Merged xkcd nails the paranormal

[zooterkin]

No need to spend any more time on devising complicated protocols for the paranormal or alternative medicine, the excellent xkcd has provided the answers.

(If you follow the link to the site, you also get the mouse-over punchline.)





ETA: For anyone wondering, the link to the image is explicitly provided provided for the purposes of hotlinking. Follow the first link, and at the bottom of the page you will see:
Image URL (for hotlinking/embedding): http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/the_economic_argument.png

 

[Uncayimmy]

Too funny. I shared that on Facebook.

BTW, there's a list of sites that allow hot linking in Forum Management, and XKCD is on there.

 

[lauwersw]

Exactly the argument I'm using for some time. The existence of some kind of industry around a product doesn't necessarily means the product is working well.

So there is some paranormal industry, but as long as it doesn't sell "products" that really everybody uses, like for example a light bulb or a gps, it doesn't mean a thing.

xkcd nails it again!

 

[Denver]

Used as an argument, I think you'll find believers will have responses for it. Such as:

- The healthcare system is evil and wants to keep you sick to make more profits.
- Same with the oil industry, etc.
- It's based on spiritual principles, so science and unbelievers can't harness it.
- Industry is too ignorant/close-minded/controlled/etc to think outside its box.
- Powerful people do use it, but use their power to keep it secret.
- Its a conspiracy. Proof = you don't know its a conspiracy.

And so on.

 

[readme.txt]

Used as an argument, I think you'll find believers will have responses for it. Such as:

- The healthcare system is evil and wants to keep you sick to make more profits.
- Same with the oil industry, etc.
- It's based on spiritual principles, so science and unbelievers can't harness it.
- Industry is too ignorant/close-minded/controlled/etc to think outside its box.
- Powerful people do use it, but use their power to keep it secret.
- Its a conspiracy. Proof = you don't know its a conspiracy.

And so on.

Unfortunately... you're right.

 

[Wowbagger]

- The healthcare system is evil and wants to keep you sick to make more profits.
- Same with the oil industry, etc.
- It's based on spiritual principles, so science and unbelievers can't harness it.
- Industry is too ignorant/close-minded/controlled/etc to think outside its box.
- Powerful people do use it, but use their power to keep it secret.
- Its a conspiracy. Proof = you don't know its a conspiracy.

This argument ignores the highly competitive nature of these industries. Surely, if these ideas were effective, more companies would adopt them as a matter of competitive advantage over each other.

 

[Denver]

This argument ignores the highly competitive nature of these industries. Surely, if these ideas were effective, more companies would adopt them as a matter of competitive advantage over each other.

I didn't say the arguments were valid. I said they would be used.

 

[TjW]

I didn't say the arguments were valid. I said they would be used.

That's why the mouseover punchline is funny.

 

[paperskater]

I Randall Munroe.

 

[HansMustermann]

This argument ignores the highly competitive nature of these industries. Surely, if these ideas were effective, more companies would adopt them as a matter of competitive advantage over each other.

You've never heard the pharma conspiracy theory before? E.g., that _all_ those companies and _all_ those doctors withhold some miracle cure, because it's more profitable to pretend it doesn't exist than to patent it and wipe the floor with the competitors for 20 years?

In those people's world, competitive advantage either doesn't exist. That or _everyone_ is wise enough to not make a trillion now with being the only ones who can cure cancer/diabetes/whatever, when they could be making millions by sticking to their share of the selling out-of-patent insulin for a lifetime.

 

[Almo]

I Randall Munroe.

Does he know that?

 

[blutoski]

Used as an argument, I think you'll find believers will have responses for it. Such as:

- The healthcare system is evil and wants to keep you sick to make more profits.
- Same with the oil industry, etc.
- It's based on spiritual principles, so science and unbelievers can't harness it.
- Industry is too ignorant/close-minded/controlled/etc to think outside its box.
- Powerful people do use it, but use their power to keep it secret.
- Its a conspiracy. Proof = you don't know its a conspiracy.

And so on.

The comic is great, but I do have one nitpick... it's a bit of a strawperson in two ways.

1) Many of these blank checkboxes should actually have checks in them.

It's a skeptic's personal nightmare that businesses really do pay consultants to do this crap and so many are convinced there's a business case.

Health insurance companies cover naturopathy, chiropractic, homeopathy; corporate HR departments employ graphologists, lie detectors, and even mediums to screen job applicants; mineral exploration and landscapers employ dowsers; stock brokers consult astrologers and fung shui experts.





