acceptable targets for scientific skepticism.

What about non-testable claims? Positions that do not make any testable claims cannot be handled exactly the same as those that do make testable claims. However, there are different skeptical approaches to non-testable claims and it is here that skepticism becomes very robust. Read more of this post

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Scientific Skepticism and One-liners

Leave a Comment Posted by on May 9, 2013

skeptical one-liners

The great power many of pseudoscientific myths is that they are often short, simple, memorable, emotionally influential and cognitively attractive. These are beneficial traits in the modern media world, where people can have short attention spans and frequently browse a lot of information. Scientific rebuttals, on the other hand, are usually hard, complex, cold, long-winded and can include a lot of technical information such as crowded graphs, large tables and statistics. It takes a lot of reading effort to get through the material and a lot of cognitive effort to really understand the science. In addition, the problem of different backfire effects looms over any attempt at correcting pseudoscience.

Right from the start, scientific skepticism (and science at large) face uphill terrain. How can the scientific skeptic throttle his or her way out of the situation? Read more of this post

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How Skepchick Rebecca Watson Misuses Statistics

37 Comments Posted by on April 30, 2013

leading women age too

It is very important to correct the misuse of statistics regardless of the identity of the perpetrator. Sometimes, it may be even more important to correct well-known individuals because their erroneous statistical argument will have a much more substantial influence than if it had been committed by an average blogger.

One such case is that of Rebecca Watson (who has arguably done more than anyone to highlight important issues related to feminism in the skeptical community) and her analysis of the ages of specific female movie stars and the age of men playing their male love interests in a selection of their movies. The background leading up to her blog post entitled Leading Women Age, Too is that an article posted on Vulture showed data suggesting that male movie stars increase in age, whereas the age of the women playing their female love interests stays roughly within the same age range regardless of the age of the male actor (this is, as we shall see below, erroneous). Someone suggested doing a similar thing for female movie stars that has been doing movies for a long time. Since Watson is apparently “a party animal” she “got totally crazy and spent like an hour on IMDB just to satisfy your curiosity”.

The basic idea was to compare the age of the female movie star (Watson picked Meg Ryan, Julia Robers and Meryl Streep) in different movies with the age of who she believed to the female characters’ love interest and to see if there is a difference before and after the actress turns 40. Here is the logic of her statistical analysis:

If you’re interested, Meg’s mean age in this chart is 35.6 and her costar’s mean age is 39.9 (a difference of 4.3 years). Prior to the age of 40, her mean age is 31.8 and her love interest’s mean age is 37.8 (a difference of 6 years).

See the problem? Watson apparently thinks she can just average the age of the female movie star in all movies, then compare it with the average age of the male love interest in all movies. However, this is only possible for unpaired data and it is highly statistically inappropriate to attempt this for paired data Read more of this post

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Why Stephen Bond’s Case Against Skepticism Is Profoundly Unconvincing

1 Comment Posted by on April 21, 2013

no longer skeptic

In the article Why I am no longer a skeptic, writer and former Stephen Bond tries to explain why he no longer finds the identity of scientific skepticism credible. He states that he does not believe in things like Christian theism or that 9/11 was an inside job and still accepts the general principles of scientific methodology and the power of reason. Could this be an interesting challenge to scientific skepticism? Unfortunately, no.

As we shall see, Mr. Bond makes makes many dubious hasty generalizations about people, such as skeptics, as a group (which is ironic as he himself objects to this practice later on) and even entire scientific fields. He also appears to subscribe to a long list of irrational and pseudoscientific beliefs including anti-psychiatry, anti-evolution, cancer quackery and alternative medicine. Far from being a convincing case against scientific skepticism, it resembles the debating tactic of denialists, together with many of the same rehashed assertions.

