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* [[Debunker]]s
* [[Debunker]]s
* [[Committee for Surrealist Investigation of Claims of the Normal]], [[Robert Anton Wilson]]'s parody on CSICOP (=[[Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal]]) which is intended to ridicule CSICOP's perceived intense hostility to any claims which fall outside of their defintion of 'normal'
* [[Committee for Surrealist Investigation of Claims of the Normal]], [[Robert Anton Wilson]]'s parody on CSICOP (=[[Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal]]) which is intended to ridicule CSICOP's perceived intense hostility to any claims which fall outside of their defintion of 'normal'
*[[James Randi]] is an opponent of various pseudosciences who is heavily critical of claims of the paranormal and who is renowned for his caustic style and use of ridicule
* [[Intellectual dishonesty]] is the creation of false impressions or advocacy of false ideas and concepts using rhetoric, [[Logical fallacy|logical fallacies]], or insufficient or falsified evidence.
* [[Intellectual dishonesty]] is the creation of false impressions or advocacy of false ideas and concepts using rhetoric, [[Logical fallacy|logical fallacies]], or insufficient or falsified evidence.
* [[Scientific skepticism]]
* [[Scientific skepticism]]

Revision as of 09:04, 29 October 2006

Marcello Truzzi founded Zetetic Scholar journal, in which he popularised the term pseudoskepticism in the mid 1980s

The expressions pseudoskepticism (sometimes pseudo-skepticism) and pathological skepticism are used to suggest that certain forms of skepticism are excessive or damaging. In particular, these expressions have been applied to organized skepticism and to individuals' use of skepticism to an extent that is detrimental to the individuals concerned or their relationships.[1] The late skeptic Marcello Truzzi, Professor of Sociology at Eastern Michigan University, wrote in 1987

Since "skepticism" properly refers to doubt rather than denial — nonbelief rather than belief — critics who take the negative rather than an agnostic position but still call themselves "skeptics" are actually pseudo-skeptics.[2]

Characteristics of Pseudoskepticism

Truzzi identified the following characteristics of pseudoskepticism:

  • The tendency to deny, rather than doubt,[3]
  • Double standards in the application of criticism, [4]
  • The making of judgements without full inquiry,[5]
  • Tendency to discredit, rather than investigate,[6]
  • Use of ridicule or ad hominem attacks,[7]
  • Presenting insufficient evidence or proof, [8]
  • Pejorative labelling of proponents as 'promoters', 'pseudoscientists' or practitioners of 'pathological science.' [9]
  • Assuming criticism requires no burden of proof, [10]
  • Making unsubstantiated counter-claims,[11]
  • Counter-claims based on plausibility rather than empirical evidence,[12]
  • Suggesting that unconvincing evidence is grounds for dismissing it,[13]
  • Tendency to dismiss all evidence, [14]

Writing for the Journal of Scientific Exploration, L. David Leiter claimed that organized skepticism tends to be automatically pathological:

Instead of becoming scientifically minded, they become adherents of scientism, the belief system in which science and only science has all the answers to everything. This regrettable condition acts to preclude their unbiased consideration of phenomena on the cutting edge of science, which is not how a true scientist should behave. In fact, many 'Skeptics' will not even read significantly into the literature on the subjects about which they are most skeptical.[15]

Writer C. Eugene Emery, Jr. in comparing the degrees of skepticism of CD-ROM-based encyclopedias (Grolier, Britannica, Encarta, and Compton's) of subjects he considered to be pseudoscience, wrote:

  • "A "very skeptical" entry got three points for explaining the evidence, experiments, or studies that support a skeptical stance.
  • Two points were bestowed on "mildly skeptical" articles that suggested there was some rationale for scientists' disbelief.
  • One point went to articles with "token skepticism," where it simply stated that scientists don't believe it or the concept is unproven, without explaining why.
  • A "pseudoskeptical" article, one that only suggested that the concept was controversial, got zero points.
  • If there was no hint of controversy, the article got -1 point."[16]

Academic studies

A Spring 2006 course at the University of Colorado, "Edges of Science" which "Examines the evidence for paranormal phenomena, [and] reasons for skepticism", includes a section which shows "how a healthy skepticism can see through unsupported assertions, and how pathological skepticism can work against honest scientific inquiry." [17]

The Laboratory for Advances in Consciousness and Health at the University of Arizona, run by Prof. Gary Schwartz, claims that it ".. provides a responsible forum in which to conduct systematic research on pathological skepticism, illusory correlates, and self-deception in science, society, and human relationships."[18] However, the lab's research has been criticized in The Skeptical Inquirer for being "methodologically defective"[19].

