Do Skeptics ever convince the Believer?

[Belz...]

Do Skeptics ever convince the Believer?

Sometimes it takes a crowbar, but it happens.

 

[Baby Nemesis]

I admittedly rarely visit this forum; try not to waste precious time by being online (you know, we only have one life, a pity to spend it in cyberspace rather than Earth), but when I do I frequently see Forum Threads that follow the same basic structure:

1) Proponent makes outlandish claim, generally preposterous on its face, but usually easily provable if it were really valid.
2) Numerous 'skpetics' respond, usually with contemptuous remarks, outright mockery, sometimes lengthy attempts to convince the proponent that he/she is either mistaken or insane.
3) The proponent eventually responds, completely unshaken, offering more 'proof' of their claim.
4) The cycle repeats 'ad nauseum' for hundreds of lines or pages.

This appears to be the same pattern, whatever the claim, from Bigfootry to alleged psychic ability, to weird physics.

From an 'outsider's' perspective, it makes one wonder who really has the more serious psychological issue. What an incredible waste of time, time that could be spent solving the world's problems, feeding the poor, curing the ill, building things, cleaning things up...

Presumably, the responders would argue that they have a duty to refute the proponent, that unchecked the proponents beliefs could be some sort of threat to themselves or others. But, I wonder if it usually has the opposite result, simply giving the proponent the attention he/she desires and strengthening their resolve.

Has a proponent ever changed his/her mind about their beliefs as a result of relentless Skeptical response? I tend to doubt it; if they do, it is more likley that like an addict, they were ready to change.

Rant over...we now return to routine programming...

There are a wide range of posting styles on this forum, from shallow-thinking contemptuous little responses that don't add anything constructive to a discussion, which I would imagine are just likely to make the opposition defensive and so more entrenched in their thinking, to the intelligent, thoughtful and insightful. The latter may have a chance of succeeding where the former fails. Any genuine examples of where the former has succeeded will be interesting to hear about.

Yes, actually. Chillzero, a moderator here, once believed she had psychic abilities.

But it wasn't ridicule that changed Chillzero's mind but explanations for such phenomena. In fact, she once said,

that style makes us look like people who can't hold our tempers, who are just as much raving loonies as the people we are debating. An onlooker can't tell
who to believe, because both parties are too busy shouting insults at each other.

I can agree with this from the experience of someone who started here believing some things, and learned to change those beliefs and become a more critical thinker, and armed with better information. My experience was drastically hindered by such styles, and helped more by those who would take time to read my posts and address what I actually said ... showing me what I was misunderstanding, or where the holes in my knowledge were.

People often mention Interesting Iain. He used this style, and it kept me away from the forum for almost a year while I went though my faith crisis. If it weren't for the patience of members who can post in a less rabid style, I don't know where I'd be now. I also had discussions with Miss Anthrope who
felt the same way I did, and we can't know how many people are intimidated away from the site due to aggressive posters. One major point of the site is to reach believers and demonstrate how critical thinking can show the flaws in their belief systems. This can't be done through aggression - it's too personal to the people you are trying to reach.

Chillzero has spoken out very strongly indeed against hostility towards those considered "woo"s. See here, for example:

I don't have a problem with the word delusional. I have a problem with people misusing this particular section of the forum and I don't really want to have to step in on this thread and take action as a moderator. Threads here are designed to assist claimants in reaching a protocol that can be tested, for them to undergo the MDC challenge. To mock claimants is unacceptable to me, as it does not help the JREF or the claimant acheive their goal of getting to a testing point. It allows claimants to claim they are being intimidated from taking the test. We should give absolutely no space for leeway there.

When we finally do get a claimant who has reached the point where a protocol has been agreed, then it is encumbent upon us to do nothing more than wait for that to play out. We have nothing additional to contribute to a protocol discussion that has been agreed, and we are merely waiting for the test to be undertaken. Anything negative said to the claimant between agreement and the test is fodder for bad publicity for the JREF and enabling the claimant (and other claimants with their own particular grudges to bear as seen above) to jump in and claim obstacles are being placed intheir way - they are beng
intimidated or bullied, or the negative skeptic forces are working against their ability, or the nasty things being said are having a negative effect upon them.

I know from experience how intimidating it is to come to this forum and try to move toward a test for the MDC, and I think when someone sticks with it and gets to that point, they have earned some respect. We always tell them - put your money where your mouth is, so why on earth would we then be nasty to them when they do?