The benefits and perils of the skeptical identity

Mr. Bond starts off by describing his stance of the so called “skeptical identity”. Before, he seems to have made a cautions truce with it, but he can no longer uphold it. His argument is basically that he feels that it is no longer required. As we shall see, he cannot be more wrong. Here is how he starts out:

What has changed is that I have come to reject skepticism as an identity. Shared identities like skepticism are problematic at the best of times, for numerous reasons, but I can accept them as a means of giving power and a voice to the disenfranchised. And indeed, this is how skeptics like to portray themselves: an embattled minority standing up for science, the lone redoubt of reason in an irrational world, the vanguard against the old order of ignorance and superstition. As a skeptic, I was happy to accept this narrative and believe I was shoring up the barricades.

It is true that group identities can often be problematic. It can enforce stereotypes and promote an us-versus-them thinking. However, as Mr. Bond points out, it is a useful way of making opponents of pseudoscience feel empowered and increase the potential influence they have over society. So Mr. Bond use to think that skepticism was a spearhead against irrational superstition. What has changed?

However, it’s a narrative that corresponds poorly with reality. In the modern world, science, technology and reason are central and vital, and this is widely recognised, including at the highest level. [...] Science has a high media profile and a powerful lobby group: in the midst of a global recession and sweeping government cuts, science funding has generally held up or even increased. Hi-tech corporations have massive wealth and influence, and their products are omnipresent and seen as ever more desirable. In fact, the world today would be unthinkable without the products of science and technology, which have infiltrated into almost every economic, political and social process. We live in a world created by and ever-more dependent on science, technology and reason, in which scientists and engineers are a valued and indispensable elite.

That’s right: the nerds won, decades ago, and they’re now as thoroughly established as any other part of the establishment.

Mr. Bond seems to think that the struggle has already been won, thereby abolishing the need for the skeptical identity and perhaps even the skeptical movement as a whole. Nothing could be further from the truth. The central flaw in Mr. Bond’s argument is the elementary confusion between technology and science: there is a profound difference between technical products and their manufacturing and the intellectually honest search for accurate descriptions of reality. This is why it is possible for societies to be sufficiently technologically advanced to create nuclear and biological weapons of mass destruction, but still be trapped in ancient superstition or worshiping their deceased leaders.

Look no further than to the popularity of creationism and alternative medicine. During the past 30 years, over 40% of the U. S. population are creationists. Every year, almost 34 billion dollars are spent on alternative medicine.

Mr. Bond also underestimates the impact of selective skepticism. This is how people can know enough about technology to produce and use smartphones, yet be so clueless as to believe that vaccines cause autism or that acupuncture cures hemorrhoids (as Mr. Bond put it). Even if science sometimes wins, it is far from always.

Technology may have won the hearts and mind of the population, but science has often come up short. There is still a desperate need for organized opposition to pseudoscience. Read more of this post

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The Statistical (but not Scientific) Ignorance of Phil Plait

2 Comments Posted by on March 19, 2013

Note: Phil Plait has now admitted and corrected his statistical mistakes, which is very admirable and a sign of a genuine scientific skeptic. Read more about it here (note added 15:26 GMT +1 2013-03-20).

Phil Plait

I dread writing this post. That is because I have great intellectual admiration for Phil Plait. He is a great champion of reason and a powerful opponent of all things pseudoscience. From climate change denialists to moon landing conspiracies, Plait swings his katana of rigorous scientific skepticism and destroys all of it. However, errors made by fellow skeptic should not be ignored.

Recently, Plait wrote a wonderful debunking piece on how, despite denialists insisting otherwise, global warming has not stopped. This notion has become somewhat of a staple food for climate change denialists, kind of like how “evolution is just a theory” is for creationists. Skeptical Science, one of the best sites for debunking climates myths used by denialists, discusses it here and also has a well-written piece on the same topic as Plait wrote abut.