History

The term "pseudo-skepticism" appears to have its origins with 19th and early 20th century philosophy.

On 31 Aug 1869, Swiss philosopher Henri-Frédéric Amiel wrote in his diary:

"My instinct is in harmony with the pessimism of Buddha and of Schopenhauer. It is a doubt which never leaves me, even in my moments of religious fervor. Nature is indeed for me a Maïa; and I look at her, as it were, with the eyes of an artist. My intelligence remains skeptical. What, then, do I believe in? I do not know. And what is it I hope for? It would be difficult to say. Folly! I believe in goodness, and I hope that good will prevail. Deep within this ironical and disappointed being of mine there is a child hidden--a frank, sad, simple creature, who believes in the ideal, in love, in holiness, and all heavenly superstitions. A whole millennium of idyls sleeps in my heart; I am a pseudo-skeptic, a pseudo-scoffer."[20]

In 1908 Henry Louis Mencken wrote on Friedrich Nietzsche's criticism of philosopher David Strauss that:

"Strauss had been a preacher but had renounced the cloth and set up shop as a critic of Christianity. He had labored with good intentions, no doubt, but the net result of all his smug agnosticism was that his disciplines were as self-satisfied, bigoted, and prejudiced in the garb of agnostics as they had been before Christians. Nietzsche's eye saw this and in the first of his little pamphlets "David Strauss, der Bekenner und der Schriftsteller" ("David Strauss, the Confessor and the Writer"), he bore down on Strauss's bourgeoise pseudo-skepticism most savagely. This was 1873".[21]

Professor of Philosophy at the University of Illinois, Frederick L. Will used the term "pseudo-skepticism" in 1942. Alasdair MacIntyre writes:

[Frederick] Will was no exception. He began as an analytical philosopher, distinguishing different uses of language with the aim of showing that certain traditional philosophical problems need no longer trouble us, once we have understood how to make the relevant linguistic distinctions. The enemies were two: the philosophical skeptic who poses these false problems and the philosopher who thinks that the skeptic needs to be answered. So in "Is there a Problem of Induction?" (Journal of Philosophy, 1942) it is two senses of "know" that are to be distinguished: "All the uneasiness, the pseudo-skepticism and the pseudo-problem of induction, would never appear if it were possible to keep clear that 'know' in the statement that we do not know statements about the future is employed in a very special sense, not at all its ordinary one".[22]

Notre Dame Professor of English, John E. Sitter used the term in 1977 in a discussion of Alexander Pope: "Pope's intent, I believe, is to chasten the reader's skepticism — the pseudo-skepticism of the overly confident 'you' .. "[23]

The term pseudoskepticism was popularised and characterised by Truzzi in 1987, in response to the skeptic groups who applied the label of "pseudoscientists" to fields which Truzzi thought might be better described as protoscience.[24]

