Being skeptical of skepticism?

[Gravy]

Laws against medical fraud are tyrannical! *Giggles*

Do you know how many people die while waiting for a drug that could have saved them to get FDA approved?

Nice non-sequitur. How many times can you change the subject in a thread? Please explain why medical fraud should not be illegal.

Tell me, where do you expect to go, where there are no laws that could forcefully influence your life?

Perhaps you'd like to answer Mashuna's excellent question, Alex. And perhaps you should read "A Man for All Seasons," which is about the life of Sir Thomas More:

MORE: What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

ROPER: I'd cut down every law in England to do that!

MORE: And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned on you -- where would you hide Roper, the laws all being flat?

Now, Alex, are you really claiming that skepticism is not a valid approach to exposing the government abuses you claim? If so, what approach do you favor?

 

[aggle-rithm]

Do you know how many people die while waiting for a drug that could have saved them to get FDA approved?

Oh, no! He's pulling out the big guns, people...an appeal to emotion!

RUN!!!

 

[technoextreme]

Do you know how many people die while waiting for a drug that could have saved them to get FDA approved?

Awww but do you know how many people died who volunteered for a drug trial? Hint: The answer isn't zero. Counteract that appeal to emotion with the exact opposite appeal to emotion.

 

[aggle-rithm]

So someone ought to seriously propose some sort of a "Skeptic's Code of Ethics" based on the non-aggression principle.

I disagree. The actions people take based on their own world-view, be it skepticism or whatever alternative they have managed to cobble together, is a completely separate issue from the world-view itself.

Skeptics argue against woo regardless of where it's coming from...whether the culprits truly believe what they're selling or they are just con artists. It doesn't matter; the action is the same regardless of the belief.

If someone were to physically attack a person because they are tricking sick people into buying magic beads, it wouldn't matter whether they were motivated by skepticism or blind hatred. The action is separate from the motivation.

 

[Alex Libman]

By your own definition of tyranny and "force" then there is absolutely no "free country" whatsoever, there are only a bunch of tyranny to various degree.

True. But I won't be wasting my time on political activism if government was below a certain threshold of evilness, like in pre-handover Hong Kong.

What you are requesting is more or less anarchy.

Anarcho-Capitalism. Anarchy is a vague term that can apply to idiots who don't respect other people's rights to life, liberty, and property. The founding fathers of America were very close to the Anarcho-Capitalist philosophy, but then they became drunk with power and became Minarchists instead - that is people who believe in a limited, constitutionally-bound government. That worked well for the first few decades, but the power of government gradually grew and is now out of control.

Within our intellectual circles, you will hear a lot of debate between Minarchists (who believe that good government can exist - Ayn Rand proposed it would be so small as to be fundable voluntarily through contract insurance) and pure AnCaps - and I'm somewhere in between depending on what side of the bed I woke up on that morning.

It's sort of like two groups of hippies taking a bus from Boston - some are going to stop in Oakland and some are going all the way to San Francisco, but 99% of their journey is the same. AnCap certainly is sexier, but Minarchy is far easier to defend the concept of.

Where have skeptics argued otherwise?

Gravy just did.

It sounds as if you believe that people are always responsible and think clearly. Is that correct?

Absolutely not. Only socialists think people can be trusted blindly - you can see how well that worked out in places like the Soviet Union. AnCaps are the very opposite of that, we believe in decentralization. People who just want to go with the flow and follow the default advice will still be able to do that, but ultimately everyone would be responsible for the consequences of their actions.

You go to a faith-healer instead of following rational medical advice - you die. Your loss.

Is it offset by the number of people that would have died by taking unsafe medication that was subsequently denied FDA approval?

No, nowhere close. Read Mary Ruwart.

 

[HarryKeogh]

This question pops up regularly. Shermer describes it here:


Source

The answer is, of course: Go with the evidence. Always the evidence.

On a related note to those interested...check out the article Socratic Skepticism by Priscilla Sakezles in the current issue of Skeptic and reproduced in full here where she presents her case that the saying "All I know is I know nothing" is a misquote.

Socrates never says that he knows nothing at all, and he certainly does not say that he knows that he knows nothing. Rather, he says neither he nor anyone else “knows anything that is really worth knowing” (21d). The meaningful knowledge that Socrates seeks, but never finds, is the real definitions of ethical concepts such as courage, piety, moderation, and justice. As it turns out (at least as we can interpret from Plato’s development), he cannot find them because he is looking in the wrong place — the true answers are to be found in the realm of “forms,” which his student Plato discovers. And with that discovery, the philosophical tone of Plato’s dialogues shift from skeptical to dogmatic.


