This Talk Would Be *Much More Effective* If Phil Plait Wasn't A Dick

TMR To Phil Plait And All The Other Climate Scientists

It's really simple: 

 TAKE DOWN AL GORE OR

SHUT-THE-FUCK-UP. 

 Sincerely, 

 CMC

 

If Your Agenda Extends Past Making Things Better - No Matter What That Is - Then I Probably Don't Like You,...

 

 When it doesn't make sense, then damn it, they'll struggle to make some:

"Scientists are struggling to explain a slowdown in climate change that has exposed gaps in their understanding and defies a rise in global greenhouse gas emissions."

Because it can't be they're wrong. Here's my pal, Phil Plait, just a few days ago:

The forces of antiscience are strong and loud. One of them is the Wall Street Journal, which frequently publishes ridiculous OpEds baselessly denying global warming.

"Baselessly"? Maybe, Phil, but they ain't struggling to explain why,...

 

Science Knows A Lot: Any Fool Knows That - No, Wait

Clearly, Richard Dawkins is no Phil Plait. Come to think of it, Plait was the voice behind that silly "Don't Be A Dick" campaign a couple of years ago. Hmmm. The man doesn't make sense:

Unless you're a mark, sometimes, being a dick is the only option open,...

 

Phil Plait And The Utah Science Community Are Like Republicans (Saying They Want More Blacks Involved,...)

If anybody can make a crowd nervous, I can. I just re-discovered that, again, after attending a science lecture by The Bad Astronomer, Phil Plait, at the Clark Planetarium. How nervous? Let me break the whole thing down for you: 

   

I hate to begin with this, but it matters - It's the planetarium's 10th anniversary, and I was one of only two blacks at this gala event. No big deal, but after I'd entered the venue and obediently stood in line with everyone else to get my ticket, one of the planetarium's staffers came up to me, security guard beside him, wondering if he can "help" me.

   

Now, alright, I'm a big boy. I've been here before. But, still, it stunned me. I was standing in line for a fucking science lecture. I'm sure my eyes were imploring them not to do what I knew they were doing, but all I got out of my mouth was "Excuse me?"

 

The staff member - smaller than me but well built, bald head, slightly thuggish for a white guy - asks me why I'm there. BOOM. Confusion is over. Clarity. Now I'm looking at a couple of idiots. I look at each one individually, and then stare at the big neon sign saying TICKETS before asking "Why?" He said he didn't know - he just wants to "help." I stepped out of line and waved my arms, in a gesture indicating the others still in it, and asked him if he'd offered to "help" anybody else. "No, but,..." "Yeah, no butt my ass" I said and got back in line, dismissing them. Immediately, a white couple, who saw the whole episode, jokingly asked me why I was there.

We laughed, but I already wasn't sure anymore.

   

On top of that, my next shock came when the ticket was $30.00 I didn't have (if you know what I mean). I paid it, and after wandering around the suit and tie crowd for a minute, found myself outside with the bad kids, smoking cigarettes where the scientists couldn't see 'em. The white couple who witnessed my ordeal with security was out there, and we made nice, soon to find ourselves hanging inside, next to a giant swinging pendulum, trying to scarf down as many beers from the open bar as we could before the lecture. Dude - it was thirty bucks!

   

 I got a good seat. Third row, all the way to the right, maybe 50-60 feet from the lectern. I could look Phil Plait in the eye. Cool.

After the museum auctioned off a trip to Florida, a four-star hotel stay, and lunch with an astronaut at the Kennedy Space Center for $5,500 or something else totally insane, Phil Plait gave a talk that, honestly, didn't add up to much, gussied up with clips from stupid Hollywood movies that get the science of disaster wrong.

But,...he started his talk by saying he called himself "The Bad Astronomer" because he began his online career debunking misconceptions, and he ended his talk by saying science is important and challenging us to get involved. Of course, that's my cue for the announced 10 minute Q&A portion of our show.