Let’s get one thing straight: Phil Plait is absolutely correct about the science. Global warming has not stopped, David Rose is completely wrong and Plait explains why in a very accurate and persuasive piece of writing. Here, as a summary, are the major flaws committed by David Rose (as reported by Plait and Skeptical Science):

  • Rose picks a graph showing air temperatures, which is a somewhat misleading indication of global warming as the heat is rapidly absorbed into the ocean.
  • Rose cherry-picks a short time interval, which is inappropriate as it only gives you an estimate of short-term fluctuations in temperature and not long-term trends.
  • Rose is ignoring the effects of La Niña.
  • The observed data is still within the 90% confidence intervals as reported by IPCC/MET Office/Ed Hawkins
  • There is no scientific controversy about the question “Does humans contribute substantially to the current global warming trend?” The evidence has established beyond all reasonable doubt that the answer is yes.

I have absolutely no disagreement with this points. They are solid refutations of what Rose claimed.

With this in mind, let us examine the statistical errors committed by Plait in his otherwise excellent article. They do not undermine his refutation of Rose or his defense of good climate science, but they are still common statistical errors that should not have been made. Read more of this post

Misuse of Statistics, Skepticism ,

The Blow Job Refutation

2 Comments Posted by on March 9, 2013

A common thread that runs through most kinds of pseudoscience is that the proponents are being suppressed and threatened by a vast conspiracy involving the government and/or the scientific community. Intelligent design creationists believe that the “Darwinist establishment” is deliberately rejecting scientifically solid papers critical of evolution from getting published in scientific journals. 9/11 truthers claim that evidence showing that the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon is an inside job is being covered-up by elements within the U. S. government. Anti-psychiatry cranks assert that modern psychiatry is an evil conspiracy between pharmaceutical companies and the government in order to keep the citizens as sheep while stealing their money. Those who reject the existence and impact of anthropogenic global warming allege that it is just a delusion in order to impose a global carbon tax.

While it is more exciting with government cover-ups, shadowy agencies and conspiracy theories and more satisfying to explain being rejected and ridicules by the mainstream science than to acknowledge the mundane truth, there is one fatal flaw. These purported conspiracies quickly grow to unfathomable and absurd proportions. For instance, if 9/11 was an inside job, then the conspiracy behind it must include thousands of politicians, public sector employees, journalists, engineers, aviation experts and scientists. The question then becomes: why have the information about the existence and nature of such a conspiracy not leaked to the public? Surely, it is pretty much a practically impossible task to pay off thousands of people to keep quiet? Thus, we find ourselves holding a very powerful counterargument against any conspiracy theory. Read more of this post

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Evidence-Based Debunking

2 Comments Posted by on January 6, 2013

debunking handbook

The Debunking Handbook is a very short text by John Cook and Stephan Lewandowsky on evidence-based debunking that was released about a year ago. The general message of the handbook is that debunking is tricker than it seems. If you do it wrong, you can enforce the falsehoods and myths, rather than undermining their influence.

The Debunking Handbook will not provide you with arguments against any specific form of pseudoscience. Rather, it will help you maximize the impact of your own refutations by making them less likely to backfire. This post will examine the tips given in the Debunking Handbook (free to download), then make a few homemade examples of how an evidence-based debunking could look like.

Familiarity

Mentioning a myth creates a sense of familiarity, and familiarity increases the likelihood that people will accept a myth as true. So how do you debunk a myth without spreading it? The key is to put emphasis on the facts, not the myth. Using the myth as a big and bold headline is a huge mistake — people will forget the details of your debunking over time but remember the title, which reinforces the myth. So make readers familiar with the facts, not the myth. Read more of this post

Skepticism

Anti-Psychiatry in the Atheism+ Forum?