We must conclude that the attribution of this famous quote to Socrates is wrong. He is skeptical in a certain sense, but he is not the sort of dogmatic and self-contradicting skeptic that he is often made out to be. To return to Skeptic magazine’s self-definition, skepticism is “the application of reason to any and all ideas … it is a method, not a position.” It is the Socratic method, always vigilant to expose false pretensions to knowledge, whether about the real meaning of piety or virtue, the nature or existence of God, ghosts, or UFO’s. Socrates should be given the credit he deserves as the pioneer of this form of skepticism.

 

[Mashuna]

You go to a faith-healer instead of following rational medical advice - you die. Your loss.

Just a small point, but under your preferred system, how would you be able to differentiate rational medical advice from fraudulent medical advice?

 

[drkitten]

Anarcho-Capitalism. Anarchy is a vague term that can apply to idiots who don't respect other people's rights to life, liberty, and property.

While anarcho-capitalism is a vague term that can apply to idiots who want to magically wish the problems of anarchy away by making sure that other people respect THEIR rights without any obligation to respect the rights those others.

These idiots tend also to indulge in laughable misreadings of history, such as the belief that the founding fathers of the USA would have considered them to be anything other than thugs and spoiled brats. They also tend to confuse fantasy for reality, as when they suggest that the writings of Ayn Rand are any more reliable as a guide to political thought than a Superman comic.

 

[JoeEllison]

I'm skeptical of trolls who twist every thread into a showcase for their idiotic and sociopathic Anarcho-Capitalist views.

 

[CFLarsen]

True. But I won't be wasting my time on political activism if government was below a certain threshold of evilness, like in pre-handover Hong Kong.

Where, exactly, is that "threshold of evilness"?

Anarcho-Capitalism.

Let me get this straight: Do you believe that the state should be eliminated?

Gravy just did.

Where did he do that?

Absolutely not. Only socialists think people can be trusted blindly - you can see how well that worked out in places like the Soviet Union. AnCaps are the very opposite of that, we believe in decentralization. People who just want to go with the flow and follow the default advice will still be able to do that, but ultimately everyone would be responsible for the consequences of their actions.

You go to a faith-healer instead of following rational medical advice - you die. Your loss.

Ah, I see. You don't believe that people are always responsible - you just believe that it is OK if people die because they are cheated by crooks.

No, nowhere close. Read Mary Ruwart.

Why?

 

[chillzero]

Absolutely. As soon as examining the evidence becomes a bad way to evaluate the truth of a proposition, I will drop it like a hot potato.

Can you give an example?

How would you propose anyone do that?

 

[Mashuna]

How would you propose anyone do that?

If you give me a few minutes, I've got a potato in the oven now.

 

[CFLarsen]

How would you propose anyone do that?

By giving an example.

 

[Lithrael]

By giving an example.

C'mon, Claus, don't derail the thread with your weirdness. I want to hear Alex talk some more crazy talk.

 

[chillzero]

By giving an example.

An example of what, exactly?

 

[Alex Libman]

Just a small point, but under your preferred system, how would you be able to differentiate rational medical advice from fraudulent medical advice?

Skepticism. (Something that the overwhelming majority of people on this forum are completely unfamiliar with, they just accept something as true if it's referenced to a source that is harmonious with their government-influenced predispositions.)

While anarcho-capitalism is a vague term that can apply to idiots who want to magically wish the problems of anarchy away by making sure that other people respect THEIR rights without any obligation to respect the rights those others.

That's a (grammatically-mangled) lie and you should be expected to know better!

How can anyone in their right mind expect to have their rights respected without granting the same to others?

They also tend to confuse fantasy for reality, as when they suggest that the writings of Ayn Rand are any more reliable as a guide to political thought than a Superman comic.

Don't like Ayn Rand? Fine, it's not for you. Enjoy Karl Marx or whatever it is that you're into. But you can't initiate force on others - that's where the problem begins. Ayn Rand's philosophy works just fine on voluntary basis, yours doesn't. You need me. I don't need you.

I'm skeptical of trolls who twist every thread into a showcase for their idiotic and sociopathic Anarcho-Capitalist views.

This forum would benefit from an "ignore" feature. I don't want my posts to pollute the virgin eyes of anyone who doesn't appreciate them. See, I just want to leave you alone! You, on the other hand, want to hold the gun of government to my head and force me to obey your every whim. And YOU are calling ME a sociopath...

Where, exactly, is that "threshold of evilness"?

It's a subjective decision. How bad do you let your neighborhood get before you move?

Let me get this straight: Do you believe that the state should be eliminated?

The state cannot be eliminated, and especially not by force. I believe that the state, if it gets bad enough, should be escaped.

