Alex Tsakiris and the Skeptiko Podcast - CRITICAL LOOK AND OVERVIEW.

The discrepancy between the description of the actual situation and Arouet's representation of it, in his response to it, is pretty self evident.

Arouet more or less attributes it to carelessness, I would think it's reasonable to (at least partly) attribute it to Skeptiko's guidance towards less critical posting style, aimed at skeptics.
Allowing the bashing of skeptics by believer Skeptiko-forumites is likely part of this ehm ... guidance, or manipulative intimidation or terrorising, for which Skeptiko is known.
 
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Daylightstar said:
The discrepancy between the description of the actual situation and Arouet's representation of it, in his response to it, is pretty self evident.

Arouet more or less attributes it to carelessness(387), I would think it's reasonable to (at least partly) attribute it to Skeptiko's guidance towards less critical posting style, aimed at skeptics.
Allowing the bashing of skeptics by believer Skeptiko-forumites is likely part of this ehm ... guidance, or manipulative intimidation or terrorising, for which Skeptiko is known.
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My predilection towards polite and diplomatic discourse goes back much farther than my time on Skeptiko. In fact, if anything, I've been the one strongly pushing for civil discourse from both sides on that forum - not the forum pushing me towards it. And its not "less critical" - I'm plenty critical over there! - it's more polite and diplomatic. Criticism does not require insults and put downs to be firm or strong.

I'm firmly in the Phil Plait camp of DBAD. Insulting people and demeaning people is rarely, imo, effective in changing people's minds. I think it serves primarily to distract from the substantive critique being made. The focus turns to the perceived insult rather than the substantive critique. Now, I don't have a scientific study on this and I'm open to it being demonstrated that ridicule is more effective than politeness, but anecdotally from much experience on internet forums, this is what I see.
 
Daylightstar said:
Allowing the bashing of skeptics by believer Skeptiko-forumites is likely part of this ehm ... guidance, or manipulative intimidation or terrorising, for which Skeptiko is known.
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Just noticed this part: part of my point to Miguel was not to let the tactics used against him prevent him from sharing his views on the forum. I said above that Alex, in requiring Gna Gna to send him an email asking to come back is a tactic designed to discouragement him from coming back. My suggestion was not to give in to such tactics, come back and continue providing his - imo - necessary counterpoint to the majority views on that forum.

Your approach seems to be: let the terrorists win!
 
Arouet said:
My predilection towards polite and diplomatic discourse goes back much farther than my time on Skeptiko. ...
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Which is probably why you're in the right place on Skeptiko.


Arouet said:
... In fact, if anything, I've been the one strongly pushing for civil discourse from both sides on that forum - not the forum pushing me towards it. And its not "less critical" - I'm plenty critical over there! - it's more polite and diplomatic. Criticism does not require insults and put downs to be firm or strong.

I'm firmly in the Phil Plait camp of DBAD. Insulting people and demeaning people is rarely, imo, effective in changing people's minds. I think it serves primarily to distract from the substantive critique being made. The focus turns to the perceived insult rather than the substantive critique. Now, I don't have a scientific study on this and I'm open to it being demonstrated that ridicule is more effective than politeness, but anecdotally from much experience on internet forums, this is what I see.
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However, this should not include diffusingly misrepresenting a situation, that's not being diplomatic.
Not wanting to be demeaning or not wanting to put people down is perfectly fine ofcourse, but this should not prevent you from making an effort to being honest or accurate in your description of the aforementioned banning situation at Skeptiko.
 
Arouet said:
Just noticed this part: part of my point to Miguel was not to let the tactics used against him prevent him from sharing his views on the forum. I said above that Alex, in requiring Gna Gna to send him an email asking to come back is a tactic designed to discouragement him from coming back. My suggestion was not to give in to such tactics, come back and continue providing his - imo - necessary counterpoint to the majority views on that forum.

Your approach seems to be: let the terrorists win!
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No, my approach was to let you know that you misrepresented the banning situation; YOU shouldn't let the terrorists win.

In your previous message you indicated that according to you your post had nothing to do with Skeptiko pushing you into a posting style here.
If this were true, your misrepresenting the Skeptiko-banning situation would be a consequence of your personal posting style.