2) For the most part, paranormal claimants had already moved past the efficacy argument in the 19th century and watered down their claims appropriately.

Specifically, the defenders are pretty consistent in that they're claiming these abilities 'exist' but are 'unpredictable and unreliable, and cannot be deployed on demand'

How this is different from my description as 'useless and indistinguishable from ordinary guessing' is a distinction without a difference to them.

Another defense is that these abilities are undeveloped. ie: they are an emerging field, rather than a mature field like geology or physics. They argue that we are building a circular argument: that we are rejecting calls to invest in their development on the grounds that these technologies are underdeveloped.

As it happens, the best counter to this is that there *has* been investment in their development, and it has not borne fruit. We can thank Martin Gardner for documenting the Soviet military's huge investment in resources exploring paranormal abilty weaponization. Also Jon Ronson's exposee of the US Army's attempts, which was also turned into a movie.

 

[Wowbagger]

I didn't say the arguments were valid. I said they would be used.

I know.

You've never heard the pharma conspiracy theory before? E.g., that _all_ those companies and _all_ those doctors withhold some miracle cure, because it's more profitable to pretend it doesn't exist than to patent it and wipe the floor with the competitors for 20 years?

This argument ignores the tremendous difficulty in maintaining such a wide conspiracy. Money and power would not be enough to sustain such a giant thing. It would also have to systematically break everything we know about the innate social heritage of human beings.

By the time any conspiracy could achieve that, they would probably not be interested in peddling mere drugs, anymore.

 

[tsig]

Does he know that?

More importantly does her Significant Other know it.

 

[HansMustermann]

This argument ignores the tremendous difficulty in maintaining such a wide conspiracy. Money and power would not be enough to sustain such a giant thing. It would also have to systematically break everything we know about the innate social heritage of human beings.

By the time any conspiracy could achieve that, they would probably not be interested in peddling mere drugs, anymore.

You're preaching to the choir. But my point was: try convincing one of those conspiracy theorists of that. Don't underestimate how far people can bend reality, if the cognitive dissonance _must_ be resolved as they're right.

And based on that, well, you can probably see how it would apply to the things in the XKCD table just as well.

E.g., for relativity you don't even need to guess. There are people arguing basically that it's a scam and GPS actually works without it. In fact, there is no shortage of them.

 

[AdMan]

Very funny, zooterkin! Thanks for sharing.

(If you follow the link to the site, you also get the mouse-over punchline.)

That punchline was the point I was about to make.

 

[laca]

You've never heard the pharma conspiracy theory before? E.g., that _all_ those companies and _all_ those doctors withhold some miracle cure, because it's more profitable to pretend it doesn't exist than to patent it and wipe the floor with the competitors for 20 years?

Not surprisingly, they even have an answer to that: it's not patentable because it's natural. That's why they don't want to embrace it, it's non-patentable. Go figure...

 

[paperskater]

Does he know that?

Boy oh boy, I wish he did.

More importantly does her Significant Other know it.

Yes.

 

[Safe-Keeper]

Used as an argument, I think you'll find believers will have responses for it. Such as:

- The healthcare system is evil and wants to keep you sick to make more profits.
- Same with the oil industry, etc.
- It's based on spiritual principles, so science and unbelievers can't harness it.
- Industry is too ignorant/close-minded/controlled/etc to think outside its box.
- Powerful people do use it, but use their power to keep it secret.
- Its a conspiracy. Proof = you don't know its a conspiracy.

And so on.

I don't know if it's a good example, but I like to bring up x-ray technology as a counter-argument. How come you can have an x-ray shot of your leg taken at a doctor's office, while you need to go to a psychic's fair to get an aura reading, considering how x-ray imagery technology was, to my knowledge, laughed at just as much as aura readings in its infancy?

 

[HansMustermann]

Not surprisingly, they even have an answer to that: it's not patentable because it's natural. That's why they don't want to embrace it, it's non-patentable. Go figure...

I'm not even sure about the "natural" part. Well, not for all the CT-ers, anyway.

I've actually seen posts to the effect that, for example, some secret lab in Russia invented some medicine in the 60's which kills all bacteria, all viruses and cancerous cells too! But some evil western pharma conspiracy keeps it from being produced and marketed.

Supposedly also in the USSR and China and rest of the Eastern block at the time, because if you ask someone from there what they got when they got ill, it turns out they got penicillin or such. The pharma conspiracy is so evil that it even makes countries which had free medical care and no profits to protect that way still prefer to treat than to cure, you know?