glupson wrote,
“Where you may not be doing too well in all of this is putting too many emotions into something eventually completely unimportant. Some guy somewhere claiming things you see as bogus and selling it to other people who also have nothing better to do than to pay to play with bricks (wooden, or whatever) and that irritates you. So what? Let them play with their toys in whatever way they want, but do not pay with your new duodenal ulcer. It is not worth the trouble and you simply cannot win.”
>>>>Whoa! Hey, I did not see that coming! Those comments are very typical of professional naysayers and pseudo skeptics, a perfect example really of someone who presents himself as an intellectually honest, curious skeptic, innocently seeking answers to “real questions” when in fact he’s aiming to attack the other side as uncooperative and misinformed, even stupid, without even getting to the bottom of what it’s all about. Just wait for the name calling. It’s so obvious. A self fulfilling prophecy. It’s not a debate, it’s a foregone conclusion. A page straight out of Zen and the Art of Debunkery. Let the Inquisition continue! Like prof, glupson is one of these pseudo skeptics who keeps insisting, “they’re the ones calling names, not me, I’m just an innocent seeker of truth, seeking out hoaxes and frauds wherever I find them.” Give us a break, glupson.
Zen and the Art of Debunkery
“As the millennium turns, science seems in many ways to be treading the weary path of the religions it presumed to replace. Where free, dispassionate inquiry once reigned, emotions now run high in the defense of a fundamentalized "scientific truth." As anomalies mount up beneath a sea of denial, defenders of the Faith and the Kingdom cling with increasing self-righteousness to the hull of a sinking paradigm. Faced with provocative evidence of things undreamt of in their philosophy, many otherwise mature scientists revert to a kind of skeptical infantilism characterized by blind faith in the absoluteness of the familiar. Small wonder, then, that so many promising fields of inquiry remain shrouded in superstition, ignorance, denial, disinformation, taboo . . . and debunkery.
• Put on the right face. Cultivate a condescending air certifying that your personal opinions are backed by the full faith and credit of God. Adopting a disdainful, upper-class manner is optional but highly recommended.
• Employ vague, subjective, dismissive terms such as "ridiculous," "trivial," "crackpot," or "bunk," in a manner that purports to carry the full force of scientific authority.
• Keep your arguments as abstract and theoretical as possible. This will send the message that accepted theory overrides any actual evidence that might challenge it -- and that therefore no such evidence is worth examining.”
- your friend and humble scribe
“Where you may not be doing too well in all of this is putting too many emotions into something eventually completely unimportant. Some guy somewhere claiming things you see as bogus and selling it to other people who also have nothing better to do than to pay to play with bricks (wooden, or whatever) and that irritates you. So what? Let them play with their toys in whatever way they want, but do not pay with your new duodenal ulcer. It is not worth the trouble and you simply cannot win.”
>>>>Whoa! Hey, I did not see that coming! Those comments are very typical of professional naysayers and pseudo skeptics, a perfect example really of someone who presents himself as an intellectually honest, curious skeptic, innocently seeking answers to “real questions” when in fact he’s aiming to attack the other side as uncooperative and misinformed, even stupid, without even getting to the bottom of what it’s all about. Just wait for the name calling. It’s so obvious. A self fulfilling prophecy. It’s not a debate, it’s a foregone conclusion. A page straight out of Zen and the Art of Debunkery. Let the Inquisition continue! Like prof, glupson is one of these pseudo skeptics who keeps insisting, “they’re the ones calling names, not me, I’m just an innocent seeker of truth, seeking out hoaxes and frauds wherever I find them.” Give us a break, glupson.
Zen and the Art of Debunkery
“As the millennium turns, science seems in many ways to be treading the weary path of the religions it presumed to replace. Where free, dispassionate inquiry once reigned, emotions now run high in the defense of a fundamentalized "scientific truth." As anomalies mount up beneath a sea of denial, defenders of the Faith and the Kingdom cling with increasing self-righteousness to the hull of a sinking paradigm. Faced with provocative evidence of things undreamt of in their philosophy, many otherwise mature scientists revert to a kind of skeptical infantilism characterized by blind faith in the absoluteness of the familiar. Small wonder, then, that so many promising fields of inquiry remain shrouded in superstition, ignorance, denial, disinformation, taboo . . . and debunkery.
• Put on the right face. Cultivate a condescending air certifying that your personal opinions are backed by the full faith and credit of God. Adopting a disdainful, upper-class manner is optional but highly recommended.
• Employ vague, subjective, dismissive terms such as "ridiculous," "trivial," "crackpot," or "bunk," in a manner that purports to carry the full force of scientific authority.
• Keep your arguments as abstract and theoretical as possible. This will send the message that accepted theory overrides any actual evidence that might challenge it -- and that therefore no such evidence is worth examining.”
- your friend and humble scribe