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.