Skepticism can lose friends...

I understand completely. Friends, family, co-workers... I can use the soundest logic in the world and I still won't convince them that their unfounded beliefs aren't proven or sound.

Not that I think my reasoning is always on the ball; I have some friends who are able to debate very well, and it forces me to up the ante, and we're cool; we thrive on argument. But to many others, it's an annoyance.
 
fuelair said:
For social ocassions, leave it alone unless potential death/permanent damage is likely.
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Unfortunately it sucks hellish if it gets to the point that you have to be constantly on the guard, forcefully suppress your emotions, and fake nice behavior every single day. You're out of luck if you have a tendency towards impulsive and emotional behavior. Personally, I'm deeply grateful for the luck to live in an environment which tolerates a fair amount of rudeness. I don't know how I would be able to cope if I had to watch every step.
 
Happened to me today...a colleague started going on about homeopathy. I made the point that it doesn't work - and why, then left it. He was talking about a friend who he had a lot of respect for who is/was a homepathic doctor..he clearly wasn't going to listen to criticism or take it kindly that I was saying that his friend was a quack.
 
lionking said:
The management group of my company had a Christmas Party yesterday. The 12 of us were having a good time with good food and drinks. A couple of hours in one of my colleagues said that one of our universities have started to teach water divining (dowsing) as part of one of their subjects (Swinburne for my aussie friends - and I will look into this!). He said that one of his skeptical staff witnessed one of the "teachers" and was convinced.

Normally I would have just let this go, but I did have a few drinks. I spoke about the MDC and how dowsing was nothing but BS. After a few minutes of supporting dowsing, one of my colleagues, who I would have thought was very sensible, then said "anyway, I can dream of things which happen in the future". "Tell me more" I asked and she told me a story of how she dreamed that one of her staff (50 plus) was pregnant. She went to her and asked if her daughter in law was pregnant. No was the answer, but a few days later she was pregnant, so the dream came true!

Ok, I saw the lie of the land and was about to drop the subject when my boss started to talk about the "healing hands" of her cousin. BS was my response.

Finally another manager, who I thought was the most sensible of all then asked "Well how can you explain the miracles of Jesus Christ?". I started to talk about the lack of primary source evidence of the actual existence of the man, but said "Well I have no problems with your faith" only to be told that I was wrong about everything. I will not go into the abysmal lack of knowlegde of the gospels of this person.

Anyway, in my attempt to maintain a skeptical stance that night, I was treated as a pain in the ass. I know I should have shut up and let the party go on, but, probably because of my involvement in the JREF couldn't let it go.

So how do you all respond to such ignorant superstition in a social environment, particularly with work colleagues?
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Ok, I'm going to give you my very sincere personal opinion: I keep reading cases such as yours in this forum and I think that the main problem here is arrogance. Let me try to explain:

When I began my formal classical piano studies in Venezuela, my piano teacher who was from Italy, gave me the speech she usually gives to all of her private students. First, she would point to her degree hanging on the wall. She would say something along the lines of "There's my degree. That's the proof that I'm not just another phony teacher". Then she gave me a picture of the situation of Classical teaching in Venezuela. She told me that in Venezuela, there was a hidden realitiy which is that there wasn't technically a legal Music School. By legal, I mean a School which provides a degree that's actually usefull for a student to pursue an international career. She told me the entire music educational system was flawed and that there wasn't even a serious studying program.

I took what she said very seriously because she seemed as a serious person and indeed her studying technique is great and has left a mark on me, and I still even use it even though I have now switched to Jazz.

The point I'm trying to make is that when she told me all this, I just took her word without doing my own research. I basically felt as if she was Morfeo and I was Neo. I felt really important because I had this truth that no one else had. This made me, without realizing it until after a very long time, very arrogant.

Everytime someone would mention the Simon Bolivar orchestra or the young Orchestra from La Guaira or how great was that concert at the Teresa Carreño, I couldn't hold myself. I would inmediately start saying that it was all fake and that they weren't that good because the educational system this and the educational system that and blablabla.

The truth is, I found out later that that paradigm was only half true. There is a lot of corruption in the educational system but there is also a lot of talent. And just recently (a week ago) I found out that one of our Venezuelan conductors, Gustavo Dudamel, has been appointed to the Los Angeles Orchestra. Even though by the time I found out I had already changed my paradigm about the Venezuelan educational system, I was still shocked. And of course very proud.


Don't take this literally because I'm not claiming that hand healing or any of their woo claims could appear to be true (Although technically speaking, the possibility always exists). What I'm talking about is mostly an arrogant attitude that we all assume when we feel we're in a position of enlightment which makes us superior to others. And when this happens, we just can't hold ourselves everytime someone says something that's "wrong". We just need to open our mouth. My theory is that this impulse doesn't really come from a need to tell the truth. It comes from a need to get that little kick. It's like a drug high. It's like a kick, a feelling of pleasure everytime we "Enlight" others.

