The Ethics of Skepticism

[UrsulaV]

I see nothing wrong with faking something and then admitting it's a fake.

Faking something and then NOT admitting it's a fake, and letting people believe it's a miracle...that I'd find far more questionable. But I see nothing wrong with making a crop circle, and having people go "OH MY GOD! A crop circle! Aliens, aliens!" and then saying "Uh, no, gang, it was me with a board."

I suspect it's sometimes the only way to expose the power of belief. However, I also fully expect that some people who have been fooled will be angry and upset, and that someone setting up a stunt like this should be aware of the backlash.

But really, after a point, what other option is there?

Woo: "Crop circles are real!"
Circlemaker: "I just made this one. Look how easy it is."
Woo: "That's not a REAL circle. I can totally tell."

What other option, after that, is there to prove to somebody that this could be faked, except to fake one? If there's a better solution than faking one, having it authenticated, and then revealing the hoax, I can't think of it.

Is it perfectly ethical? Oh, probably not. But practically, I think it's the best we can do at the moment.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I'm always amused when croppies refer to "hoaxed circles." In this context, the use of the word hoax implies that there are real ones, that is, ones made by aliens or transdimensionals or whatever. Of course, if there are no real ones, then there are no hoaxes, either. There are just crop circles made by humans.

~~ Paul

 

[Euromutt]

Their argument is:
1. that fooling people for reasons of personal gain is unethical
2. the stunt involved fooling people for reasons of personal gain
C: therefore, their stunt was ethical

Wait a second here. I think you're using an unacceptably wide definition of what constitutes "personal gain" and, more importantly, ignoring that how that personal gain is achieved, though this is rather important in this kind of consideration. Any kind of material gain Penn & Teller may be making from this stunt does not come at the involuntary expense of any Bigfoot aficionado; insofar as P & T are making money off this, it's because they're being paid by Showtime, and possibly from increased ticket sales to their show at the Rio. They aren't enriching themselves by taking Footers' money, and that's a crucial difference.

 

[Ausmerican]

I don't get the argument about disclosure blutoski. In their career as magicians P&T quite often disclose how they did their tricks. But not until AFTER they fooled you. Therefore when their show airs that episode and they disclose how they did the bf film they have again disclosed how it was done AFTER they fooled you.

As far as hoaxing people for personal gain, that is their career discription. However, since they are not saying they do their tricks using real magic or that they actually filmed a real bigfoot, I think you are being somewhat uncharitible labelling their admitted tricks as fraud or hoax.

 

[Stellafane]

Totally ethical

Not only do I think P&T's faking of the Sonoma Bigfoot video is ethical, I believe it performs an absolutely essential function by establishing a "baseline of credulity." As ImaginalDisc and UrsulaV point out, how else can you disprove the believers' contention that they can always tell the difference between real and faked BF footage? And I think it's especially telling that P&T apparently made only a token effort to produce an authentic-looking film. Certainly, with their talent and resources, they could have produced a video that looked spectacularly real, that would have given pause to even the most die-hard skeptic. But what would that prove? Footers would just say, "What do you expect? Of course P&T can fool us, they're professionals at it. But how many P&T's are out there faking stuff?" Instead, the film indicates that even a half-assed effort can fool at least some of the BF community (and BFRO is certainly a member of that community, despite other Footers' current efforts to distance themselves from them -- although I suspect in the end the BFRO will eventually be welcomed back; the Footers need all the friends they can muster).

I'm reminded of that case involving the late Dr. John Mack, the Harvard researcher who believed humans are being abducted by aliens. If Dr. Mack was correct, it would be nothing less than the most astonishing event in the history of mankind, utterly changing our view of the universe, and raising important concerns for national, international, and planetary security and survival. So to test Dr. Mack's contention that he could always distinguish between a real abduction memory and a bogus one, a woman approached him claiming she had been abducted. And it wasn't just any garden-variety abduction; to really test the limits of Dr. Mack's credulity, this woman concocted a tale in which she claimed she met President Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev on a UFO! Apparently the aliens were conducting some very high-level summitry. How she managed to blurt out this ridiculous fable with a straight face is anyone's guess -- yet Dr. Mack fell for it hook, line, and sinker. And even after she 'fessed up to the hoax, Dr. Mack, in the ultimate act of denial, still insisted her story must be true -- what she thought was a made-up tale was in fact a repressed memory of a real event, bubbling to the surface!

Such "sting operations" perform important roles in the search for truth. Believers make extraordinary claims. Skeptics demand extraordinary evidence to back up these claims. Believers provide weak, blurry, and anecdotal evidence. Skeptics point out this evidence could be faked. Believers insist it couldn't possibly be. How else can skeptics respond to that, except by proving definitively that this evidence can be faked and still be accepted by believers?

