SPR Study Day - The Psychology of the Sceptic

[blutoski]

In regard to the psychology of the skeptic, this thread presents some examples of how skeptics behave when presented with evidence that isn't supportive of their POV.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=128149

Again: please consider two problems with this type of 'example'

• I think it's lazy and inaccurate to use a website as the source for 'THE skeptical psychology'. There is no clearance of membership to ensure that even one member is a skeptic, and secondly, there is no evidence that even a membership that is 100% skeptics is a representative sample of the global skeptical population. Old Bob posts on this forum, for Pete's sake.
• In order to show that the opening post describes a skeptics psychology, it's meaningful to show that it is not ordinary psychology. Skeptics are routinely sent death threats from believers who are irked by the knowledge that somewhere out there, somebody disagrees with them - there's kooks everywhere. I don't have any dispute with the claim that skeptics are vulnerable to every identifiable psychological phenomenon conceivable - I do need evidence that they're more vulnerable to this than other people.

 

[blutoski]

Some people can only hint that these baaad skeptics exist, but not be able to name them, or argue why.

Do you mean name them by name? Or do you mean that you're just not aware of people who participate in skepticism but don't actually practice skepticism?

The latter are what I call pseudoskeptics or paraskeptics.

Pseudoskeptic was a term invented by Marcello Truzzi. He was referring to people who may hold common skeptical conclusions (such as atheism or materialism) but not because they've thought it through, and not because they're interested in weighing the facts. Unlike authentic skeptics, if new facts come about, they will not change their minds, but will gradually become crackpots. The director of BCSkeptics doesn't believe in global warming (not "doesn't believe in anthropogenic global warming" - no, he thinks the world is much colder now than 100 years ago, and that the published temperature graphs showing warming trends are fabricated - the result of widespread scientific incompetence and government propaganda, motive undetermined).

An example of a paraskeptic being my friend who in principle believes in scientific skepticism, but is constantly defending his profession: homeopathy. He's got the right idea but keeps coming to the wrong conclusions because he is indiscriminate about how he identifies reliable information.

 

[blutoski]

Or, if one knows how to perform and/or understand a meta-analysis, it is possible to recognize what conclusions can reasonably drawn from them, and to recognize the various factors which makes those conclusions likely to be invalid, regardless of whether or not anything is known about the area of study.

I don't even think a meta-analysis would be necessary: I'd settle for a nice literature review.

A few years ago, I did a literature review on a healthfraud topic of multiple chemical sensitivity. It was a huge investment in time, because even reading the published papers isn't sufficient - I had to contact several authors for clarifications, and some papers ultimately did not have enough concrete information to be included in the review.

The key to a literature review is to publish your search and inclusion criteria. What's interesting is that after reading about 450 papers on mcs, only about 30 were acceptable, which is informative in its own right.

So, what I'm trying to point out is that many skeptics would feel that reading 1500 papers on psi could be a waste of their time because there is a fundamental disagreement about what constitutes an acceptable paper in the first place. I would be pleased as punch if somebody would sort through those 1500 papers and isolate the double-blinded, placebo-controlled studies by authors who have not been caught fabricating data and with subjects who have not been caught conjuring. What comes out of the filter would probably be exactly the sort of thing skeptics would love to read, and it might even change their minds.

I've been tossed the "you can't have an opinion until you've read all the literature" fob before, in other fields of knowledge, and it's just unreasonable expectations that leads to an infinite amount of required reading ("Sure, you've read all the 1500 papers, but did you read each and every one of the references in the papers? And the references in the references? No? Then come back when you've done that and we'll talk.")

 

[blutoski]

Sorry for the lack of reference. I'd assumed that the psychic dog controversy would be common knowledge. It was one of the first bits of information I came across when I did a bit of google research into who James Randi is when I joined this forum. I'd previously only vaguely heard of him. Blutoski's and cj.23's (and others?) ignorance of this controversy suggests they haven't applied their skeptical curiosity to the Master .

Returning to this after a couple of days of thought... the reason this rankled me was that I was flabbergasted that you found the brass to criticize us for focusing on the actual research and paying no attention to what James Randi says about the situation in a thread apparently dedicated to saying we should be doing exactly this. I spent a couple of days trying to figure out if there was some internally consistent argument, but have concluded that if this is the case, I can't detect it.