I'm not saying that that's the only reason. There is also an interest in sharing our views. There is an interest in helping others when they are going the wrong path. All of these reasons are also there. But I think we really need to consider that one: The egocentric need to "reveal the secret that no one but me has inside".

That's the reason why things ended up the way they did. If the ego hadn't been the hidden cause for this, you wouldn't have minded so much. After realizing that they don't believe you, you would have had another sip of your drink, shake your head and probably said something like "Yeah, well... don't sweat it man. I'm just giving you my opinion" and the party would have continued as usual. But you went to your room. That was a choice you made. No one told you "Hey, you're ruining the party. That's it. We don't want you here anymore. Go to your room!"

I think we have to regonize that there is a limit to which we can persuade someone. It doesn't matter how god your point is; there are people who aren't open enough to let their paradigm switch. When it comes to that point, you have to learn to let it go. If they ever want to let the new information in, that's a choice they will have to make and no one can do it for them.
 
Just leave it alone and go uh huh in all the right places. Pose your skepticism as questions rather than correct answers. People who believe in woo don't want their bubbles burst any more than a skeptic wants to believe in woo. You need to find a fine balance between pissing them off and making them question their own belief. I find it more fun to do as you leave people to wonder without upsetting them. You'll catch more flies with honey......
 
Ron_Tomkins said:
Ok, I'm going to give you my very sincere personal opinion: I keep reading cases such as yours in this forum and I think that the main problem here is arrogance. Let me try to explain:

When I began my formal classical piano studies in Venezuela, my piano teacher who was from Italy, gave me the speech she usually gives to all of her private students. First, she would point to her degree hanging on the wall. She would say something along the lines of "There's my degree. That's the proof that I'm not just another phony teacher". Then she gave me a picture of the situation of Classical teaching in Venezuela. She told me that in Venezuela, there was a hidden realitiy which is that there wasn't technically a legal Music School. By legal, I mean a School which provides a degree that's actually usefull for a student to pursue an international career. She told me the entire music educational system was flawed and that there wasn't even a serious studying program.

I took what she said very seriously because she seemed as a serious person and indeed her studying technique is great and has left a mark on me, and I still even use it even though I have now switched to Jazz.

The point I'm trying to make is that when she told me all this, I just took her word without doing my own research. I basically felt as if she was Morfeo and I was Neo. I felt really important because I had this truth that no one else had. This made me, without realizing it until after a very long time, very arrogant.

Everytime someone would mention the Simon Bolivar orchestra or the young Orchestra from La Guaira or how great was that concert at the Teresa Carreño, I couldn't hold myself. I would inmediately start saying that it was all fake and that they weren't that good because the educational system this and the educational system that and blablabla.

The truth is, I found out later that that paradigm was only half true. There is a lot of corruption in the educational system but there is also a lot of talent. And just recently (a week ago) I found out that one of our Venezuelan conductors, Gustavo Dudamel, has been appointed to the Los Angeles Orchestra. Even though by the time I found out I had already changed my paradigm about the Venezuelan educational system, I was still shocked. And of course very proud.


Don't take this literally because I'm not claiming that hand healing or any of their woo claims could appear to be true (Although technically speaking, the possibility always exists). What I'm talking about is mostly an arrogant attitude that we all assume when we feel we're in a position of enlightment which makes us superior to others. And when this happens, we just can't hold ourselves everytime someone says something that's "wrong". We just need to open our mouth. My theory is that this impulse doesn't really come from a need to tell the truth. It comes from a need to get that little kick. It's like a drug high. It's like a kick, a feelling of pleasure everytime we "Enlight" others.

I'm not saying that that's the only reason. There is also an interest in sharing our views. There is an interest in helping others when they are going the wrong path. All of these reasons are also there. But I think we really need to consider that one: The egocentric need to "reveal the secret that no one but me has inside".

That's the reason why things ended up the way they did. If the ego hadn't been the hidden cause for this, you wouldn't have minded so much. After realizing that they don't believe you, you would have had another sip of your drink, shake your head and probably said something like "Yeah, well... don't sweat it man. I'm just giving you my opinion" and the party would have continued as usual. But you went to your room. That was a choice you made. No one told you "Hey, you're ruining the party. That's it. We don't want you here anymore. Go to your room!"

