SGU Episode 85

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SGU Episode 85
March 7th 2007
(brief caption for the episode icon)
SGU 84                      SGU 86
Skeptical Rogues
S: Steven Novella
B: Bob Novella
R: Rebecca Watson
E: Evan Bernstein
P: Perry DeAngelis
Quote of the Week
The deepest sin against the human mind is to believe things without evidence.
Thomas H. Huxley
Links
Download Podcast
Show Notes
Forum Discussion

Introduction

You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.

News Items

New study published in JAMA compared popular diet plans (1:25)

• www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070307075749.htm

Marilyn Schlitz and the True Believers Strike back at the SGU (10:56)

• www.skeptiko.com/index.php?id=11

S: The next item—now this comes—actually, several of our listeners sent this to us and it was also posted on the message board by a couple of people. There is a podcast—a relatively new podcast out there called "Skeptiko", with a K. Although, it's actually—

P: Booo!

S: Although, it's actually only pretending to be skeptical. I mean, it's not really a skeptical podcast; it's basically being run by believers in the paranormal.

R: It's hysterical; it's like Sylvia Browne wearing a beard and glasses and showing up at TAM (laughs) claiming to be Randi.

P: It is.

E: Calling herself the skeptic psychic or whatever.

R: (laughing) Right.

S: It's a bait and switch. But the reason why they were sending us notification of this is because on one of the episodes, they interviewed Marilyn Schlitz, and Marilyn was on our podcast about a year ago^{[link needed]}. And they actually included a clip from the Skeptics' Guide—it actually wasn't the episode where we interviewed her, but one a few weeks later, I think, where we mentioned her as we were talking about something. And they used a clip of that, basically to bash me for being a bad skeptic—being a closed-minded evil skeptic.

E: Well, you used the word "kook".

S: I did use the word "kook". So, let me... it's worth reviewing, because it's actually very dangerous

B: You didn't say "kook".

S: I said she has some kooky beliefs, which is different and not

B: Key difference there.

S: I think this is very useful to discuss, because it's very interesting to listen to the pro-paranormal crowd, especially those that try to be scientific, not the really bizarre anti-scientific ones, but the ones who really think that they're being scientific. And how they talk about skeptics it says a lot about the differences in the culture... also sometimes they say things that are eerily reminiscent of the kind of things we might say.

B: Yes.

S: For example, explaining why they believe what they do and their thinking that they need to sociologically explain why skeptics are the way they are. Because obviously, it's not based upon the evidence, right? So—

B: They even—she even says that, Steve; she says, regarding your comments, "where's the evidence?" and I just almost fell out of my car when I heard that.

E/P: (chuckling)

S: So, the comment that they used of mine, which I think they used completely out of context—we were talking about the fact that people who believe in one paranormal thing tend to believe in other paranormal things; they tend to believe in usually a very large number of paranormal things, because they have a different approach. They have a different—I said "world view". And I used Marilyn Schlitz as an example because she had recently been on our show. We were talking to her mainly about psi phenomenon and ESP, but it's not as if she is a practicing scientist who believes in ESP and otherwise has fairly mainstream views. She also believes in a lot of other paranormal things, which I characterize as "other kooky beliefs". For example, she is very compelled by the evidence for distant healing, and she spends a lot of her time researching these things. And I think that that says something about the overall world view and approach people take. There's a reason why skeptics believe in none of these things and so-called either "true believers" or paranormal proponents believe all of them. That was the point I was making. But they used that sentence and they sort of took it out of context to say that 1) that by saying that Marilyn "has some kooky beliefs", that that was an ad hominem attack against her, which is not true.

B: The quote was, "almost an ad hominem attack".

E: (laughs)

S: Almost?

B: Just to be accurate.

S: What does that mean? They also said that I was—

R: It's like that woman who was almost pregnant.

S: Right.

(laughing)

S: That I was dismissing the belief and her research and her credentials and dismissing the evidence, which...

E: She has none.

S: That is completely unfair. That's completely unfair, to say that we're dismissive; either us at the skeptical community in general, that we as a group, that me personally. I mean, seriously.

R: Yeah. The quote that they picked was from a conversation where we were discussing why people are the way they are and nothing to do with specifically what Marilyn has been researching.

S: Right. And it was just one point; it was just the point that these beliefs tend to go together, and guess what? They do. You know, Marilyn does believe a lot of these other things. The people on the show are endorsing a whole host of beliefs, not just one belief in isolation. So, they didn't contradict the actual point that I was making. But to say that we dismiss these things out of hand or "without examining the evidence" is completely intellectually dishonest. I mean, there's a hundred hours of the Skeptics' Guide online that you can listen to to see what we actually say about stuff. And if that's too much time to invest before you come to an opinion, there are dozens of articles that we've published on the New England Skeptical Society website. I mean, we've really pretty thoroughly documented our views on these topics. Bob wrote an article—a three-part article examining the plausibility of ESP. There are comprehensive reviews; we actually interviewed Ray Hyman for a very long time and in detail went over the problems with the actual evidence for ESP and psi phenomenon. So to characterize our approach to this topic as "dismissing it" and "being closed-minded" is really... you know, sloppy—

P: It's absurd.

S: It's intellectually sloppy.

P: It's absurd.

S: It's unfair, and it's actually interesting, because if you pull back and say, "what is really the essence of our criticism of the pro-paranormal crowd?" It's basically that they're a little too credulous; they are not appropriately skeptical; they don't have an appreciation for the pitfalls of human thinking and memory and logic.

B: That's key, right there.

S: They tend to be, at times, use methodologies which are not rigorous enough; they are... the worst of them are intellectually sloppy, use logical fallacies. And commonly what happens is when we criticize them for, basically, poor scholarship and poor science, then they say, "that's not true" and then they defend themselves by employing logical fallacies and sloppy scholarship.

