Debunking the debunkers

[blutoski]

Precisely - you found errors in his data. You have just confirmed my point.

I want to take this example further and point out that the only reason I know he made an error was that it conflicted with something I knew to be true from reading a highschool textbook. I did not repeat the original experiments that show that weight can vary even when mass remains the same, and I did not personally read the original experimental papers that were published on the subject.

I just had some confidence that the authors of the textbook and my science teacher were sufficient authority.

 

[RichardR]

I want to take this example further and point out that the only reason I know he made an error was that it conflicted with something I knew to be true from reading a highschool textbook.

So did you decide he was wrong because he has no qualifications in chemistry, or because he wrote something that was not true?

I did not repeat the original experiments that show that weight can vary even when mass remains the same, and I did not personally read the original experimental papers that were published on the subject.

No, but some scientists did. Some scientist(s) performed the experiments and found the data to be correct. It was in the textbook because the data had been confirmed.

I just had some confidence that the authors of the textbook and my science teacher were sufficient authority.

No, you had trust in the scientific method - you trust that several people had performed the experiments and found the data to be correct.

 

[Piggy]

Incorrect. It's the most common logical fallacy applied by skeptics when an expert tells them they're wrong. It is often confused with the real fallacy: argument from questionable authority.

Wrong. Appeal to authority is a fallacy even if the authority is not "questionable".

Suppose you want to prove a point in physics and you cite Hawking and leave it at that. This is a fallacious argument. You may be correct, but citing Hawking in itself is not sufficient support.

 

[Piggy]

I apprecaite that, but my point is that skepticism as a movement was not founded to push the atheist cause. There are atheist organizations to do this. However, in my role within organized skepticism, it is a daily task to remind some members of this, because they don't seem to have the initiative to just up and form their own society.

What in the world are you babbling about?

There is no "skepticism movement" that "was founded".

You suggest here that atheists should pipe down and restrict their comments on God and religion to other forums. To hell with that.

I am one of those skeptics who assert -- and can argue rationally for -- the notion that rigidly applied skepticism leads inevitably to the atheistic position.

If debates over this issue break up organizations, then that's how the cookie crumbles. I'm not going to shut up.

 

[Piggy]

And humanism is explicitly a moral system. That's exactly what it is.

Care to back that up?

And its formal establishment in conjunction with Skepticism was intentional in order to promote both scientific naturalism and humanism as a replacement for the worldly explanations and moral systems of religions.

What "formal establishment"? What are you talking about?

And this is intentional. Look at the article in the original post: the author is saying that skepticism would capture the imagination a lot better if it has something to answer more than just technical scientific questions. It does! But lay skeptics are not aware that humanism is part of the movement.

Again with the "lay skeptics". You're in some world of your own invention now.

I see posts on the JREF forum saying things like: "We should think about having something to replace the ethical and moral codes of religion, not just telling people they should drop them. Let's put our heads together and think about this." Yeah, way to reinvent the wheel.

You're really going off the boards here, now. The search for an expression of morality which is not based on religion is a legitimate endeavor, especially considering that religion is total bunk. It is not "reinventing the wheel".

 

[Piggy]

The confidence that science can solve all problems is a religion unto itself inside skepticism. The actual term for this belief system is 'scientism' and there is a logical fallacy tied to it called 'the naturalistic fallacy'.

Please show me who you are talking about, who are these people who believe science has an answer for everything and can solve all problems?

Even on my "Killing Sagan's Dragon" thread, where many posters argued that I could not deny the dragon because going beyond science was irrational, I don't recall anyone making the sort of argument you describe.

 

[blutoski]

No he wasn't. The results were an accident - they initially surprised even Benveniste.

Your point here is absurd. Benveniste was head of allergy and inflammation immunology at the French biomedical research agency INSERM - and he put a diluted remedy through an allergy test. He was a scientist specializing in allergies testing allergies; Randi was a conjuror. Who was right? The scientist authority figure, of course, right? Oops no. Why?

Randi is an expert debunker of absurd claims. Benveniste was not. When Benveniste claimed water had memory (a claim that has nothing to do with immunology) he stepped right outside his scope of expertise and into Randi's.

Because his data was bad.

No, I didn't see Benveniste's data. I read Randi's report. I consider Randi to be an authority on the subject, so I accepted his conclusions over those of Benveniste.

So did you decide he was wrong because he has no qualifications in chemistry, or because he made an error? Which?

Randi made that decision, not me. My understanding is that Randi felt he was using an incorrect protocol at best, fabricating data at worst. ie: the data showed an effect, but the interpretation of an expert such as Randi sheds doubt. Randi's re-test was unsuccessful, but there is still a legacy of postive data to deal with.

Don't be silly.

My question still stands, though.



Wrong:

1902 23 June, [Einstein] starts provisional job at patent office: "Expert III Class." [Note - third class.]

[FONT=&quot][/FONT][FONT=&quot]"In little more than eight months in 1905 he completed five papers that would change the world for ever. "[/FONT]

And then:

1906 15 Jan, all formalities completed, [Einstein] becomes a Ph.D

Also, In 1906, Einstein was promoted to technical examiner second class.

