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Further Thoughts on the Ethics of Skepticism (2010)

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This article was originally published at the defunct Skepticblog.org on Sept 10, 2010. An archived version is available here.

My recent post “The War Over ‘Nice’” (describing the blogosphere’s reaction to Phil Plait’s “Don’t Be a Dick” speech) has topped out at more than 200 comments. That’s a lot by Skepticblog’s standards. In addition, many further responses have reached me through Twitter, blog posts, email, and direct conversation.

I’m not quite sure how to feel about all that. Certainly I expected some controversy. (After all, I was writing about a controversy.) But quite a few of the critical responses take up a theme that seems… well, kind of strange to me. Many readers appear to object (some strenuously) to the very ideas of discussing best practices, seeking evidence of efficacy for skeptical outreach, matching strategies to goals, or encouraging some methods over others. Some seem to express anger that a discussion of best practices would be attempted at all. Read more

The Forgetfulness of Skepticism (2014)

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This article was originally published at the defunct Insight blog at Skeptic.com on Dec 17, 2015. An archived version is available here.

Skeptic Joseph Rinn, demonstrating mediumistic trickery for a press syndicate in 1920. (From Daniel Loxton’s collection.)

Scientific skepticism has a long history—roughly 40 years in its most modern organized form, and centuries (arguably millennia) as a more or less recognizable tradition. (See my “Why Is There a Skeptical Movement?” for a discussion of this lengthy intellectual thread—PDF.) Read more

Things Skeptics Knew a Century Ago About How Thinking Goes Wrong (2014)

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This article was originally published at the defunct Insight blog at Skeptic.com on Dec 29, 2014. An archived version is available here.

American psychologist and skeptic Joseph Jastrow. Image courtesy US National Library of Medicine, via Wikimedia Commons.

When better than the final days of the year to reflect on lessons of the past? Today, I’d like to share a small selection of quotes, each written over a century ago, which seem to me to bring the skepticism of our time and that of previous generations into a thought-provoking resonance. These passages employ concepts and jargon that are frequently used by skeptics today. This may strike us as prescient; however, I would argue that this apparent prescience is largely an illusory artifact of our own forgetfulness. In any event, these are a tiny sampling of conversations which were current in skepticism long before any of us were born.

I invite you to gaze into these passages, and reflect for a moment that in some ways the conceptual tools for skeptical examination of paranormal claims have changed little more in a century than the nature of imposture and superstition. Read more

History and Hyman’s Maxim (2015)

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This lightly edited article was originally published at the defunct Insight blog at Skeptic.com on May 24, 2015. An archived version is available here.

In a post last year called “The Forgetfulness of Skepticism,” I discussed one of the difficulties that skeptics face as a result of our small community and very broad subject area:

Generations of skeptics have devoted themselves to understanding paranormal and pseudoscientific claims, beliefs, and impostures. But even with those efforts, the fringe has remained radically under-examinded. Because this realm is so vast while the scholars and activists interested in exploring it are so few, our work has often had something of a scrambling quality. In our rush, skeptics have tended to neglect, or at least to set aside for some future time, some of the improvements of better-established fields.

Many other fields benefit from the attention of historical, theoretical, and philosophical spin-off disciplines. Consider, for example, art history, English literature, medical ethics, or philosophy of science. Skeptics, by contrast, are caught in a kind of perpetual startup culture. With so many urgent triage priorities, the considerable task of recording, maintaining, and passing down legacy knowledge becomes a “nice to have”—a luxury for further down the road. As a result, we tend not to remember very well. Read more

Gotcha! Thinking About Skeptical “Stings” (2015)

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This article was originally published at the defunct Insight blog at Skeptic.com on February 23, 2015. An archived version is available here.

In my last post I outlined a small recent stir caused by sharp comments about skeptics from former Ghost Hunters cast member Amy Bruni. I promised to dig further into the issues of skeptical undercover work and “sting”-type traps designed either to expose the roots of claims or, in the most striking cases, to catch charlatans red-handed.

These tactics can be extremely hard hitting, when they hit their mark. A well-known case involving both deceptive undercover work and a shocking reveal is “Project Alpha,” organized by James Randi. Under his direction, teenaged magicians Steve “Banachek” Shaw and Michael Edwards posed as psychics in a laboratory setting, where they successfully bamboozled parapsychological researchers. When the skeptical conspirators eventually held a press conference and revealed their years of deception (video), the world was compelled to consider parapsychology’s vulnerability to fraud. The ripples from that hoax are still being felt, as Randi’s contemporary Ray Hyman predicted more than 30 years ago: “There’s going to be an argument from now until doomsday about what the whole thing showed.” [For a nuanced and detailed update on that case, check out Season 3 of the World’s Greatest Con podcast, hosted by magician and YouTuber Brian Brushwood.] Read more

Considering a Complaint About Skeptical Tactics (2015)

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This article was originally published at the defunct Insight blog at Skeptic.com on February 20, 2015. An archived version is available here.