Interestingly, one of the the episodes that Sheldrake relates is very similar to those described in the OP (apparently inaccurately) in the Edison and the Wright brothers examples:

AKA: "The Galileo Card" - and even that's misguided. Galileo was arguing that the new natural science models were better, not defending old prescientific ideas, as the church was in his day, and psi researchers are today.

 

[JihadJane]

Why would you doubt [that Sheldrake would publish easily discredited lies on his website.]?

My impression, formed by reading some of Sheldrake's stuff in the past, is that he isn't idiotic enough to post easily discredited, potentially libelous lies about someone on his website.

Returning to this after a couple of days of thought... the reason this rankled me was that I was flabbergasted that you found the brass to criticize us for focusing on the actual research and paying no attention to what James Randi says about the situation in a thread apparently dedicated to saying we should be doing exactly this. I spent a couple of days trying to figure out if there was some internally consistent argument, but have concluded that if this is the case, I can't detect it.

Doing exactly what?

I find it difficult to relate what you are saying here to what I have said, possibly because of the syntax. Were you rankled because you considered my post off-topic? Are you saying it is wrong of me to expect you to pay any attention to what James Randi has said about the ESP dog situation? Did I criticise you "for focusing on the actual research"?

My comment was rooted in the implications of skeptical posters here never having heard of the episosde I brought up. It made me wonder if skeptics only investigated the dark side of the "the dwooluded ones" while avoiding that of their heros. However, I guess there's no particular reason you should be interested in James Randi just because you are posting on a website with his name and beard on it. Later you said you had heard of the controversy but that my earlier description had been too vague, so my point doesn't apply to you anyway.

Sorry about my brass! Perhaps it partly stems from the rabid reception I received in my one previous foray into this subforum (see links , below), when I carelessly shared that I'd had what I considered positive results from following Remote Viewing protocols. I was immediately pounced on by skeptics (it felt like an ambush!) who tried to bully, bribe and emotionally manipulate me (think of the orphans etc) into taking the MDC to prove my "abilities and "powas"! It left me with a strong impression of what a skeptic psychology might look like, added to that which I'd already formed in other places.

http://www.randi.org/forumlive/showthread.php?t=123248

Rabid split-off: http://www.randi.org/forumlive/showthread.php?t=123353

I wasn't particularly making any "argument" about anything in the comment you quoted. I was bringing up what I thought was interesting and thought-provoking information, assuming the episode would be well-known because it involved rare, claimed, documented evidence of long distance perception by a dog. Randi's alleged reaction is interesting.

I would expect Randi supporters to have already discredited Sheldrake's story if they could. It might seem strange to use the language of gang warfare but it reflects my experience of this forum!

I do believe it's acceptable to share for discussion something written by someone else. It is relevant to the topic. I look forward to any response that cj.23 gets from Sheldrake.

Originally Posted by JihadJane
Interestingly, one of the the episodes that Sheldrake relates is very similar to those described in the OP (apparently inaccurately) in the Edison and the Wright brothers examples:

AKA: "The Galileo Card" - and even that's misguided. Galileo was arguing that the new natural science models were better, not defending old prescientific ideas, as the church was in his day, and psi researchers are today.

I don't think the similarity that I noticed relates to "The Galileo Card" but relates instead, potentially, to Skeptic psychology. According to Sheldrake, Randi, just as the scientists were alleged to have done in the Edison and Wright Bros episodes, made a confident judgement about a phenomena without having witnessed it (or film of it), confident, also, that his reputation would nevertheless remain intact. It appears to be an expression of power as much as of strong belief.

Thanks for your responses. I'll be more detailed and less brassy in my future posts here to avoid further confusion and upset!

 

[tyr_13]

Discredited Sheldrake's story if they could? You're right, they probably would have. That doesn't in any way make his story either true or important.

 

[shuttlt]

Discredited Sheldrake's story if they could? You're right, they probably would have. That doesn't in any way make his story either true or important.

Agreed, but it could show that we can be a little to eager to call bunk, bunk and fall fould of all sorts a biases. I'd say that woulc be fair criticism. Of course it's still bunk though.

 

[blutoski]

My impression, formed by reading some of Sheldrake's stuff in the past, is that he isn't idiotic enough to post easily discredited, potentially libelous lies about someone on his website.