Do not give any claimant an easy excuse to walk away from the MDC.
Do not work against what the JREF are trying to acheive.

And here:

You think claiming someone has no courage - in the face of them agreeing to test themselves, not privately, or on their own grounds, but away from home and in front of a disbelieving audience of hundreds - and calling them delusional is civil? It's not particularly constructive, is it?

You may call it being a party pooper, however I see it as more than that, and I've explained in detail why I think your comments are out of place in a thread for a claimant who has stepped up to the mark. You don't approve of the party - that's fine. The JREF are the hosts here, and we don't really have the right to work against them. You've voiced your opinion, and I don't see that you need add to that unless you wish to dissuade a claimant from testing, and that is in direct contradiction to what the JREF are trying to acheive. ...

Continually insisting that a person is delusional, is not the same thing as trying to show them how their claims/beliefs are delusional. It is closer to name-calling.

And here:

There is nothing to be gained by subjecting a claimant to rudeness or abuse. If they decide not to take the test, it should be because - as you say - they have realised they cannot pass. It should not be because they were subjected to hostility, intimidation or rudeness.

As for courage, as an 'almost' claimant myself I can tell you that it takes a hell of a lot of nerve to walk in to the lion's den here. You know that the overwhelming majority of the membership believe you to be either deluded or fraudulent.

All that is required is a little respect for someone who has stepped up to put their money where their mouth is, so to speak. We regularly complain that believers will not subject themselves to appropriate testing. When they are treated harshly, would you blame them?

The success of the MDC is to be able to show that none of these things work under proper testing. Therefore it is a mark of success just to get people into the testing room. And if that testing takes place ahead of the MDC - in her own place and time - then that's just as good if we have a narrative of that testing. Beth did it before. I didn't because I was too intimidated at the time to document it here until I tried it for myself. Beth did more good for the MDC and skepticism by showing her self testing results and also her reasoning afterward, than I did by keeping it private until I realised it was
all bunk.

The best environment for this is an open one with some respect shown from both sides for the other.

ETA: Claimants should feel comfortable enough to come here and share their journey as they apply and self test.

I could quote more, but her point's been made.

 

[YoPopa]

For me it is about much more than just the posts on the forums and whether or not the believer has been converted.

In the real world we run into the real wacko ideas all the time. This is where I have gleaned some really good arguments and even gotten better at ignoring the arrogant name callers. I have become a much more effective persuader IRL because of JREF.

 

[Ron_Tomkins]

Well, the way I see it, the forum is in itself an excercise in critical thinking and excercising our ability to argue a point. When I got into James Randi, I saw many videos of him debunking many claims and using his common sense to bring down an argumkent that was rooted in fallacies. Then we come into the forums and we're given the opportunity to excercise our common sense by arguing these same topics with people who believe in woo or who, in one way or another, hold a non consistent form of thought.

But it becomes very tempting to try to "convert" the believer into a skeptic. That's just one of earth's temptations and most of us succumb to it at least once or twice in a lifetime.

 

[Nonpareil]

In regards to the OP:

I've never seen it happen, but I hold out hopes for a few people.

 

[HansMustermann]

I'll vote, "it depends."

For someone who has no particular personal stake in believing some kind of woo, you can gently prod them into starting really thinking about it.

(Happened to me too, albeit mostly on my own. But the range of woo _I_ believed at one point... let's just say that all those werewolves and incubi and revenants I wrote about recently in the vampires thread, weren't researched on the spot)

But if someone has a personal stake in believing some kind of woo -- e.g., let's say they're a fanatical christian because death scares the crap out of them and they need the reassurance -- then cognitive dissonance will work against you every single time. In the conflict between your input and the model that supports what they want to believe, your input will lose every single time.

Some cults also up the ante in that cognitive dissonance game. All that self-destructive behaviour is just one big pile of crap that, if you ever were to abandon their cult, you'd have to look back and think "gee, I was completely stupid back then, wasn't I?" Most people just aren't prepared to make that step, so to preserve their self-image, they'd rather keep on believing that the Guru is right and you're wrong. Again, try as you might, cognitive dissonance will work against you there.

 

[Uncayimmy]

But it wasn't ridicule that changed Chillzero's mind but explanations for such phenomena.