E: Other than that, they're great!

(laughing)

E: They're right on target.

R: You know, I think you could boil all that down to one simple thing, which is just: there's no evidence.

S: Yeah, although that's an over-simplification, in that there is evidence, but the evidence has serious problems and is not compelling. Like, we talked about Dean Radin's evaluation of the pear research; this .02%. You know, they point to that as evidence.

R: OK, then switch "no" to "insufficient".

(laughing)

S: Yeah, it's not compelling; it's not sufficient; it's not compelling; there are problems with the evidence—

P: Pathetically lacking.

S: So, we, in detail, go over that evidence. Let me give you one other example of... which struck me as this real hypocrisy that I was talking about. So, right on the heels—right on the heels of accusing me of an ad hominem attack and being dismissive, Marilyn basically said—her response to that was that I lack emotional intelligence.

B: That was nasty.

S: Which was... an ad hominem attack.

E: (laughs)

R: But Steve, you know it's true.

B: That's right! I didn't pick up on that one.

S: Come on! That was blatant hypocrisy. She basically went right from saying... She actually was trying not to get too upset about it; she said she didn't take it personally; blah blah blah. It was more the interviewer was being more negative. But basically—

P: He was prodding her.

S: —they went from talking about that to making a blatant ad hominem attack, so. Which, not that I care about, but again it's just... come on, be consistent at least.

R: If they're going to cherry-pick quotes from the show, there are so many better ad hominem attacks... (laughs)

S: I know!

R: I mean... I can give you some now, like "Sylvia Browne is a hag." There. Take that out... (laughs)

(laughing)

R: —and say that that's the only reason why I don't like her. (laughs) There's your ad hominem attack.

B: Steve, I got a couple points.

S: Go ahead, Bob.

(19:10)

Modern Day Witch Trial (27:30)

• wcbstv.com/topstories/local_story_065160805.html

Questions and E-mails

Billy Meier Defender (30:31)

Dear Steven,

I noticed that you still have inaccurate info up re Meier. Perhaps you'd like to update your info and note what has happened to all the skeptical challenges in the last several years. These article cover some of it:

www.theyfly.com/newsflash5/tree.htm

www.tjresearch.info/O-S_photos.htm

And this should disabuse you of your thing-on-a-string theory:

From: UFO Contact from the Pleiades
A Preliminary Investigation Report
Copyrights 1982, 1982, 1980, 1979, 1978 Wendelle C. Stevens

'For analysis of the moving picture sequences of the Pleiadian spacecraft filmed in color in super 8mm format by Eduard Meier we turned to Mr. Jun-Ichi Yaoi of Tokyo, Japan, a world recognized expert in the film and television industry, now working as an officer in Nippon Television Corporation.

In the 18 March sequence Meier filmed the spacecraft circling a large tree in front of a farmhouse. The sky was overcast with a low ceiling, and occasionally light snowflakes fell. The motion of the spacecraft looks suspiciously like it is tethered from above as it appears to circle the tree and then to swing back and forth over the tree, except that on three occasions the spacecraft changes its motion abruptly with no change in the tilt of the vertical axis of the ship.

If it was in fact tethered, one would expect the vertical axis to tilt as the tether point above was moved. In another measurement it was found that the tilt angle of the vertical axis in one oscillation sequence was sufficient that the axis crossed within the frame and would have put the tether point within the picture. No tether point source was revealed, in one of the final oscillation sequences the object appeared to pass directly over the top of the tree, and it is clearly seen that the tree was swept over in the direction of the spacecraft, or appeared to follow the spacecraft as it passed. Clearly no model could have produced this effect. When we revisite

Name That Logical Fallacy (46:23)

• Logical Fallacies

I'm a big fan of the show, been listening to the archives in order and am up to around episode 45. I consider myself to be a pretty skeptical person, but perhaps I am too skeptical. Although I don't typically buy into grand conspiracies, I find myself sometimes skeptical of your criticisms thereof. It seems to me that although it is logically plausible that most if not all grand conspiracies would collapse under their own weight, it seems at least slightly fallacious to say that they can't be true simply because you can't imagine how they would be perpetuated and kept secret. This strikes me as nothing more than an argument from personal incredulity. I think that even the best skeptics must guard at all times against fallacious thinking, after all, none of us are infallible. Thanks for the podcast. Keep up the good work.

Symon Roberts
Washington State, USA

Science or Fiction (52:17)

Question #1: Scientists are exploring an area of the Atlantic sea floor thousands of kilometers in area where the earth-s crust appears to be missing. Question #2: Neuroscientists use fMRI scanning to show how toothbrushing can cause seizures. Question #3: Plant biologists have genetically engineered a variety of green bean plant that grows over 8 ft. tall and sporting beans over 1 foot long.

Skeptical Puzzle (1:00:45)

This Week's Puzzle

A pirate's victim, swimming in rye, bound with ropes, would make a perfect one of these.


Last Week's Puzzle

I am holding five objects in my hand
All five objects are the same size and shape
Each object has a number of things on them
These things are all exactly the same
The first object has zero things
The seconds has four
The third has six
The fourth has four
The fifth has ten

What am I holding?

Answer: Zener ESP cards
Winner: Iandbert

Quote of the Week (1:04:16)

The deepest sin against the human mind is to believe things without evidence.

Thomas H. Huxley

S: The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe is produced by the New England Skeptical Society in association with the James Randi Educational Foundation. For more information on this and other episodes, please visit our website at www.theskepticsguide.org. Please send us your questions, suggestions, and other feedback; you can use the "Contact Us" page on our website, or you can send us an email to info@theskepticsguide.org'. 'Theorem' is produced by Kineto and is used with permission.

References