 

[Correa Neto]

I fail to see any problems with such tactics. Actually I do think they should be carried out more frequently and targeting people like Sylivia Browne and John Edwards. There's a wide target selection. Anti-vaccine "specialists", homeopaths, crackpot "alternative medicine experts", [add exploiter of woo beliefs here].

Similar approaches are also valid IMHO as a way to probe the reliability of scientific journals. At the risk of being scorched by flames, I must remember the Sokal and SCIgen affairs. Despite the rants of some (note that in many cases the rants came from those who were somehow fooled), they managed to expose flaws in the reasonings of some (some?) people as well as in the selection processes of journals.

Sometimes you must let the ◊◊◊◊◊ hit the fan.

 

[blutoski]

I'm trying to square this with double-blind research, where the subject (and sometimes not even the person giving the medicine or whatever) does not know if they are receiving a sugar pill or a new drug. I hope you don't think double-blinded research is wrong.

No, I do it for a living. However, participants must be informed that they are:

• in an experiment
• with a chance of placebo
• and the suspected side effects of the drug
• the purpose of the experiment (it's value to society)
• if this drug has been tested before, when, and by whom
• who is paying for the experiment
• how the results will be published
• how the experiment will work (protocols)

Most importantly: subjects can refuse to participate, if they choose. I reiterate: Informed. Choice.

Conducting a placebo-controlled experiment without subjects' permission is illegal. The charges I've seen in the profession are assault and battery, conspiracy to cause bodily harm, and so on.

This story contains no informed choice.

In this sense I think fooling people can be a learning tool, and a research tool. The people are always told in the end. The problem I have with "psychics" is they do not admit they were fooling people all along. They never will either, not unless forced to.

"told in the end" is not the same as "informed choice". All they can do after-the-fact is seek compensation.

 

[blutoski]

I don't get the argument about disclosure blutoski. In their career as magicians P&T quite often disclose how they did their tricks. But not until AFTER they fooled you. Therefore when their show airs that episode and they disclose how they did the bf film they have again disclosed how it was done AFTER they fooled you.

Disclosure is not about explaining the mechanics of the trick: it's about what you do versus what you said you would do. I think people who buy P&T tickets are aware they're magicians. Nowhere on their promotional literature do they claim to have magical powers.

As far as hoaxing people for personal gain, that is their career discription. However, since they are not saying they do their tricks using real magic or that they actually filmed a real bigfoot, I think you are being somewhat uncharitible labelling their admitted tricks as fraud or hoax.

I'm not describing their show as fraud or hoax, since they promote their show as magic tricks. If they claimed their acts were done via telekenesis, it would be fraud or hoaxing.



Consider: If Uri Geller confessed on his deathbead, would that make him ethical?

 

[blutoski]

I see nothing wrong with faking something and then admitting it's a fake.

I asked this in another post, but I'll cover it again: if Geller confessed on his deathbed, does his lifetime of larceny suddenly become ethical?

Is it perfectly ethical? Oh, probably not. But practically, I think it's the best we can do at the moment.

That's exactly my argument: it's not ethical.

But! Since there is a good argument for benefit, we have a moral dilemma: should we do something that's a little unethical to reduce the ability for other people (Geller, Browne) to do something very unethical?

 

[blutoski]

Wait a second here. I think you're using an unacceptably wide definition of what constitutes "personal gain" and, more importantly, ignoring that how that personal gain is achieved, though this is rather important in this kind of consideration. Any kind of material gain Penn & Teller may be making from this stunt does not come at the involuntary expense of any Bigfoot aficionado; insofar as P & T are making money off this, it's because they're being paid by Showtime, and possibly from increased ticket sales to their show at the Rio. They aren't enriching themselves by taking Footers' money, and that's a crucial difference.

OK: I agree there's a weak argument for 'personal gain'. How about 'benefits, personal or public'. The concocted example here's a little fuzzy anyway.

My feeling is that the benefit to others is a little doubtful, so pretty much all of the benefit is seen by the perpetrator of the hoax. When the perpetrator gets all the benefit, and the mark gets next to none, the act's morality is questionable.

I find it ironic that P&T - sworn libertarians - think the 'public good' justifies lying.

 

[blutoski]

I remember this. Snopes made up a few of their own urban legends and put a page on their site that was a True/False quiz. They clearly explained that the stories were fake and yet they started showing up in inboxes as true. One of them (can't remember, something about pirates, IIRC) showed up on an Urban Legend TV show.

As far as the P&T hoax is concerned, I don't have any problems with it as long as they fess up. The only problem I can see is that in the end, just like the Snopes thing, some people will only remember the video and not that it was exposed as a hoax.

Oh, I remember another example: the Carlos hoax.