Few skeptical tactics are as hard-hitting or as ethically fraught as undercover investigation and “sting”-type traps designed to expose the roots of too-good-to-be-true claims—or even to catch tricksters red-handed. A recurring controversy over those tactics has flared up again over the last few days, following some sharp remarks about skeptics from former Ghost Hunters cast member Amy Bruni. Bruni took to her Facebook Page to express her frustration with skeptics who engage in such tactics, presumably in reaction to two recent sting attempts (dubbed “Operation Bumblebee” and “Operation Ice Cream Cone” by organizer Susan Gerbic). Bruni wrote: Read more

George Orwell Versus the Flat Earth (2015)

Daniel Loxton (Old) Insight blog, Posts , , , 0 Comment

This article was originally published at the defunct Insight blog at Skeptic.com on March 3, 2015. An archived version is available here.

In recent months I’ve been hard at work on a three-part series of Junior Skeptic articles exploring fringe theories regarding the shape of the Earth. The issue on newsstands now [archive link] considers the peculiar history of claims that our world is as flat as a pancake. Our upcoming issue considers the (surprisingly) much more reputable history of hollow-Earth thinking through to the end of the 19th century. To complete the series, I am working now on an issue about 20th century hollow-Earth beliefs with their frankly creepy intersections with conspiracy theories, flying saucers, Nazis, and madness. Read more

Skeptic Investigates: Is the Earth Flat? (2018)

Daniel Loxton (Old) Insight blog, Posts , , , 0 Comment

This article was originally published at the defunct Insight blog at Skeptic.com on March 20, 2018. An archived version is available here. Portions of this article appeared previously in Junior Skeptic #53, bound within Skeptic magazine 19.4 (2014).

Recent news stories,1 celebrity endorsements, and Google search trends2 have highlighted an apparently growing conspiracy theory belief that the Earth is not a globe, but instead a flat disc. According to believers, government forces promote a completely fictitious model of the cosmos in order to conceal the true nature of the Earth. Are these claims true?

No. The Earth is Round

The evidence for a spherical Earth is overwhelming.3 Most obviously, there are many thousands of images and videos of the Earth from space, including a continually changing live stream view of the globe from the International Space Station—not to mention all the astronauts who have personally seen the Earth from orbit. Flat Earthers claim that all images of the globe are fraudulent inventions, and all testimony from astronauts is false. It is unreasonable to dismiss all of the evidence from the entire history of space exploration, especially when there is zero evidence for a decades-long “globularist” conspiracy. However, we do not need to rely on evidence from modern space agencies to confirm the roundness of the Earth for ourselves. Read more

I Don’t Know WHAT You Mean (2015)

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This article was originally published at the defunct Insight blog at Skeptic.com on Dec 11, 2015. An archived version is available here.

Painting by Daniel Loxton, c.1999. Acrylic on canvas. 24″x36″.

The journal Judgment and Decision Making has stirred considerable interest with a recent paper titled “On the Reception and Detection of Pseudo-Profound Bullshit,” by Pennycook et al. The authors conducted four surveys designed to explore differing individual reactions to “seemingly impressive assertions that are presented as true and meaningful but are actually vacuous.” That is, the authors are “interested in the factors that predispose one to become or to resist becoming a bullshittee.”1 Read more

“Never Say Anything That Isn’t Correct” (2010)

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This lightly edited article was originally published at the defunct Skepticblog.org on Feb 16, 2010. An archived version is available here.

In November of 2007, I heard that an alleged energy healer named Adam McLeod (“Adam Dreamhealer” [archived old Dreamhealer.com website; recent naturopathy practice website]) was scheduled to appear on a popular Canadian Broadcasting Corporation talk show, The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos. (Watch segment.) I was familiar with the Adam Dreamhealer case, and also uncomfortably aware that media outlets usually treat miracle healers as harmless, untestable human interest stories. I was concerned about the ethical implications of promoting Adam’s claims to a national television audience. (Adam had claimed abilities for “energetically diagnosing illnesses,” and treating cancer “from 3000 miles away.”1 According to his [old Dreamhealer] website, Adam is “uniquely able to influence the health and healing of large groups of individuals at his workshops by joining the auras of all in attendance.”2) Read more