I think we have to regonize that there is a limit to which we can persuade someone. It doesn't matter how god your point is; there are people who aren't open enough to let their paradigm switch. When it comes to that point, you have to learn to let it go. If they ever want to let the new information in, that's a choice they will have to make and no one can do it for them.
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I think you forget one thing though. In very few cases it is "the skeptic" who starts to "enlighten" people around him/her out of the blue. Usually it is the people who believe in the different woo who feels the need to enlighten people, and that's when some of us can't keep quiet. The arrogance in most cases is with the people who have the weird beliefs, and they are most of the times not amused when someone opposes them. I don't know about others, but I never just starts to lecture people about the latest debunkings of this and that, that I have read about. But people who believe in this and that are doing just that. They, often out of the blue, starts to lecture people about homeopathy, god, psychics, tarot reading, the secret, dan brown, or whatever, and in their arrogance they do not want anyone else to contradict them on their "facts".

Sure there are skeptics who are arrogant, but in many cases we are not arrogant at all, but will be percieved that way no matter how we express ourselves, simply because the person who started to talk about weird things does not like to be wrong, and are often not used to being challenged.
 
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Cardelitre said:
I think I'm missing something here... :confused:
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Sorry. It's a joke. A sort of standing joke on this forum which originated in the politics thread. Frequently, when someone would post something even slightly critical of the United States, the response would be a diatribe on how that person hated America; it became so frequent and such a blatant fallacy, that it became a joke. I tried to apply it here since you said English isn't your first language. If you loved America it would be.:)

My apologies for not putting a smiley on it earlier.
 
Garrette said:
Sorry. It's a joke. A sort of standing joke on this forum which originated in the politics thread. Frequently, when someone would post something even slightly critical of the United States, the response would be a diatribe on how that person hated America; it became so frequent and such a blatant fallacy, that it became a joke. I tried to apply it here since you said English isn't your first language. If you loved America it would be.:)

My apologies for not putting a smiley on it earlier.
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That's ok, I thought it should be some kind of private joke specific to this forum.
I'll take a tour to the politics section then, seems interesting... :D
 
Pharyngula had an interesting post today that is perhaps the "worst case" scenario for the OP:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/12/another_reason_to_avoid_debati.php

Rudi Boa, a scientist, got into an argument with Alexander York, an ignorant ass, while on a backpacking trip in Australia. Boa was arguing for evolution, while York was arguing for idiocy. Later, under the influence of alcohol, York attacked, stabbed, and killed Boa.
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--Tim Farley
 
Cardelitre said:
I'll take a tour to the politics section then, seems interesting... :D
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No!...No!...Noooooo!

Down that path lies madness!!!

Stay...Stay!!

Sit down in a comfy chair and have a hug, some nice cake and a cup of tea.

:grouphug7
 
Skepticism can make you lose friends but so can the words "let me tell you about my best friend: Jesus Christ".
 
-Fran- said:
I think you forget one thing though. In very few cases it is "the skeptic" who starts to "enlighten" people around him/her out of the blue. Usually it is the people who believe in the different woo who feels the need to enlighten people, and that's when some of us can't keep quiet. The arrogance in most cases is with the people who have the weird beliefs, and they are most of the times not amused when someone opposes them. I don't know about others, but I never just starts to lecture people about the latest debunkings of this and that, that I have read about. But people who believe in this and that are doing just that. They, often out of the blue, starts to lecture people about homeopathy, god, psychics, tarot reading, the secret, dan brown, or whatever, and in their arrogance they do not want anyone else to contradict them on their "facts".

Sure there are skeptics who are arrogant, but in many cases we are not arrogant at all, but will be percieved that way no matter how we express ourselves, simply because the person who started to talk about weird things does not like to be wrong, and are often not used to being challenged.
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I'm not forgetting that case. I never said the opposite couldn't happen. I'm talking about this particular case. I could be wrong, but it seems like this was a case where he could have, as someone else pointed out in this thread, talked aobut his views as if they were opinions. You know, change the tone so it doesn't sound like "You're all wrong because THIS is the truth". I didn't get the impression that any of his friends were trying to lecture the rest as if their woo claims were the absolute truth. This of course creates another controversy: who's the one trying to impose their truth on others? Either way, that's not an excuse for us to lower to their level. Even if a person starts lecturing others with a woo claim, we should try to be a little bit more impartial and not try to impose our views on others. If our argument is strong enough, it should make an impact by itself without any emotional attachments to it. Then again, as I said before, it still depends on the other individuals if they are indeed open enough to let this new information pour in. If they are too close minded and/or too brainwashed with their own limited vision of reality, it won't reach them no matter how logical and reasonable the argument may sound.

Try not to misinterpretate my comments. I'm not saying skeptics are a bunch of arrogant suckers. That's definitively not what I said. I'm also not saying that the poster is an arrogant person. I'm only pointing out to what I think was a moment of arrogance that he experienced. All of us have those moments.
 
HarryKeogh said:
Skepticism can make you lose friends but so can the words "let me tell you about my best friend: Jesus Christ".
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LOL!

I just want to add that I'm not really fond of the claim "Skepticism can lose friends". I think it sounds once again as throwing the blame on an inanimate concept. Skepticism doesn't lose your friends. You lose them. It's all about the attitude that you assume.