I think one thing we can do to measure the impact of these demonstrations is go to our friends in the general public and ask them if they remember these:

• the Carlos hoax
• the Sokal hoax
• the Blackbeard song hoax

If they generally know what you're talking about, then maybe there's some value in all this.

 

[kitakaze]

Sorry for coming out of left field, but after going through the thread I just wanted to say I think the critical thinking skills of many people who fancy themselves skeptics flounder when they approach the subject of bigfoot as though all people who consider the possibility are woos (read; near idiot).

Woo: Bigfoot is real. Look at all the plaster footprints, and video tapes of bigfoot which have been collected over the years.

Skeptic: The videos and footprints often show completely contradictory types of creatures. All the body hairs which have been collected have been shown to come from other, less mysterious animals. People who claim to have seen bigfoot are either liars, or are sadly mistaken, because there is no evidence bigfoot exists.

Woo: You can't prove that tape X, my favorite bigfoot video, is a forgery.

Skeptic: That's true, I can't prove that particular tape is a forgery. However, I can demonstrate that I can make a very similar tape, with trickery.

Skeptic makes the tape, and informs Woo every step of the way.

Skeptic: Here you go.

Woo: Ha! that's ridiculous, no one would ever believe in that obvious fake.

Skeptic: You only disbelieve it's the real thing, because you watched me make it. if you were unaware that it was a hoax, you would probably have fallen for it, just as you fell for tape X.

Woo: You can't prove that!

Jeff Corkern does this over in his tired, lonely, and mundane philosophical masturbation sessions and gets smacked for talking to himself. Why is it any more poignant here? I just think it's a little lazy using the 'here is my dialogue with oft-heard idiot.' Now, until the next time Beckjord pops up I'm not sure if there's enough real idiots with clear opinions on BF to go around here but making them up ain't keeping you any sharper.

 

[Amapola]

"told in the end" is not the same as "informed choice". All they can do after-the-fact is seek compensation.

I certainly appreciate your distinction. I think the reason I don't feel the same way about the P&T deal and someone taking medication without their knowledge, is that the potential consequences are not nearly as serious. I guess I am seeing the P&T film more in the sense of a joke, like the Onion. Some people might read the Onion and think it was real....... because no matter how goofy you make a story, you can probably find someone who believes it. However I don't feel like the Onion is doing anything unethical.

This is just the way I see the situation. To me it is more of an "April Fool's Joke" and can't cause any sort of bodily harm to people who believe it.

 

[kitakaze]

But! Since there is a good argument for benefit, we have a moral dilemma: should we do something that's a little unethical to reduce the ability for other people (Geller, Browne) to do something very unethical?

Yes.

 

[Anders W. Bonde]

I think there needs to be made an ethical distinction based on intent, if possible. Taking Blutoski's Geller vs. P&T example, I believe that distinction can be made: I assume P&T planned from the ouset to reveal their BF hoax as a part of their plan with it, which I believe was a happening to make a statement on gullibility and critical thinking, whereas I don't think Geller ever intends to admit to being a simple con man.

 

[Beth]

I think Blutoski is right regarding the ethics of it, but I tend to agree with Amapola. It seems to me to be more in the vein of a pratical joke. Is is 'ethical' to set up a pail of water to fall on someone? Probably not, but it's best to keep in mind that its only a prank. I don't think P&T were seriously attempting to do research.

 

[T'ai Chi]

"the ends justify the means"

 

[digithead]

"the ends justify the means"

In this particular case, how can you accuse P&T of this?

They made a video to demonstrate that people could be fooled...

People then either through guillibility or wishful thinking accepted the video uncritically...

Then P&T revealed what they had done, proving that people that people could be fooled...

How else would you demonstrate this?

No animals were harmed, no people were abused, and the only ones whose feelings were hurt were those that were gullible to begin with. As the saying goes, experience is what you get when you don't get what you want...

 

[ImaginalDisc]

Sorry for coming out of left field, but after going through the thread I just wanted to say I think the critical thinking skills of many people who fancy themselves skeptics flounder when they approach the subject of bigfoot as though all people who consider the possibility are woos (read; near idiot).Jeff Corkern does this over in his tired, lonely, and mundane philosophical masturbation sessions and gets smacked for talking to himself. Why is it any more poignant here? I just think it's a little lazy using the 'here is my dialogue with oft-heard idiot.' Now, until the next time Beckjord pops up I'm not sure if there's enough real idiots with clear opinions on BF to go around here but making them up ain't keeping you any sharper.

Pardon? Would you mind making yourself more plain? I never called bigfoot believers idiots. If you would like to put words in my mouth, do it elsewhere.

 

[T'ai Chi]

They made a video to demonstrate that people could be fooled...
...
Then P&T revealed what they had done, proving that people that people could be fooled...

It is already very well known that people can be fooled.

P&T might as well show to the world that 2 + 2 = 4.