26 Comments Posted by on August 31, 2012

balance scale

I find my self slightly unsettled to watch the slow infiltration of anti-psychiatry into the various skeptical movements. This is probably facilitated by political ideology. Some left-leaning liberals have a suspicion of psychiatric medication because they are provided by large multinational corporations. Some libertarians are susceptible to anti-psychiatry because the government helps to finance psychiatric care. This is the kind of situation that made me have careful qualifications about new aspiring social movements in my post Crossing the Chasm. Even though there is a broad agreement on social values, there can be a strong disagreement on what empirical methods are best used to fulfill these values. I am carefully optimistic about Atheism+ and I support many of its values, but I first want to see where the movement is going in practice.

Recently, a thread appeared on the Atheism+ forum discussing mental health issues. Right now, it is just one thread and we should not overestimate the size of the problem. We should also not approach the ideas of a few as if they were a majority position. I am not saying that any particular forum poster is necessarily anti-psychiatry and I am also not saying that Atheism+ has been corrupted by anti-psychiatry. After all, anti-psychiatry proponents can probably be found in every movement. I am also not telling marginalized people to stop telling their stories. With those qualifiers out of the way, I do note that arguments commonly put forward by anti-psychiatry proponents has started to appear on the Atheism+ forum. I do not want to make accusations against any individual poster, but I feel it is important and worthwhile to address the claims being put forward. I could have done it the forum thread itself, but as anti-psychiatry is a topic that this blog covers, I thought I might as well make a blog post about it.

The thread is called Mental Illness Support. It starts out completely reasonable where the opening poster is inviting others for discussing things like how mental conditions affect group participating in the atheist movements and what can be done to help those coping with mental conditions become more involved in the movements. I think these questions are highly relevant. In passing, the opening poster apfergus mentioned that a new medication had been beneficial for him or her. For those of you experienced with debating anti-psychiatry proponents, you know what happens next. Read more of this post

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How Pseudoscientific Cranks Abuse Freedom

2 Comments Posted by on August 27, 2012

freedom

Freedom. How can anyone be against freedom? The simple answer is that people generally are not against freedom. It is often a core value in various political ideologies and play a central role in the law of many counties to the point of being ingrained in our social conscious. Therefore, predictably, a lot of pseudoscientific cranks abuse the notion of freedom for their own malevolent goals. Claims about health freedom is used to attack science-based medicine and promote dangerous and non-effective “treatments”. Holocaust denial is defended by appealing to freedom of speech. Various forms of creationism or climate change denialism is infiltrating education via academic freedom bills.

“Health Freedom”

A typical defense of quack medicine or anti-vaccination is talking about health freedom. Surely, people should be able to decide for themselves what type of medication they put in their bodies? Sure, but promoting anti-science quackery negates informed consent, because patients are basing their decision on false information. So, in an ironic twist of events, quack medicine is actually incompatible with real health freedom: the ability to decide what treatment is most rational for yourself based on the best available scientific evidence. Real health freedom also means freedom from cranks that exploit you for money and access to the standard of care from modern medicine. For quack medicine providers, health care freedom is a malevolent method for avoiding science-based quality control while still providing substandard care. Often far substandard care. Read more of this post

Alternative Medicine, Creationism, Holocaust Denialism, Skepticism , , ,

Crossing the Chasm

3 Comments Posted by on August 22, 2012

chasm

Scientific skepticism does not represent a tablet of conclusions that proponents must subscribe to. It is a method for the critical analysis and evisceration of claims about the world around us, whether we agree with those claims or not. This method includes knowledge about logical fallacies, cognitive biases, inferential statistics and a broad knowledge of scientific methodology and key results. Such a skeptical method also has to be symmetrical. Displaying immense incredulity against contradicting arguments, while implicitly accepting supporting data with little, if any, critical investigation is pseudoskepticism. It is a failure of reason.

Because scientific skepticism does not exist in a societal vacuum, philosophical and political issues are bound to bleed over to a certain extent. There is a fundamental difference between science and scientific skepticism on the one hand, and politics on the other. While controversy is a permanent feature of the landscape, the overarching methodologies and epistemology of science and scientific skepticism is relatively straightforward compared to that of religion and politics. Read more of this post

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