   

Now don't ask me why a scientist - in front of a group of people who paid 30 bucks-a-pop to hear him speak on the hard science of comets and asteroids - was also begging us to support science, but there he was. I also didn't understand why the first question he got from this well-heeled and supposedly serious science crowd was (I'm being completely serious) whether or not Phil Plait would eat the moon, if it was made of spare ribs instead of, as it's often said, cheese.

I shit you not.

I have no idea.

Luckily, my bit made everybody else confused - and hostile.

   

 I began by saying "I'm The Crack Emcee from the blog The Macho Response" and then said I'm dismayed with the language scientists use online, like he and Orac, that I don't think is sufficient to the job of defeating misinformation. I reminded him of James Randi's saying that trying to fight misinformation is like trying to empty the ocean with a paper cup - why can't he use a BIG GULP? I ended with the example of homeopathy, referring to it as the "low hanging fruit of quackery," and how scientists always give us their boilerplate answer of it being "no more effective than placebo" - a rather bloodless answer - instead of going for the jugular and informing the public of the ways people are being killed.

   

O.K., let me back up, because several things happened while what I just wrote was occurring. The crowd, which sat politely and patiently for that little spare-ribs-on-the-moon fiasco, grew loud when they discovered I wasn't presenting a Tweet. One guy (reminding me of the insulting treatment I regularly got on that circle jerk known as the Althouse blog) yelled out that I just wanted to promote TMR. (Wait - I've been doing this for how many years now? I don't advertise the damned thing - anywhere. There's no angle. And, good lord, do I hate it when dummies assume what little they can think of - which is usually so unimaginative it's an insult, like asking a scientist about killings, in a scientific setting, can somehow be construed as "promoting" my blog - becomes my individual motivation, without anybody ever asking me what I, myself, have in mind. It's enough to make me want to kill, it happens so often.)

   

Another thing that happened is, at the mention of the blog, Phil Plait smiled. I couldn't tell if it was in acknowledgement or not (I didn't care to remind him during his Q&A that I'd also criticized him online) but he did smile. He also admonished the crowd when they got testy, saying my question addressed a very serious issue.

And then he fucked up:

   

 The man gave us more boilerplate after I had specifically asked him to stop doing just that.

   

 He told the crowd my "serious subject" was the Steve Jobs scenario, as in, when someone uses homeopathy too long and dies before medicine can save them. I hesitantly corrected him - no, I was speaking specifically about killing people (active) not someone passively "dying." I mentioned we are in Utah, home of the Mormons, where weird beliefs run rampant. And that's when Phil Plait, along with everyone else, got nervous. And when Phil got visibly nervous (partially because someone doesn't agree with what he said) our hosts for the evening, the Clark Planetarium, shortened our 10 minute Q&A to about six, and - before apologizing to me - that was that.

No, Phil Plait wouldn't have any time, after the lecture, to speak with me. Nobody did - except the white couple I had made friends with. Everyone else either stared or diverted their eyes.

   

 Outside, my new friends said I was great, but were also like, "What did you expect? You can't challenge a guy like Phil Plait." I told 'em I could try. I have before. Even at Tea Party meetings. They asked me how it's worked out.

"It's always they same. These guys are protected."

 

 They're protected from new ideas, themselves - you name it. I've been a celebrity before. You'd be amazed at the damage an adoring crowd can do. In this instance, one guy attempted to diminish me by claiming I'm not sincere, but only out to promote this blog, and the rest basically showed me they can make it so the Phil Plait's of the world don't have to answer uncomfortable questions about how he's conducting himself in the face of science's preventable murders. It's the same every single time. And they think they're doing science a favor as they do so. I find the madness of it - it reminds me of The Devils - to be simply mind boggling.

   

 Anyway, that's another trip I took outside into the lovely, sane, compassionate, intelligent world today. This time, I guess, as the supposedly-coveted "black man" trying to engage with science. My mistake?