I appreciate that Sheldrake is not a likely person to indulge in deliberate libel. The whole thing sounds more like honest miscommunication.

I find it difficult to relate what you are saying here to what I have said, possibly because of the syntax. Were you rankled because you considered my post off-topic? Are you saying it is wrong of me to expect you to pay any attention to what James Randi has said about the ESP dog situation? Did I criticise you "for focusing on the actual research"?

My comment was rooted in the implications of skeptical posters here never having heard of the episosde I brought up. It made me wonder if skeptics only investigated the dark side of the "the dwooluded ones" while avoiding that of their heros. However, I guess there's no particular reason you should be interested in James Randi just because you are posting on a website with his name and beard on it.

Mm. My point is that you seemed to be arguing that skeptics have a bad habit of giving the skeptical celebrities too much benefit of the doubt, and are not applying due skepticism to their statements. I inferred that you felt the correct approach would be to examine the evidence itself.

Later you said you had heard of the controversy but that my earlier description had been too vague, so my point doesn't apply to you anyway.

Well, I'm aware of these controversies in the same way that I'm aware that JR was shot on Dallas. But I never wasted any time watching the show, because I'm not into soap operas.

I wasn't particularly making any "argument" about anything in the comment you quoted. I was bringing up what I thought was interesting and thought-provoking information, assuming the episode would be well-known because it involved rare, claimed, documented evidence of long distance perception by a dog. Randi's alleged reaction is interesting.

I agree. You can use this to explore Randi's psychology for sure.

But, if your thesis is about skeptics you need to do more than throw out a few examples. eg: As my wife has to remind people, "Louis Farrakhan does x" is not "black people do x".

I don't think the similarity that I noticed relates to "The Galileo Card" but relates instead, potentially, to Skeptic psychology. According to Sheldrake, Randi, just as the scientists were alleged to have done in the Edison and Wright Bros episodes, made a confident judgement about a phenomena without having witnessed it (or film of it), confident, also, that his reputation would nevertheless remain intact. It appears to be an expression of power as much as of strong belief.

Ah. I didn't know you were focussing on the non-witnessing part. The most common use of those anecdotes is to poison the well of criticism by pointing out that experts have been wrong in the past, implying that experts who criticize are wrong often enough to be ignored.

 

[Beth]

Again: please consider two problems with this type of 'example'

• I think it's lazy and inaccurate to use a website as the source for 'THE skeptical psychology'. There is no clearance of membership to ensure that even one member is a skeptic, and secondly, there is no evidence that even a membership that is 100% skeptics is a representative sample of the global skeptical population. Old Bob posts on this forum, for Pete's sake.
• In order to show that the opening post describes a skeptics psychology, it's meaningful to show that it is not ordinary psychology. Skeptics are routinely sent death threats from believers who are irked by the knowledge that somewhere out there, somebody disagrees with them - there's kooks everywhere. I don't have any dispute with the claim that skeptics are vulnerable to every identifiable psychological phenomenon conceivable - I do need evidence that they're more vulnerable to this than other people.

First point: I have no argument with the idea that it's not a representative sample. I didn't say it was. I was merely pointing out that it does show an example of the response of self-described skeptics to a claim of experimental evidence that contradicts their assumptions. I think it is reasonable to consider it as an example in that context.

Second point: I'm not sure what to make of this comment. The skeptic's response in that thread (did you read it?) isn't an example of anything out of the ordinary. It seems pretty typical of the response of any group to an unverifiable anecdote that implies that a basic tenet of the core beliefs that define the group may be inaccurate. Personally, I think if is an example of something that isn't ordinary psychology, I would assess the skeptics on that thread have been better behaved that I would expect to see in a most other groups/forums and about par for the course for a well-educated and scientifically minded group.

 

[fls]

I don't even think a meta-analysis would be necessary: I'd settle for a nice literature review.

I'd settle for a nice literature review that seemed trustworthy.