Notes

  1. ^ L. David Leiter, "The Pathology of Organized Skepticism" (PDF), in Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 125–128, 2002. "... it is important to clarify a basic difference, the difference between ordinary (individual) skepticism and organized skepticism. This paper does not take issue with ordinary skepticism, which is seen as a useful and important human trait ... However, organized skepticism appears to be something very different: it might be called, in the words of Ed Storms, pathological skepticism; or in the words of Marcello Truzzi, pseudoskepticism."
  2. ^ "Marcello Truzzi, On Pseudo-Skepticism" Zetetic Scholar (1987) No. 12/13, 3-4.
  3. ^ "Marcello Truzzi, On Pseudo-Skepticism" Zetetic Scholar (1987) No. 12/13, 3-4. "Though many in this category who dismiss and ridicule anomaly claims call themselves 'skeptics,' they often are really 'pseudo-skeptics' because they deny rather than doubt anomaly claims"
  4. ^ Truzzi, ibid, ".. they seem less inclined to take the same critical stance towards orthodox theories. For example, they may attack alternative methods in medicine (e.g., for a lack of double-blind studies) while ignoring that similar criticisms can be levelled against much conventional medicine"
  5. ^ Truzzi, ibid, "those I term scoffers often make judgements without full inquiry"
  6. ^ Hyman, Ray, 1980. "Pathological Science: Towards a Proper Diagnosis and Remedy," Zetetic Scholar, No. 6, 31-43. Truzzi wrote: ".. they may be more interested in discrediting an anomaly claim than in dispassionately investigating it"
  7. ^ Truzzi, ibid, "scoffers sometimes manage to discredit anomaly claims (e.g., through ridicule or ad hominem attacks) "
  8. ^ Truzzi, ibid, "scoffers sometimes manage to discredit anomaly claims .. without presenting any solid disproof
  9. ^ Truzzi, ibid, "A characteristic of many scoffers is their pejorative characterization of proponents as "promoters" and sometimes even the most protoscientific anomaly claimants are labelled as 'pseudoscientists' or practitioners of 'pathological science.' "
  10. ^ Marcello Truzzi, "On Pseudo-Skepticism]", Zetetic Scholar, #12-13, 1987. "Critics who assert negative claims, but who mistakenly call themselves 'skeptics,' often act as though they have no burden of proof placed on them at all, though such a stance would be appropriate only for the agnostic or true skeptic"
  11. ^ Truzzi, ibid, ".. the true skeptic does not assert a claim, he has no burden to prove anything. He just goes on using the established theories of 'conventional science' as usual. But if a critic asserts that there is evidence for disproof, that he has a negative hypothesis — saying, for instance, that a seeming psi result was actually due to an artifact — he is making a claim and therefore also has to bear a burden of proof."
  12. ^ Truzzi, ibid, ".. many critics seem to feel it is only necessary to present a case for their counter-claims based upon plausibility rather than empirical evidence"
  13. ^ Truzzi, ibid, "Showing evidence is unconvincing is not grounds for completely dismissing it."
  14. ^ Truzzi, ibid, "Some proponents of anomaly claims, like some critics, seen unwilling to consider evidence in probabilistic terms, clinging to any slim loose end as though the critic must disprove all evidence ever put forward for a particular claim."
  15. ^ L. David Leiter, "The Pathology of Organized Skepticism" (PDF), in Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 125–128, 2002.
  16. ^ C. Eugene Emery, Jr., "CD-ROM encyclopedias: how does their coverage of pseudoscience topics rate?", Skeptical Inquirer, Nov-Dec, 1996
  17. ^ ECEN 3070 - "Edges of Science", Spring Semester Spring 2006
  18. ^ Human Energy Systems Laboratory, University of Arizona
  19. ^ http://www.csicop.org/si/2003-01/medium.html "How Not to Test Mediums: Critiquing the Afterlife Experiments"
  20. ^ Charles Dudley Warner, Editor, Library Of The World's Best Literature Ancient And Modern, Vol. II, 1896. Online at Project Gutenberg (eg. here)
  21. ^ H. L. (Henry Louis) Mencken, The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche (1908) publ. T.F. Unwin. Reprinted in Friedrich Nietzsche, Originally published: Boston : Luce and Co., 1913. p.30.
  22. ^ Alasdair MacIntyre "Forward" to the book Pragmatism and Realism by Frederick L. Will (1997) quoting his earlier paper "Is There a Problem of Induction?" Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 39, No. 19 (Sep. 10, 1942), pp. 505-513
  23. ^ John E. Sitter, "The Argument of Pope's Epistle to Cobham" Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Vol. 17, No. 3, Restoration and Eighteenth Century (Summer, 1977), pp. 435-449
  24. ^ Truzzi, ibid, "A characteristic of many scoffers is their pejorative characterization of proponents as 'promoters' and sometimes even the most protoscientific anomaly claimants are labelled as "pseudoscientists" or practitioners of 'pathological science.' "

See also

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