 I actually attempted talking to someone.

   

 I'll try not to let it happen again, too soon:

 

It really makes me dislike people a lot,....

The Symphony Of Science: A Wave Of Reason

"Don't Be A Dick"? (It's Really About Penis Envy)

Yesterday, I wrote a post about scientist Phil Plait's "Don't Be A Dick" speech at The Amazing Meeting with James Randi, and the results of a little atheist question-and-answer session that was embedded in it. Phil Plait asked:

"How many of you here today used to believe in something — used to, past tense — whether it was flying saucers, psychic powers, religion, anything like that? You can raise your hand if you want to. [lots of hands go up] Not everyone is born a skeptic. A lot of you raised your hand. I’d even say most of you, from what I can tell."

I followed that by saying "as a true atheist and skeptic (someone who never believed) I found the results of Phil's simple poll of TAM attendees interesting" because (as I discovered when I did my own survey of science bloggers) most of them had been believers. And, since scientists are lefties who also blindly voted for Oprah's candidate, I added:

"From what I can see, the science community hasn't shown they're inoculated, in the least, to the siren call of unreason, except with the cheapest form of evidence available: their words."

Needless to say (being a ruthlessly despised "wingnut" blogger) I haven't heard anything about it.

But, while reading The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto, I did catch an item about a so-called "Leading atheist" named Edwin Kagen who had gotten some folks "lined up to be 'de-baptized' in a ritual using a hair dryer" on Nightline:

"Kagin believes parents are wrong to baptize their children before they are able to make their own choices, even slamming some religious education as 'child abuse.' He said the blast of hot air was a way for adults to undo what their parents had done."

Taranto's reaction? Same as mine:

"It would occur to a real nonbeliever that the baptismal water had evaporated years earlier. It sounds as if these 'atheists' believe in God whether he's fake or genuine."

And so it goes.

Sorry, kids, but whether it's "flying saucers, psychic powers, religion, anything like that" - which includes voting for politicians with mystical powers, or rituals attempting to undo God's - a "real nonbeliever" just doesn't go for these kind of things.

And, yea, I know:

I'm being a total dick for pointing that out.



Thanks (again) to Jon Huntoon!

Phil Plait: Couldn't You Have Said Grow A Pair?

While I'm no fan of P.Z. Myers, or many other scientists these days (mind you: I still love science, but my respect for scientists has definitely waned since I started engaging with them) I have to come down on the side of the clown when it comes to the behavior of skeptics vs. (the beloved) Phil Plait's "Don't Be A Dick" speech at James Randi's TAM conference.

As Myers has said, trying to be nice "narrows the range of tactics unnecessarily" and - delusional thinking alert - it bears no resemblance to the reality scientists, themselves, have put the rest of us in.

As a true atheist and skeptic (someone who never believed) I found the results of Phil's simple poll of TAM attendees interesting - especially because they were so willing to admit the following amongst each other:

"Let me ask you a question: how many of you here today used to believe in something — used to, past tense — whether it was flying saucers, psychic powers, religion, anything like that? You can raise your hand if you want to. [lots of hands go up] Not everyone is born a skeptic. A lot of you raised your hand. I’d even say most of you, from what I can tell."

This is the same result I found in my own investigations of the online scientific community:

They were all believers, at least at one time.

And let me tell you, none of them were pleased that I pointed that out. As a matter of fact, they were downright hostile, when all I said was what they all supposedly were into - the truth.

"Well, so what?" you might say, "They're atheists and skeptics now!" To which I would answer, no they're not. From what I can see, the science community hasn't shown they're inoculated, in the least, to the siren call of unreason, except with the cheapest form of evidence available: their words.

I bet, if Phil did that same hand-raising exercise - except the question was "How many of you here today voted for Obama?" - he would still find "Not everyone is born a skeptic. A lot of you raised your hand. I’d even say most of you, from what I can tell."

