Skeptiko Episode 153/Skepticality Episode 170
I know I am a little late to the party here, but felt I had to say something on the issue in general because of the episode I heard (Skeptico #153/Skepticality #170, same episode on both) was jarring.
I'm new to skepticism - I was brought to the movement within the last 6 months through Mark Crislip's QuackCast and the SGU. I have slowly been browsing the online and podcast content, which is what brought me to Skepticality. The very first episode I ever heard was #170, where it was a co-episode with Alex from Skeptico (Skeptico #153).
I have listened to it twice, which was very difficult. If you have listened to it, you know what I mean.
I take issue with how Alex fails to understand the basic fundamental process of science and how it is practiced. If you are running a show that is supposed to offer both sides (say, the 'believer' and the 'skeptic'), you need to actually understand both sides in order to have a constructive dialogue and be the moderator, in my humble opinion. If you don't, you aren't able to ask the right questions or you get stuck on misunderstandings, and I don't think anyone benefits from that. This brings us to the fundamental issue that always happens between skeptics and believers that I think is pretty true, and that is that believers tend to think they understand science, experimentation, many forms of bias, and statistics when they really don't, and they wonder why their arguments don't have the effect they thought they would. If you're going to criticize anyone's science, there are definite ways of doing it, but you have to put the work in to actually understand it first. If you do that and still disagree based on a reasonably controversial point (not a value judgement), that is where the real fertile ground is for conversation. The idea commonly heard from believers that skeptics are out to rain on the parade is entirely not the point. Skeptics are equally full of wonder and actually wish more than anything that they could be proved wrong. Even so, the real wonder is how boundless our self-deception can be, and bs needs to be called out when it happens.
In the episode in question, we can take one of the first criticisms Alex had about how two researchers had obtained the same data based on the dog that 'could sense when it's owner was coming home', and he couldn't understand how when two researchers get the same data they can still come to different conclusions about the experiment and what the data means about the question at hand, which was 'does the dog have psychic powers?'. Ben brought this issue of data up immediately in the podcast, and Alex didn't really answer this (or any other questions) very well, and proved pretty consistently that he does not understand the process of science or controls. More specifically, that data you get from one experiment is just one part of the equation, and carries with it a certain weight, and that data is not all created equally - that is, data from one method/experiment might not be as valuable as from another kind of method/experiment (say, anecdote vs. double-blind placebo/baseline controlled trials) in testing the hypothesis.
More important than data is the method(s) and your **interpretation** of ALL the data about a topic together. If a method is flawed, you can't trust/use the data (garbage in, garbage out), and if you can't defend/justify the methods or come up with anything that resembles a rational sentence in response to it's major criticisms, you have no ground to stand on. Changing the subject and failing to answer direct criticisms are what makes up the vast majority of Alex's contribution to this episode, which is why I had to say something about it. It's quite the stroll through irrationality, riddled with logical fallacies, Alex dominating and misdirecting/avoiding questions when directly asked, and at times utter nonsense.
I can appreciate that Alex is trying to represent both sides in Skeptiko. Also, science is neither intuitive nor easy to understand. The first thing that any scientist should realize (if they're worth their weight in potting soil) is how little they really know. You have to approach science with an attitude of humility before you can build to a place of understanding. What Alex says he is trying to do is great, in fact the same as skeptics, and that is being able to use "plain talk" about the issues to make them accessible/digestable to wider audiences, but I think in some cases this is just impossible when the issues at hand are so complex (or compressible to 10-second sound bytes). The bottom line for me is that you cannot expect to have constructive dialogue when you're speaking a different language.
It is pretty safe to say that since this was the first Skeptiko episode I ever heard, I'm probably not going to spend much time on any others. Maybe for a laugh or to test my own ability to spot logical fallacies...