I have many friends who share different ideologies than I do. I also have people I don't get along with who share the same ideologies that I do.
 
Don't sell CFL short, bless his bull neck

Zep said:
A Larsen Lecture! After the staff Christmas party too. Bet there'll be a lot of takers for that!....
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I'd bet that yes, there would be takers, and plenty of them. The offer of a lecture is an arresting ploy on a social occasion. The chance to hear a formal talk, with notes and slides (I hope) and, most importantly, questions and answers, delivered by someone you know, will pique an intelligent* person's curiosity. It sets up a forum without aquavit-fueled dissention, where points can be made clearly. It lets rationality take the initiative, and as we all know, opportunities for that are damn few and fleeting.

* And the unintelligent? Beats me. "The gods themselves" and all that.
 
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Ron, part of the problem is that it's often downright impossible to not appear arrogant in the eyes of persons who are simply not used to logical argument. If the premises are correct, a proper logical argument doesn't just lead to "opinion". If you mainly want to be polite, acting as though opinions contradicted by logical arguments could be just as valid is okay. But from that point on you aren't really engaged in a honest debate anymore.

Given that opposition to the idea that all opinions are somehow equally valid is part of my rallying call as a skeptic, I'd rather have no debate at all. Which is alright; sometimes we need to just get over ourselves and get a life. I guess I just don't like this let's-pretend-we're-having-a-debate stuff. People are often quick to point out perceived arrogance, and then use it as an excuse to shut their minds off completely.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing that skeptics should be more angry or forceful or anything like that. I really admire people who can be both really nice and rational debaters at the same time. It takes a great amount of skill to achieve that. I fear some of us are just not cut out for the task. Personally, if I could simply manage to avoid debating certain topics at times I'd be content.
 
lionking,

This is something I've been thinking about a lot lately. As skeptics (and therefore, thinkers) we tend to want to educate people, because we can see the errors they make; credulity, biases, etc. Unfortunately (as many have pointed out), the believers hold on very tightly to their woo, and really want to believe (despit that pesky "evidence"). So it's a tough road to walk. Too often, by trying to educate people, we can come off as "wet blankets" or "party poopers" or "know-it-alls". So, in my opinion, we have to be as tactful as possible when trying to rebut woo. I always try to let people know I'm open to the possibility of a particular phenomenon, but must evaluate the evidence. I also carefully explain biases, fallacies, etc. But nicely.

However, sometimes (and I haven't always been able to figure out when this is), you just have to hold your tongue.
 
Ron_Tomkins said:
I'm not forgetting that case. I never said the opposite couldn't happen. I'm talking about this particular case. I could be wrong, but it seems like this was a case where he could have, as someone else pointed out in this thread, talked aobut his views as if they were opinions. You know, change the tone so it doesn't sound like "You're all wrong because THIS is the truth". I didn't get the impression that any of his friends were trying to lecture the rest as if their woo claims were the absolute truth. This of course creates another controversy: who's the one trying to impose their truth on others? Either way, that's not an excuse for us to lower to their level. Even if a person starts lecturing others with a woo claim, we should try to be a little bit more impartial and not try to impose our views on others. If our argument is strong enough, it should make an impact by itself without any emotional attachments to it. Then again, as I said before, it still depends on the other individuals if they are indeed open enough to let this new information pour in. If they are too close minded and/or too brainwashed with their own limited vision of reality, it won't reach them no matter how logical and reasonable the argument may sound.

Try not to misinterpretate my comments. I'm not saying skeptics are a bunch of arrogant suckers. That's definitively not what I said. I'm also not saying that the poster is an arrogant person. I'm only pointing out to what I think was a moment of arrogance that he experienced. All of us have those moments.
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I see what you mean, and I agree. However for many people with these sorts of belief (I speak from personal experience as well) there isn't a wrong and a right way to discuss things with them, there are only wrong ways. It doesn't always have to be that they are too closed and can never be reasoned with, but that they are just not used to being challenged. Too much woo out there are much too respected by too many people.

I've had this type of conversation many times with people about different woo beliefs:

Woo believer: Do you believe in Guardian Angels?
Me: No.
Woo believer: Why not?
Me: *explaining why I don't*
Woo believer: I can't believe you don't believe in Guardian Angels. You have to be stupid not to see... blah blah blah. I have blah blah blah myself, you think I am lying?
Me: No but... *explaining again*, *maybe mentioning something about the unreliability of human perception*
(Discussion either getting heated, or dying out...)

Later, a friend: NN is a really nice woman, did you have to be such a wiseguy with her?
Me: :boggled:

Many people can not see the difference between discussing their beliefs and a personal attack. And many people should not ask what people think if they just want someone who agrees with them.
 
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