That would be an entirely different discussion which would have no direct bearing on Skeptiko and would not need to be discussed here, as far as I'm concerned.
 
Daylightstar said:
Which is probably why you're in the right place on Skeptiko.
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Some think so, others disagree.

However, this should not include diffusingly misrepresenting a situation, that's not being diplomatic.
Not wanting to be demeaning or not wanting to put people down is perfectly fine ofcourse, but this should not prevent you from making an effort to being honest or accurate in your description of the aforementioned banning situation at Skeptiko.
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As concerned as you are about honesty and accuracy I'm surprised you would ignore subsequent explanations and instead focus solely on your interpretation of my OP. You would acknowledge that I indicated that I had no intention to mislead and that I clarified my position.
 
Daylightstar said:
No, my approach was to let you know that you misrepresented the banning situation;
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That explains your original critique, doesn't explain why you continued after I explained.

In your previous message you indicated that according to you your post had nothing to do with Skeptiko pushing you into a posting style here.
If this were true, your misrepresenting the Skeptiko-banning situation would be a consequence of your personal posting style.

That would be an entirely different discussion which would have no direct bearing on Skeptiko and would not need to be discussed here, as far as I'm concerned.
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I agree with you that this didn't need to be discussed here. My intent was simply to offer support to Gna Gna.
 
Arouet said:
Some think so, others disagree.
...
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Oh well, that's how it goes.

Arouet said:
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As concerned as you are about honesty and accuracy I'm surprised you would ignore1 subsequent explanations and instead focus solely on your interpretation of my OP. You would acknowledge that I indicated that I had no intention2 to mislead and that I clarified my position.
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Hilited superscripts by Daylightstar
The misrepresentation was self evident. As far as what you call the interpretation, we (stilll somewhat) appear to have a difference of opinion there.

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Daylightstar said:
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If you feel (which I think is the case and you may confirm if you like) that you should have worded your response such that it would be closer to the aparent actual situation, without the need for all kinds of unstated qualifications, that would be perfectly understandable and fine with me....
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Daylightstar said:
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Also, I do not think that you would intentionally misrepresent a banning on Skeptiko,...
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Arouet said:
That explains your original critique, doesn't explain why you continued after I explained.
...
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You were drawing out the discussion by being evasive, as I have already indicated.

Arouet said:
...
I agree with you that this didn't need to be discussed here. ...
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No, not "didn't need to be", as it wasn't. Doesn't need to be would be the correct phrase for you to use.

Arouet said:
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My intent was simply to offer support to Gna Gna.
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Your intent to offer support is not what was questioned.
 
I just listened to the latest episode and was struck by the apparent gullibility of the guest, it shouldn't wonder me anymore, but...oh well, read / listen for yourself:

http://www.skeptiko.com/diane-powell-psychic-phenomena/

Today we welcome Dr. Diane Powell to Skeptiko. Diane has an amazing background, stellar credentials, Johns Hopkins trained neuroscientist, MD in psychiatry from Johns Hopkins, as well. Faculty position at Harvard Medical School. Salk Institute right here in my backyard in La Jolla. I mean, the credentials go on and on. She’s also written a book titled, The ESP Enigma. Dr. Powell, thank you so much for joining me and welcome to Skeptiko.
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Alex Tsakiris: Let me interject here. Do you recall what were some of the first instances of that that you bumped into that you really thought, ‘Wow, this is interesting,’ and then you followed it up and found that there weren’t good answers coming back?

Dr. Diane Powell: Yes. The first one happened when I was a teenager. A friend of mine traveled in the circus during the summer and invited me over to his house because the magician that he traveled with was there. He had talked very highly about him. His name was Jay Michelle and he did Houdini-like tricks, but when I met him he wanted to show me some other things that he could do. He had me stand across the room from him, which was about maybe 15 feet away. There was a bookshelf behind me with around 1,000 books. He said, “Pick any book out. Open it up to any page and as you’re reading it I’ll read it to you.”

And he did just that…. for several books and several pages. It blew my mind. When I asked him about it he said, “Oh, that’s just a magic trick. It’s just magic.”

I said, “Okay, okay. I guess it’s just magic.”

I asked my father about it and he said, “Well, there is this controversial topic called telepathy and that’s what it sounds like to me.”