I'd even put money on Phil Plait, himself, having voted for Oprah Winfrey's candidate - cultishly referred to by the charlatan herself as "The One" - and known to be the NewAge choice. A politician who, like most cult leaders, had no previous accomplishments but was repeatedly said to be (and laughed about being) the leader of a cult. The same man who, speaking of his adversaries, told his followers to "get in their faces" and "punch back twice as hard".

This also puts scientists on the side of those who accused John McCain - and are still accusing this black Tea Partier - of being a "racist" on a daily basis.

And all the while, let's-be-civil Phil, and his fellow believing scientists said, and say, nothing.

And now look at us, stuck with a fool who advocates quackery, wants to financially bury us under "global warming" taxation, thinks NASA should be for the self-esteem training of Muslims, and didn't even call scientists to consult on logistics during the Gulf oil spill.

Thanks, guys, Oprah Winfrey truly thinks you're swell.

Here's another part of Phil Plait's question-and-answer period:

"Now let me ask you a second question: how many of you no longer believe in those things, and you became a skeptic, because somebody got in your face, screaming, and called you an idiot, brain-damaged, and a retard? [Very few hands go up]"

Now - again - I see scientists as just as in need of acceptance, able to be gullible, delusional, and just as untrustworthy, as the rest of the population (if they weren't, why would scientists - people who test hypotheses - need Randi, a magician, to help them figure out the wrong-headed things they'd come to believe?) so I have a hard time imagining they'd want to say anything against the great Phil Plait's thesis. But even a casual look at the endorsements to the right of this blog - and my e-mail account - will show that a healthy dose of anger and name-calling has it's usefulness.

True, that's all anecdotal - my word against Phil's - but, as I read Phil's let's disarm speech, I find (just this once) his words aren't worth much.

Does somebody getting "in your face" work? Well, according to the latest research (as Phil said during the "it's hard" portion of his speech) the calm, cool, recitation of facts actually backfire. What he left out is the part that refutes his thesis:

"There are also some cases where directness works. Kuklinski’s welfare study suggested that people will actually update their beliefs if you hit them 'between the eyes' with bluntly presented, objective facts that contradict their preconceived ideas. He asked one group of participants what percentage of its budget they believed the federal government spent on welfare, and what percentage they believed the government should spend. Another group was given the same questions, but the second group was immediately told the correct percentage the government spends on welfare (1 percent). They were then asked, with that in mind, what the government should spend. Regardless of how wrong they had been before receiving the information, the second group indeed adjusted their answer to reflect the correct fact."

Biff! Bam! Pow! How you like me now? Probably not much (nothing new there) but there's no one who has met me, online or off, who can claim that I don't want to "win the game" - probably more than the rest of you because, with my background (and results) and heritage, it's personal. (I'd even wager that it's the personal nature of my interest - that none of this is just theory to me and so I won't calm down about it - that makes most scientists steer clear.) I'm sure Phil's advice to be cool works on scientists, because it's my experience that if you approach them as a normal non-scientist would (which is what I did) they'll erupt in the very hubristic, double-barrelled we-know-everything assault Phil abhors. His friend and colleague, Orac, amongst others, has definitely made it known, in very non-PC terms, that he thinks I'm a fruitcake. Which doesn't hurt me in the least, coming from a guy who voted for Obama and "didn't consider acupuncture to be a form of woo."

Still, rather than suggesting scientists give up anger as a weapon, I'd rather give them my own tips on how to combat the influence of NewAge in society today:

1. Get truly active - and unrelenting. Allow NewAgers no safe haven, give no quarter. Shit, if enough of you guys can make the time (and can afford) to meet at TAM, then you ought to be able to organize at the paranormal-loving Lady GaGa's concerts. That would shut her down, spread the anti-woo message amongst her followers (a group you don't reach at all) and it would bring the cause of skepticism a remarkable amount of media attention. The same goes for appearances by Oprah, Dr. Oz, Shirley MacLaine, Louise Hay, Sylvia Browne, and anyone else we know of, spreading misinformation and, basically, doing what we know is wrong.

