Panel on Skepticism & Science

Panelists: Terry Kelly (Former president of Vic Skeptics), Chris Guest (Current president of Vic Skeptics), Bill Hall (Researcher at the Kororoit Institute)

Discussion includes the history of skepticism, what skepticism is today, the culture of skepticism as a movement and how skepticism relates to broader philosophy.

00:26 Terry discusses Active Skepticism – Where Science, Skepticism & Consumer wrights overlap, – he brings up hypnotism

01:26 Skepticism does not equal cynicism – including some cool observations about the difference between the empiricism and the plausibility argument. The issue of plausibility vs empiricism – some issues might seem implausible… some things are so implausible they have to be addressed in that way… but some people bring up the argument that some things may seem counter-intuitive – but end up being likely after empirical observation.

4:14 Chris Guest – Discusses passion about critical thinking – it’s not so much what skeptics believe, it’s the approach to arguments –

4:42 Historical definitions of skepticism – relating to cynicism (ancient greeks). Though skepticism is not considered cynicism today, ideally they are treated as separate concepts – there are a lot of magicians in the skeptics movement – they have a trained eye – intuitively see past common blind spots and cognitive biases – whereas scientists often take things on face value.

6:22 Bill Hall discusses his background in Popperianism – and pseudoscience and belief vs rational thinking (NOTE: Contrast with Kevin Korb’s presentation on Pseudoscience vs Science – Kevin isn’t a Popperian and thinks that falsificationism is flawed). The demarcation problem between science and mysticism. Bill says falsification is part of skepticism – part of debunking false claims.

08:55 Chris Guest discusses group dynamics and belief systems – people reinforce each others beliefs – so Chris tries to be tougher on people they agree with than those whom he disagrees with demanding a higher standard of argument. Straw man arguments – where someone sets up a really bad representation of an opponents arguments rather than going into the specifics of the opponents arguments. Steel Man arguments – kind of the opposite of straw man arguments – rather than trying to create a refutable form of the opponents arguments, try to put together the best possible representation of their arguments, even better than the one they are presenting to you – take on the best possible, most charitable arguments. Value in moving beyond conflicts based on group identity.

11:00 Terry Kelly discusses disproving a persons beliefs – though this often results in them going away and believing harder than before. Ashley Barnett brought up an example earlier that intelligent people are easier to fool because they had stronger attention – James Randi says academics are easier to fool because they belief if they can’t work it out, since they are so smart then it must be a special power. Intelligent people will find smart ways to justify their rational beliefs. So sometimes it’s not so easy to change peoples minds even though you have good evidence.

14:36 Chris Guest discusses approaches to debating climate change deniers – using existing models that make predictions find out what assumptions the climate change deniers disagree with, and ask for an alternative model that gives better predictions. Then the deniers might claim that the climate alarmists get more funding to create the models as an explanation to why they have the more robust models.

15:35 Q: How people asses the nature of evidence?
Chris Guest: Instead of going head to head with someone who believes in homeopathy, say ‘let’s go to a homeopathy open day and listen to the talks’ – then let people go through their own process of discovery.

17:37 How people become rational – how do people go from magical thinking to being rational? Turning point or slowly drift into it?

Acoustics made it difficult to hear people asking questions

“Where skeptics get interested is whether people are getting what they paid for” – Terry Kelly