Where did he do that?

If the faith healer is making false medical claims, you put him or her out of business by force of law. I'm all for keeping those laws on the books, and in many cases making them more stringent.

Ah, I see. You don't believe that people are always responsible - you just believe that it is OK if people die because they are cheated by crooks.

I could tell you it's because most people want to live (and if they don't then they have a right to end their life). And what incentive does the government have to keep you alive and keep paying you benefits as opposed to letting you die and getting your death tax?

I could tell you many verifiable historical accounts of Russia, China, and the British Empire killing its subjects by the millions, but you'll probably think those were subhumans, that you have nothing to learn from their mistakes.

I could argue that free competition of ideas will lead to greater transparency and innovation, and be more effective at providing sound medical advice to those capable of doing just a tiny bit of research into which publications are most trustworthy.

But all those easier arguments are not the path I want to focus on. People should be free to make whatever medical decisions they see fit because they own their lives, and not just because they make better guardians of their lives than the government!

Why? [read Mary Ruwart]

To be less ignorant of the issues relating to the specific harms caused by government intervention in health care.

 

[IXP]

I could argue that free competition of ideas will lead to greater transparency and innovation and be more effective at proving sound medical advice to those capable of doing just a tiny bit of research into which publications are most trustworthy.

Assuming this is what you mean by Anarcho-capitalism:

Anarcho-capitalism (also known as free-market anarchism[1]) is an individualist anarchist[2] political philosophy that advocates the elimination of the state and the provision of security from aggression against person and property by the private sector in a free market. In an anarcho-capitalist society, law enforcement, courts, national defense, and all other security services would be provided by voluntarily-funded competitors rather than through compulsory taxation. Nonintrusive personal and economic activities would not be regulated, because the natural laws of the market - rather than politics - would order society.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism

We would have competing companies that would take the place of the FDA for instance, and verify the safely and effectiveness of new drugs. And everyone could watch and see how many people were killed by those drugs endorsed by each company and take this into consideration when deciding whether he should use a drug.

Thanks, I'll keep the FDA.

IXP

 

[CFLarsen]

An example of what, exactly?

Of when examining the evidence becomes a bad way to evaluate the truth of a proposition.

It's a subjective decision. How bad do you let your neighborhood get before you move?

I know it it is a subjective decision. That's why I asked you: Where, exactly, is that "threshold of evilness"?

The state cannot be eliminated, and especially not by force.

Then, how can you call yourself an anarchocapitalist?

I believe that the state, if it gets bad enough, should be escaped.

Where will you go?

As for you quoting Gravy: That wasn't because of Gravy being a skeptic.

I could tell you it's because most people want to live (and if they don't then they have a right to end their life).

Are you saying that people who visit faith healers really want to kill themselves?

And what incentive does the government have to keep you alive and keep paying you benefits as opposed to letting you die and getting your death tax?

If that is your argument, then it would definitely be in the interest of the "government" to keep people alive and getting their taxes.

I could tell you many verifiable historical accounts of Russia, China, and the British Empire killing its subjects by the millions, but you'll probably think those were subhumans, that you have nothing to learn from their mistakes.

No, I wouldn't. What about Denmark?

I could argue that free competition of ideas will lead to greater transparency and innovation and be more effective at proving sound medical advice to those capable of doing just a tiny bit of research into which publications are most trustworthy.

When has there ever been a "free competition of ideas"? What do you mean by "greater transparency and innovation"?

But all those easier arguments is not the one I want to focus on. People should be free to make whatever medical decisions they see fit because they own their lives, and not just because they make better guardians of their lives than the government!

They are free to do that. You can't force a treatment on patients (unless they are incapable of making that decision, e.g., by being unconscious), but you can also force people not to kill other people by promising them fake cures.

To be less ignorant of the issues relating to the specific harms caused by government intervention in health care.

That was my question. What, specifically, am I "ignorant" of?

 

[Mashuna]

Skepticism. (Something that the overwhelming majority of people on this forum are completely unfamiliar with, they just accept something as true if it's referenced to a source that is harmonious with their government-influenced predispositions.)

How will skepticism help you differentiate between medical claims of efficacy?

 

[Piggy]

Is there a certain kind of skeptically-minded folk who are skeptical of skepticism? Is it possible to be skeptical of skepticism?

Yes.

Being skeptical doesn't mean doubting everything. It means demanding evidence.

I'm skeptical of leprechauns and conclude they don't exist.

I'm skeptical of heliocentrism and conclude it's true.

I'm skeptical of string theory and conclude I don't know.

The evidence shows that skepticism works.

That's why I'm a skeptic, because it works and other approaches don't.