Why, exactly, did you use the word "but" in response to me? I never mentioned anything against which you could but.

Chillzero has spoken out very strongly indeed against hostility towards those considered "woo"s. See here, for example:

As have I, but only in the context of first contact. We shouldn't treat every woo that walks through the door like they are mentally ill, deceitful, evasive, goal-posting moving cranks who ignore all logic put before them. But once they have proven themselves to be as much, I don't see the problem in dealing with them aggressively.

VFF was greeted quite warmly when she arrived here:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=128149

Things didn't get hostile until she started with the evasions and ignoring solid advice.

Keep in mind that the OP of this thread is a straw man. The subject line asks if the believer is ever convinced by the skeptic, but the argument is that since this rarely/never happens, there's something wrong with the skeptics. This presumes that skeptics are only responding in an effort to convince a believer.

Your argument makes the same assumption when in fact most of us don't enter an aggressive stance until it's pretty clear the believer is not going to budge. Subsequent posts, at least in my case, are designed to remove every bit of cover behind which the believer hides. If the believer doesn't see it, such is life. Others will see it.

 

[RichardR]

I have seen a few believers change their views, but in my opinion the main reason to keep debating with woos is to provide information to the lurkers - the fence sitters who are not sure but who follow the debate in an attempt to learn more. Many of these people benefit from this approach and become critical thinkers themselves after what they have learned from reading the debates.

And it's not just fence sitters who benefit. I know for example that I have learned a lot from the posts of people like Rolfe - actual experts in their field who taught me things I didn't know before.

 

[shandyjan]

I think you should always remember the lurkers/members who dont post. Theyre th eones who may be googling for info, and read more than they came here for!
I got here accidentally from a click click situation, and have found a new world. Some ideas I just toyed with..I got explanations and info for in here, and then could confidently say 'I don't believe in that' whereas before I was unsure!

 

[Apology]

A lot of us are former believers. Our change of heart may not have happened on this site, but wherever it happened, it had to include a debunking by a skeptic.

As for me, I saw a short film featuring James Randi that so thoroughly debunked astrology that I rethought ALL of my woo beliefs and saw how many of the same principles applied to other forms of woo such as Tarot.


Here's the clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Dp2Zqk8vHw

Made a non-believer out of me in an instant.

 

[Vortigern99]

Until February of this year, I was a Bigfoot "believer". Specifically, I believed that a preponderance of evidence made it more likely that BF existed than that it didn't.

Also, like Dr. Jane Goodall among others, I was "romantic" about the idea of an undiscovered primate in North America. In that sense I suffered from confirmation bias and en emotion-based coloring of my perception of the data.

Then in March, I discovered this forum. I read all the damning data of which I had previously been ignorant. I debated with some of the best skeptics and logicians on the Internet and maybe in the world. I emerged from this test with the exact opposite "belief" from that with which I had entered: I believed that the preponderance of evidence showed that the BF's existence was extremely unlikely, and statistically speaking, damn near impossible.

So, in short, the answer to the thread question is "yes".

 

[Apology]

Also, taking Logic in college really helped to straighten me out. I found the phrase "You can't prove a negative" to be very profound.* Once I wrapped my head around that and realized that it was true, all the typical woo arguments of "You can't prove Bigfoot doesn't exist, we haven't searched every inch of the Pacific Northwest yet," suddenly stopped being compelling arguments.




_{*Of course, you can attempt to prove a negative through inductive reasoning, but where ABSOLUTE PROOF is required, inductive reasoning simply doesn't cut the mustard. I find proving a negative via inductive reasoning to be a bit of a copout, personally. I simply accept that we can't prove the pink unicorn doesn't exist, but assert that its possible existence does not obligate me to believe in them. We'd never accept inductive reasoning from a woo.}

 

[Olowkow]

I just got to thinking that a few years ago, I used to watch these programs where the cops hired a psychic to find a body or a killer. There were several shows that left me scratching my head, wondering whether they just made it all up or what? I just chalked it all up to well, I guess I'm agnostic when it comes to this psychic stuff, perhaps some folks have a type of sensitivity that I don't understand. In short, I just filed this all away under, "I dunno". How could they be so dishonest as to invent this stuff just for the sake of entertainment? After all, real cops were being interviewed.
Well, I started looking at JREF and other web sites and pretty quickly saw that this stuff is all bunk, very convincing arguments. So, now, I don't even think twice when I hear of this stuff...it's all bunk.
So, in retrospect, I was a mild "woo", I guess but no longer. Surprising how many friends have not gone this route yet.