So, he was hardly hired because he was an authority.[/quote]

Regardless of his PhD status, he was hired into a job that required physics expertise, and it's not a coincidence that the guy with a masters in physics - specifically electromagnetics - was hired to analyze such patents. Furthermore, in this environment, a guy with a masters in physics would have been part of the elite. The only reason he wasn't offered a professorship was because of personality conflicts with the faculty. A hundred years ago, a masters degree was quite the authority.

It's almost unbelieveble that I'm actually having to argue that Einstein's papers were accepted because they were good, rather than because he was an authority.

Well, you can sleep comfortably tonight, because that's not what I said. I believe my objection was with the suggestion that Einstein was some self-tutored maverick who came from the outside and took the physics establishment for some sort of right-angle-turn. It wasn't like that: he worked 'in his spare time' but not 'in secret'. He had access to feedback and resources from the world's leading minds on the subject: he was one of them.

One more time - the reviewers / people attempting replication are looking at the DATA.

Yes, experts. But your point was:

"Appeal to authority" is how science works..."

No it's not. I agree that non-experts should listen to the experts, and not make fools of themselves pretending they know more than they do. And that applies to scientists reading about subjects not in their area of expertise. But within a specialized area, the data counts.

Defending recognition of authority is an important part of a skeptic's job, because skepticism is aligned with the goals of science, where that is an instrumental part.

Organized Skepticism is asking those outside 'a specialized area' - ie: 99.9999999% of the world - to cultivate this. The article mentioned in the OP suggests this is a bad thing, and I'm trying to point out that it has worked very well for science so far, and that the erosion of regard for expertise undermines the institution of science, and diminishes the public's access to scientific advice.

 

[Piggy]

I'd prefer not to get personal.

Then don't. You're the one who brought up your personal mission. My advice to you is to hold off on that til you actually understand what's going on. Take it or leave it.

 

[Piggy]

I'm pretty sure this is precisely an appeal to authority. When other scientists say "I tried to replicate it, but succeeded/failed," we review this scientist's credentials to see if he's really qualified to do this replication.

Sez who?

The bio isn't reviewed. The setup is reviewed.

Remember the guys who confirmed the CMB? They were Bell Labs techs trying to get static out of their line.

 

[blutoski]

So did you decide he was wrong because he has no qualifications in chemistry, or because he wrote something that was not true?

No, but some scientists did. Some scientist(s) performed the experiments and found the data to be correct. It was in the textbook because the data had been confirmed.

No, you had trust in the scientific method - you trust that several people had performed the experiments and found the data to be correct.

"The scientific method" isn't a guy. What I had to do was trust that the publishers of the textbook had hired the appropriate experts to vet the chapter in question. Furthermore, they had to trust that their professors taught them from similarly vetted texts. And so on.

At no point is anybody actually reading the original experiments. Occasionally, the books have an author who was involved in original research, but it's rare.

I should point out that the currency of science textbooks has declined over the years, as the vetting process is pretty much skipped now. Bill Bennetta and I have had some conversations about this problem. A lot of the material in textbooks is demonstrably false, which is disconcerting. Another topic.

 

[Piggy]

This does not refute my claim: science depends on identifying authorities and laying some trust upon them. Whether it's the presenter of this particular claim, or the people reviewing it (who acquired their reputations from making previous claims) is not important: we're not doing the experiment ourselves, just laying back and letting experts examine it, and we'll trust their findings.

How can you continue to spout this stuff?

There is no appeal to authority in science.

In the military, in the Catholic church, yes, there's an appeal to authority.

But in science, if someone -- anyone -- does it right, then it's right. And if a great mind gets it wrong, then it's wrong.

Amateur astronomers still contribute to our store of data, for instance. And even Hawking has lost his bets.

 

[blutoski]

Then don't. You're the one who brought up your personal mission. My advice to you is to hold off on that til you actually understand what's going on. Take it or leave it.

I've been doing this for 35 years, and work daily with a CSICOP founder. I'm not sure there's a lot more I could 'understand' about skepticism by holding off.

 

[Piggy]

I don't normally go to WikiPedia for academic stuff, but their entry on Appeal to Authority is pretty good. First of all, they identify that it is an 'argument type'. That is: it is a legitemate argument format.

However, if you scroll down, they do point out that there are circumstances where an argument can be invalid: specifically if the authority is not cited for his expertise in the field, but for some other reason. This is the logical fallacy of argument from questionable authority.

Further down, they have Conditions for a legitemate argument from authority, which is consistent with what I learned during courses about scientific methodology.

I should point out that this entry does confess that they are not using universally accepted taxonomy. The taxonomic system I learned placed Argument From Authority as an argument type (a legitemate tool of critical thinking), and Argument from Questionable Authority as a fallacy.

You claimed that there is no such fallacy as appeal to authority.

You are wrong.