I read papers that I find on a google search on a particular topic, the references from review papers and books, papers that parapsychologists point to as important, and papers that are brought up by individuals as supporting a particular idea. But I don't know how representative these are, which have subsequently been discredited by the discovery of methodologic errors or outright deceit, or what useful papers I have missed in my search. I don't want to distrust parapsychologists, but I cannot ignore my discovery that on occasion they refer to research that I already know had methodologic flaws that rendered the results invalid, they grossly misrepresent the results of some research, and they show poor judgement when it comes to the choice of statistical methods (for example, Radin's choice of the 'fail-safe-N' when addressing the issue of publication bias). Because I am not familiar with all of the literature in parapschology, I recognize that it would be fairly easy to mislead me. Once I see that someone is misleading me, I'm not going to trust the rest of what they have to say. I do find some authors who seem to be trustworthy (at least no red flags are raised when I read their work), but unfortunately* they all seem to be skeptics (even if they didn't start that way).

So, what I'm trying to point out is that many skeptics would feel that reading 1500 papers on psi could be a waste of their time because there is a fundamental disagreement about what constitutes an acceptable paper in the first place. I would be pleased as punch if somebody would sort through those 1500 papers and isolate the double-blinded, placebo-controlled studies by authors who have not been caught fabricating data and with subjects who have not been caught conjuring. What comes out of the filter would probably be exactly the sort of thing skeptics would love to read, and it might even change their minds.

Exactly! I'm just not sure if anyone is doing that.

I do appreciate the opportunity on the JREF forum to hear from people such as Ersby and cj.23 who do have a better understanding of the literature, but also take methodological rigour into consideration, and seem genuinely interested in discovering whether there is anything to explore.

Linda

*By unfortunately, I mean that it leaves me open to criticism from believers that I am not giving them a fair hearing, as I think the assumption is that all/any skeptics are biased.

 

[JihadJane]

Recent article discussing The Authoritarian Personality:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21235.htm

"The authors also found a very high correlation between possessing a number of these traits and demonstrating a consistent and malignant prejudice against out-groups."

 

[fls]

Recent article discussing The Authoritarian Personality:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21235.htm

"The authors also found a very high correlation between possessing a number of these traits and demonstrating a consistent and malignant prejudice against out-groups."

And these were the traits they were referring to:

"An entrenched obsession with safety, security, and order.
Rigidly absolutist “black-and-white” thinking (e.g., us against them).
An overemphasis on “strength,” power, and control; a “might makes right” orientation.
Authoritarian submission: a willingness to blindly obey the rules of authorities.
Authoritarian aggression: an aggressive attitude towards individuals or groups disliked by the authorities; bullying individuals or groups perceived to threaten traditional values.
A belief that negotiation, understanding, empathy, and compromise are weak.
A belief in the need to punish those who do not follow rules to the letter.
Scornful rejection of the subjective, imaginative, and aesthetic dimensions of life.
Superstition, cliché-mongering, stereotyping, and fatalism.
A belief in fixed, unalterable, and traditional roles for women.
Secret insecurity when unable to live up to high standards imposed publicly on others.
Identification with those in power, with excessive emphasis on posturing toughness.
Destructiveness, cynicism, general hostility, and a habit of putting down perceived opponents.
Projection: the tendency to see evil, exploitativeness, and danger in others instead of in oneself.
An exaggerated concern with other people’s sexual activity."

This is what I'm talking about. This deserves ridicule. I'm sorry for speaking plainly, but I think we need to call a spade a spade here. If we are trying to determine whether skeptics ridicule arguments that don't deserve ridicule, it doesn't help to continue to serve up arguments that are ridiculous. Can you understand that it becomes difficult for us to overcome the impression that it leaves us with, no matter how genuine our efforts?

Linda

 

[Mercutio]

Recent article discussing The Authoritarian Personality:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21235.htm

"The authors also found a very high correlation between possessing a number of these traits and demonstrating a consistent and malignant prejudice against out-groups."

Could I ask what relevance you feel this has to the current discussion? Perhaps (without your comment I cannot say what your point was) this is a good example of what I mean by a familiarity with the relevant literature in psychology as well as parapsychology; I know, without looking (I'm not a complete idiot--I did click the link to test myself) that the Authoritarian Personality was an attempt, in the years following World War II, to see what it was about the Germans that allowed the Nazis to come to such power. Adorno's "F scale" was the test for Authoritarianism; the "F" stood for fascism.