2. Call a spade a spade. Stop saying "Homeopathic preparations don't include one molecule of their original substance" (or whatever multi-syllabled dreck you guys say to each other) and stick with "It's fucking water!" Or - as they said in England about the "energy medicine" - it's witchcraft. Rieki? "You can't shoot magic fire out of your fingers!" Etc. That's what works on normal folks.

3. Attack the enemy within. How can doctors, and other medical professionals, who are skeptics tolerate having the likes of Dr. Oz in their ranks? I don't see one sign - not one - that doctors are putting heat on these charlatans for the misinformation they spread. Where are the attacks, in America, on chiropractors and the like? Whole Foods sells Homeopathy - why aren't you engaging them as skeptics did Boots in England? They should be drummed out of business, just as was done with Andrew Wakefield. (Here's a question: why can England be doing such a bang-up job against woo, making Simon Singh a hero, when here in America most skeptics are hardly known at all - even amongst fellow skeptics? I'll tell you: because he fought - and won.)

4. Stop attacking anyone on your side who says you're wrong. You're scientists: you're supposed to be used to this. When I came along, Orac was confused by NewAge - and attacked me for saying it was cultism - only to eventually come around. But he's never admitted he was wrong, never given me credit for correcting him, and never acted like I was anything but what I was when we met: someone trying to fight the same scourge he was. Instead, like Phil Plait, he focused on my tactics (which have remained unchanged) and decided to attempt to use them against me. (His readers even, occasionally, attacked me for being divorced.) This was not only cruel, under the circumstances in which we met, but unethical. He was wrong, I was right, and he ought to be big enough to admit it.

The same goes for the rest of you: The embarrassment scientists suffered over ClimateGate - an embarrassment which has seeped into science itself - was completely avoidable, if only scientists were willing to entertain that, as they do when James Randi points out a hoax, the nonsense that was being peddled (and still being peddled) didn't add up. I can't tell you how many times I got into an online argument with so-called scientists about it, who sent me to a website that would clear the whole thing up, only to discover the shit didn't make any sense. Not because I'm stupid, or the material was above my head, but because - being a student of NewAge - I know a scam when I see one.

Those scientists were so sold on their own - on the unquestioned work of other scientists - all they could do is alienate normal people who, they claim, they want to bring into the fold. That's a lie. What they wanted was to keep screaming "Ad Hominem Attack" until I conceded they knew a phrase I didn't (I know name-calling) and, thus, to claim they were smarter than I was. It wasn't true. As ClimateGate proved, smart ain't the same thing as intelligent.

5. This is the one that's going to sting: Look in the mirror. The one point I agree with Phil Plait on, whole-heartedly, is the misdirected anger with which you ply your trade. You're scientists - not science itself - so you're fallible, and I for one forgive you, but the truth is you do believe in weird things and will attack anyone who tells you so, who isn't a part of your culture already. What you should be attacking is what you've done to yourselves and science.

Phil's suggestion to give up our anger when attacking the enemies of reason doesn't speak of a people from "The Land of the Free, and the Home of the Brave" but of NewAge, wimpiness, and Western Buddhism. As Phil found at TAM, the majority of you were once into "flying saucers, psychic powers, religion, anything like that" and it shows. Like all NewAgers, you're joiners - you wanted to be liked rather than right - and science is in trouble because of it. Science is not a method for being "non-judgmental" or nice - it's for being hard, on yourself most of all, to see if your ideas are true.

I love and appreciate the work of all scientists - Phil Plait especially: I read him often, and (unlike a lot of scientists) with very few reservations. I really don't want to criticize him. But, this time, he's wrong - clearly wrong - and I hope he'll appreciate that only his friends (and a friend to science) will tell him.

Even if it means I have to side with P.Z. Myers.