He didn’t poo-poo the whole possibility of it but he let me know that it was controversial.

I’d say it was probably another 15 years before I had my next experience.
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I think strategically and ask, ‘Okay, where do we start? How can we lay down the first paver for this?’ Science has accepted the fact that autistic savants can do the things that they do. They don’t dispute that, but it is a mystery.

Alex Tsakiris: Specifically what are some examples of that?

Dr. Diane Powell: For example, there are people like Leslie Lemke who was able to sit down and play Mozart’s Concerto without ever having had a piano lesson, just having heard it and just sit down and play it. There are lots of musical savants like that. I can look at that and say, “Okay, that’s impressive, but maybe he just has an extraordinary ear for music and an extraordinary memory.” That doesn’t have the same wow factor but it still is pretty impressive.

The savants that really fascinate me are those who have knowledge that they have no way of knowing. They have not been exposed to it. For example, Darold Treffert examined an autistic savant who hadn’t gone to school, because frequently they can’t function in school. Oftentimes they can’t even add, and yet they can do extraordinary things like provide mathematical answers faster than a calculator. Dr. Treffert just thought off the top of his head, ‘What can I ask this child to do that could show that he has access to information he hasn’t been exposed to?’

He asked him to draw the Periodic Table and he did. It was accurate. He even drew in the letters for the different elements, and the letters are abbreviations for the Latin words for the elements. He wrote down the atomic numbers and atomic weights. That’s a lot of information for a child to just produce.

Where does that come from? These children are not hanging a shingle saying that they’re psychic and they’re not interested in that sort of thing. This information just information comes to them. There isn’t the secondary gain that people oftentimes wonder about with professional psychics, where they might think, “Oh, it must be a parlor trick.” You know, those kinds of questions people raise. With the autistic savants there isn’t that.
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Well, I'm absolutely fascinated by the abilities of savants, but I remain very skeptical about this example without further evidence. Does anybody know the specifics of this case? How can they be sure that the kid hasn't ever seen a picture of a periodic table and just happens to have excellent visual memory, like some "autistic savants" do?

Oh well, it's always fascinating to hear very educated people talk like this. These were just a couple of examples, there's more of course...I'd love to read more point-by-point comments of different episodes from forum members who are interested and have enough time on their hands.

EDIT:

Her homepage: http://dianehennacypowell.com/
 
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After having had a look it seems worse than that.
The resident skeptics are now contained in a holding area? Wow, okay. There appears to be an increase in anger intensity from non skeptical source towards the skeptics, in comparison with previous times.
I would say that Skeptiko's respectability is rapidly becoming non existent.

Oh well, a challenge a day keeps the boredom away ......
 
Daylightstar said:
After having had a look it seems worse than that.
The resident skeptics are now contained in a holding area? Wow, okay. There appears to be an increase in anger intensity from non skeptical source towards the skeptics, in comparison with previous times.
I would say that Skeptiko's respectability is rapidly becoming non existent.

Oh well, a challenge a day keeps the boredom away ......
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Even in that "holding area" we are censored.
 
Daylightstar said:
And if I saw it correctly the woos can come in and freely flame the skeptics?
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Yes, at this time I don't recall a specific example, but I believe so. On the other hand skeptics can't dislike posts, on other sub-forums but non skeptics can dislike on the C&D sub-forum. Ain't that funny.
 
Steve001 said:
Yes, at this time I don't recall a specific example, but I believe so. On the other hand skeptics can't dislike posts, on other sub-forums but non skeptics can dislike on the C&D sub-forum. Ain't that funny.
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Is that an important feature? It sounds like a feature I would ignore altogether.

Perhaps Tsakiris wants to make a dating site out of Skeptiko. He should create "Going Steady" and "Dear Johnny" buttons for posts instead :rolleyes:
 
Oh dear oh dear, well that's all gone horribly wrong hasn't it.

"Intelligent Discussion" - hmmm, for values of "intelligent" that are associated with "intelligent" design perhaps.

"bobo doll" skeptics??

I stopped listening to the podcast because it became boring (previously I liked hearing what other folk believed as it made me examine my own belief systems in a sceptical way.

I stopped reading the forums as they inevitably descended into either pseudo-philosophic junk or simply became slanging matches.

Doesn't look like things have improved.
 
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