If (and of course, that is the question under debate) a skeptic requires evidence (some would say that is a skeptic's defining characteristic) of foolishness before ridiculing a group, they cannot be seen as "demonstrating a consistent and malignant prejudice against out-groups." On the other hand, if "skeptic" (or "sceptic") is redefined (as, for example, Interesting Ian did), and skeptics like myself are seen as "exceptions to the rule" (as above in this thread), then that combination of redefining and culling will leave the remaining skeptics perhaps much higher on the F Scale. And of course, it will utterly be an artifact of biased sampling.

If the question of the skeptic's personality is a good one, it is worth answering properly, and letting the evidence lead to the conclusion. If your conclusion is what leads you to pick particular evidence... you're doing it wrong.

 

[Ersby]

I found this.

“Associative processing and paranormal belief”, Gianotti, Mohr, Pizzagalli, Lehmann, Brugger, Psychiatry And Clinical Neurosciences (2001), 55, 595–603

From the abstract: In 40 trials the two stimulus words were semantically indirectly related and in 40 other trials the words were semantically unrelated. Separately for these two stimulus types, response commonalities and association latencies were calculated. The main finding was that for unrelated stimuli, believers produced associations that were more original (had a lower frequency of occurrence in the group as a whole) than those of the skeptics. For the interpretation of the result we propose a model of association behavior that captures both ‘positive’ psychological aspects (i.e., verbal creativity) and ‘negative’ aspects (susceptibility to unfounded inferences), and outline its relevance for psychiatry.
This model suggests that believers adopt a looser response criterion than skeptics when confronted with ‘semantic noise’. Such a signal detection view of the presence/absence of judgments for loose semantic relations may help to elucidate the commonalities between creative thinking, paranormal belief and delusional ideation.

 

[tyr_13]

Recent article discussing The Authoritarian Personality:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21235.htm

"The authors also found a very high correlation between possessing a number of these traits and demonstrating a consistent and malignant prejudice against out-groups."

I too am having trouble understanding what this has to do with skeptics. Sure, between all the skeptics on the board you could find one example of each of those traits, but that means nothing.

 

[Ersby]

I read Leiter’s paper again (the one about PhACT referenced in the opening post), and it was interesting to see some of the reasoning he used. First, he defined sceptics as bad, and himself as good ( “our own excellent, important Society” [...] “I would no more wish to be known as such a Skeptic, than I would wish to be known as a dupe, the opposite extreme, i.e. someone who is extremely gullible. For me, the most desirable mind-set is exactly in the center of these two extremes, in a middle ground I would call rational balance.” - From this I inferred that he considered himself as having the most desirable mind-set).

He then groups other good things with himself and his group ( “That middle ground is where true science thrives. [...] This middle ground is the natural habitat of SSE.”) and bad things with skeptics ( “As a result, they seem to be far more comfortable on the trailing edge of scientific progress than on the leading edge.”). Having done that, he then compares the two groups to see which is better. I've seen this tactic on both sides, and it seems odd to use it when trying to prove that you're not the type of person to use it.

 

[tyr_13]

So he is basically using the term 'Skeptic' as equal to 'pathological disbeliever'?

Skeptic is not the opposite of dupe. A skeptic does not believe nothing, but only holds belief until what they understand as good evidence supports it. What is a good enough level of evidence will vary depending on the skeptic. Skeptics can be dupes, one who has been duped.

 

[eirik]

The OP is nothing but a 15 min. ad hominem. Interestingly, it therefore unintentionally gives some insight on the writer.

So does the psychopath(or whatever's the correct term nowadays)-profile from jihadJane. I'm sure most people in given situations can recognise themselves in some of the given descriptions. Why is that relevant here?

Why does skeptics psychology (if you or any were capable of mapping this) have any relevance to the question on woo being true or not?

 

[tyr_13]

Why does skeptics psychology (if you or any were capable of mapping this) have any relevance to the question on woo being true or not?

You know I'm not really sure he ever claimed this. So 'skeptics' might tend to be mean, petty, ********, but they also tend to be correct, mean, petty, ********.

 

[Sherlock]

Eschew obfuscation

It's simple. Skeptics are generally an honest rational bunch. And those who aren't willing to be consider themselves skeptical are generally delusional. Fortunately I'm a confirmed skeptic, therefore my statement is not delusional.