 

[hermite12]

information is important

Information is important--- in fact, it is crucial. A colleague of mine, a respected mathematician (C* algebras, anyone?) was raised in a fundamentalist household. At the age of 8, in the school library, he ran across an edition of The Encyclopedia Brittanica, volumes he had never seen before. After reading several articles, he came to the realization that everything his parents had told him was ********.

 

[athon]

Information is important--- in fact, it is crucial. A colleague of mine, a respected mathematician (C* algebras, anyone?) was raised in a fundamentalist household. At the age of 8, in the school library, he ran across an edition of The Encyclopedia Brittanica, volumes he had never seen before. After reading several articles, he came to the realization that everything his parents had told him was ********.

Interesting that you say this. In your opinion, what made him decide the information in the encyclopedia was more correct than the information told by his parents?

Athon

 

[Temecula]

I joined your forum just to say...

I registered just to make this post.

Skeptical discussion, particularly the criticism skeptics level towards religion, conspiracy theories, and alternative medicine, can and does have an impact upon "believers". Even skeptical discussion and criticism on the internet can be enough to convince someone. Case in point:

I used to be a poster and eventually moderator on the original Loose Change forums. If you don't know what that is, please visit the conspiracy theory section of these forums as they were at one point thoroughly obsessed with it there. I had fallen into the "conspiracy theorist" subset of humanity at a very vulnerable point in my life, I had just moved hundreds of miles to a seemingly alien part of the country, and my wife was in the hospital under very dire circumstances. I was also abusing prescription pain killers to counteract the anxiety of having to watch my wife die (she didn't die after all) while having virtually no support structure around me. The first time I saw "Loose Change: 2nd Edition" I totally fell for it, and when I found there was actually a community... I dove right in. I spent quite a while enthusiastically embracing and espousing the 9/11 CT dogma, and eventually became a moderator of their forum, which led me to have to deal with skeptics who posted there before we banned them. By the time the original LC forum imploded (I deserve some credit for causing that BTW) I had serious doubts about the 9/11 CT and other CTs. I began digesting a lot of material from the 'other side' after that. Frankly, I was embarrassed that I had ever spoke to people about 9/11, distributed DVDs, and exposed other people to such nonsense.

I eventually realized that I had been submerged in some sort of cult or religion rather than a legitimate movement. It frightened me. I began reevaluating everything else I believed that had the CT tinge on it. I consulted skeptical websites regarding everything from cryptozoology to UFOs. Instead of simply taking other people's words for it, I looked at their reasoning, and it made sense. I began looking at everything critically, and I lost even the most vestigial remnants of religion, I became fascinated by evolution and astronomy and all the other real things out there that are so much more amazing, interesting, and dramatic than anything you can cook up beneath a tinfoil hat.

It works. Just counterpointing stuff on the internet does get through to people, at least some people. Nowadays I find myself using 'reply to all' whenever I get some FEMA camp CT chain email in my inbox, showing everyone that it's really a picture of a camp in north Korea. Nobody who has ever said anything about 2012 around me has walked away still believing the world would end as prophesied by the Maya. I regularly listen to the SGU, Skeptoid, and The Atheist Experience podcasts as well as many other skeptical/atheist podcasts. Now I've gone and joined what I once considered the most evil, close-minded forum on the internets. Skeptics do convince the believers.

 

[Hokulele]

Welcome to the forums, Temecula.

Thank you for sharing your story, we do get a number of ex-CTists around here.

 

[DC]

Hi Temecula

Nice post!

 

[Temecula]

I remember banning and suspending people from the JREF forum dozens of times. I would always try to make sure that the email they got when being permanently suspended included some over-the-top insult. I felt pretty bad about it once i realized that although many of them were quite condescending, they were in fact right, and I was wrong.

 

[Hokulele]

I remember banning and suspending people from the JREF forum dozens of times. I would always try to make sure that the email they got when being permanently suspended included some over-the-top insult. I felt pretty bad about it once i realized that although many of them were quite condescending, they were in fact right, and I was wrong.

Eh, life goes on. Do you recognize any names here from your time at LCF?