Wikipedia -- the glorified bulletin board -- aside, a naked appeal to authority is not a valid argument in and of itself. I don't know of any authority who could never be wrong. And if any of my students cited an authority and left it at that, without explaining why the authority was right, I had them rewrite.

 

[Piggy]

He raises a good point though. I have spent some time thinking about it, and I have classified skeptics into subcategories. This is just tentative, of course.

• formal skeptics / activities guided by the Big Five
• pseudoskeptics / activities complicate the Big Five, but mostly aligned
• lay skeptics / no activities, but mostly aligned
• crackpots who say they're skeptics / activities complicate Big Five, non-aligned

What in the world is this? You seem to be advocating that skeptics become members of some Catholic Church of skepticism. To hell with that.

I think for myself. I do agree that political action requires organization.

But for you to label me a "pseudoskeptic" because I'm not "guided by the Big Five", that's just nuts.

 

[Piggy]

I also went to Atheism Web, and they break it down like this:

• Legitimate Appeal to Authority
• Appeal to Unqualified Authority
• Appeal to Anonymous Authority

This is more aligned with the taxonomy I learned.

Here is the important point from the very top of your link regarding legitimate appeals:

There is agreement among experts in the area of knowledge under consideration.

Again, what this comes down to is the legitimacy of the method, and the process of verification.

 

[blutoski]

How can you continue to spout this stuff?

There is no appeal to authority in science.

In the military, in the Catholic church, yes, there's an appeal to authority.

But in science, if someone -- anyone -- does it right, then it's right. And if a great mind gets it wrong, then it's wrong.

Amateur astronomers still contribute to our store of data, for instance. And even Hawking has lost his bets.

This doesn't refute my assertion that authority is vitally important to science. It's fighting with a strawman: that the only factor in science is authority and that data doesn't matter. Or that authority is the determinant of scientific truth. I never said that. I said that science wouldn't work without recognition of authority. I even provided a link to show that in scientific matters, appeal to legitemate authority is not a logical fallacy.

What we do see in science is that somebody like Hawking gets to teach what he knows, instead of some student teaching him: it's acknowledged that he's the authority.

I think this problem is related to the general cultural influence of bibllical Protestantism. Disestablishmentarianism, basically. The rejection of an hierarchy and authorities on biblical interpretation. These protestants were encouraged to read the bible and come to their own interpretations.

This has spilled over into everyday society where this attitude has sort of fallen apart into general disregard for authority. This is one of the reasons science has lost its appeal: it is an institution where some people are regarded as authorities, and you have to earn your way into such a position. You can't just assume the mantle of an expert in all things by being human or whatever.

 

[Piggy]

Obviously. And my point is that that's how science works, and that's something skeptics should be encouraging. Instead, pseudoskeptics are falling into the cargo cult trap of "everybody's equally qualified," which is a principle completely hostile to the institution of science, and utterly undermines it.

One of the important aspects of the Dover trial was the court's distinctions about who was - and was not - an expert in the biological sciences.

Wrong again. The court determined that ID is not science, not because the proponents were not scientists, but BECAUSE ID IS NOT SCIENTIFIC.

It was a judgment on the merits of the claims, not the proponents, althought the court did note that there was a campaign of lies at the local level to present ID as valid science.

To say that people who aren't qualified to practice in a field are not qualified to practice in a field... this does not leave us with the option of appealing to authority. Science, like every endeavor, requires training.

But hey, when a couple of lab techs stumble on the CMB, they get credit.

 

[blutoski]

What in the world is this? You seem to be advocating that skeptics become members of some Catholic Church of skepticism. To hell with that.

I think for myself. I do agree that political action requires organization.

But for you to label me a "pseudoskeptic" because I'm not "guided by the Big Five", that's just nuts.

I didn't say which category you fit into. I had you more as a lay skeptic.

Although, I did earlier say that you showed a sign of pseudoskeptics in that you asserted that "argument from authority" in the case of a scientific expert was a logical fallacy. This is an error I usually assert to pseudoskeptics, as they are often throwing fallacies around in forums or mailing lists.

 

[Piggy]

Randi is respected because he's an authority on debunking.

Wrong. He's respected because he consistently applies legitimate methods and gets credible results. And he's an authority because he consistently applies legitimate methods and gets credible results.

 

[blutoski]

Wrong again. The court determined that ID is not science, not because the proponents were not scientists, but BECAUSE ID IS NOT SCIENTIFIC.

Sure, but they relied on a definition provided by expert witnesses. These witnesses were selected because they were considered authorities on "what is science?"

It was a judgment on the merits of the claims, not the proponents, althought the court did note that there was a campaign of lies at the local level to present ID as valid science.

To say that people who aren't qualified to practice in a field are not qualified to practice in a field... this does not leave us with the option of appealing to authority. Science, like every endeavor, requires training.

But hey, when a couple of lab techs stumble on the CMB, they get credit.

I'm not sure what "CMB" is. This does not refute my claim, though. Did these guys write a letter to the editor of the New York Times, and their findings were subsequently accepted by the scientific community?