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Does it require intelligence to be a skeptic?

The UFO clubs reminds me of this one (I don't think this happened to me, but I have source amnesia so am never sure):

Our narrator tells the tale of his first and last local UFO club meeting.

A large group in a local hall with basic meetings stuff, then tales from participants about their UFO encounters.

One local lass, gets up and talked about how she was at the local lake, in her boyfriend's car, kissing, cuddling and fooling about, and occasionally noticing the bright light near the horizon just after sunset.

(Our narrator was nodding to himself, thinking 'Venus')

Then the girl explained that she suddenly felt warm all over, a strange feeling that started in her midsection, and expanded out to her whole body. Leaving her feeling happy and relaxed.

At this point, she realised that the bright object was a UFO and she had been scanned by that UFO.

The narrator left the meeting after discussion about UFO scanning and how common it was, wondering how he could be the only person in the room that knew what an orgasm was.

And that's why he never went back.
 
The UFO clubs reminds me of this one (I don't think this happened to me, but I have source amnesia so am never sure):

Our narrator tells the tale of his first and last local UFO club meeting.

A large group in a local hall with basic meetings stuff, then tales from participants about their UFO encounters.

One local lass, gets up and talked about how she was at the local lake, in her boyfriend's car, kissing, cuddling and fooling about, and occasionally noticing the bright light near the horizon just after sunset.

(Our narrator was nodding to himself, thinking 'Venus')

Then the girl explained that she suddenly felt warm all over, a strange feeling that started in her midsection, and expanded out to her whole body. Leaving her feeling happy and relaxed.

At this point, she realised that the bright object was a UFO and she had been scanned by that UFO.

The narrator left the meeting after discussion about UFO scanning and how common it was, wondering how he could be the only person in the room that knew what an orgasm was.

And that's why he never went back.


Haha, priceless!
 
It is not unlike being a member of communities like the Masons or other secret societies. It makes you feel powerful, in charge. An ordinary fantasy doesn't give you that feeling of being important, even if the importance is only imaginary and helps you remain sheeple
Yes, it's all about asserting your individuality and not being one of the 'sheeple'. Just like people who come here to boast about how much smarter they are for being skeptical.

- with the exception of the (relatively) few conspiracy nuts who decide to seize the day, to live out the fantasy to the fullest and attack the Capitol.
That was different. People were being told by the President that Democrats were trying to steal the election. They were being patriotic!

Source reliability is good, but how do you know if sources are reliable or not? If you believe that Big Pharma, the DoD and the mainstream media are always reliable, I wouldn't call you a skeptic.
No, but who is expecting that? I will say though that information coming from reputable news outlets and government departments is generally much more reliable than other sources. Ditto for 'Big Pharma'. When the label on a drug says 'not for human consumption' I'm inclined to believe it more than someone who tells me horse medicine will cure covid.

For a couple of years, we have been told by the CIA and mainstream media that a number of U.S. spies and diplomats were victims of directed-energy-weapon attacks.
I'm skeptical of that claim. 'The mainstream media' is not a monolithic entity, and there has has been plenty of doubt expressed about the 'directed-energy-weapon attack' hypothesis. If people want to believe that speculations are facts that's on them, not the news media.
 
Yes and no. Skepticism means that you doubt and don't believe in something. You may be skeptical about something because it was not obvious to you or even you don't like it, so many ordinary people can be skeptical about many new ideas. On the other hand skepticism in the context of analyzing facts, critical thinking and questioning dogmas is one of the components of high intelligence.
 
Yes, it's all about asserting your individuality and not being one of the 'sheeple'. Just like people who come here to boast about how much smarter they are for being skeptical.
I'm glad that the smug term brights never caught on.

That was different. People were being told by the President that Democrats were trying to steal the election. They were being patriotic!
He did indeed confirm their delusions.

No, but who is expecting that? I will say though that information coming from reputable news outlets and government departments is generally much more reliable than other sources. Ditto for 'Big Pharma'. When the label on a drug says 'not for human consumption' I'm inclined to believe it more than someone who tells me horse medicine will cure covid.

I think we have had this discussion before.
I responded to this: "Source reliability is much more important, and probably harder to teach, especially once someone has gone down the 'big' hole (i.e. big pharma, military-industrial complex, big media etc.)"
The problem is that sources as such aren't reliable. And it's not 'source reliability' that's hard to teach. What is hard to teach is how to notice when a usually reliable source begins to spout utter nonsense as was the case with 60 Minutes when they promoted the old idea that 'Havana syndrome' was caused by a DEW attack, and did so one month after the CIA interim report had been presented on Jan 20, 2022.

If you rely on 'source reliability', you're screwed when something like that happens. Unless you already knew quite a bit about the 'syndrome', it would have been almost impossible to see what was wrong with it. For instance, that they interviewed only people who favored the idea of a DEW attack: the sufferers/'victims', 'experts' like David Relman and James Benford, and warmongering politicians like John Bolton. But how would you know that this was the case unless you already knew about the critics of the idea? You wouldn't!

In other words, there is no reason to assume that a source is reliable unless you know enough about the thing it's telling you about to be able to confirm that it's reliable. Sometimes you may be able to say to yourself, 'Hey, wait a minute! Something's not right here!' (If I knew nothing else, the presence of John Bolton would probably make me suspicious.)

I no longer remember the 60 Minutes episode in detail, but the one other thing that might have made me skeptical of it without knowing anything else about the 'syndrome' would have been David Relman's conspicuous ignorance about the way sound behaves (see post 1,306 in the 'syndrome' thread). But if I had never really thought about sound and acoustics before, which Relman obviously hadn't, what he said would have made a kind of sense, wouldn't it? And David Relman is supposed to be a reliable expert!

I'm skeptical of that claim. 'The mainstream media' is not a monolithic entity, and there has has been plenty of doubt expressed about the 'directed-energy-weapon attack' hypothesis. If people want to believe that speculations are facts that's on them, not the news media.


Yes, there has been a lot of doubt expressed, but often (like 60 Minutes) there was no doubt at all. In many respects, the mainstream media is a monolithic entity. (In some circles, Fox alone is a monolithic entity.) The doubt expressed would be like when the two recent podcast series had a quotation or two from Bartholomew and/or Baloh and then went on to, 'but that can't be right because ...' and never returned to them again. Doubt was mentioned but never really delved into. It was more like, 'We know some people are critical of this, and here is one. Now let us tell you why he's wrong: retinal bleeding and EHS (Nicky Woolf) or the victims, won't somebody think of the victims! (Adam Entous).'
(That they are doing the victims a disservice never occurs to these guys.)

The media that actually enlightened us wasn't usually mainstream. It was magazines like ProPublica or Skeptic and Skeptical Inquirer. And a few critical scientists who never really got the mainstream media's attention. R. Douglas Fields, for instance.
How many people see those?!
Even after the CIA Interim report when the mainstream media should have known better, all it took for them to get back to pointing their fingers at the ugly Russians was David Relman's minority report two weeks later and 60 Minutes that same month. Yahoo's podcast in late 2022 never made much of an impact.

And I am not sure that the ODNI report has convinced many journalists of anything other than: An authority has said something so we'd better report it. Relman was still able to pull the same stunt he did last year when his minority report was declassified a few weeks later: Yet another authority now said something else.

WP, NYT and CNN seem to have understood the message. Their sources must have made the difference between the ODNI and the Relman report clear to them. But I doubt that CNN's Sanjay has really understood it. Anderson, Entous and Woolf haven't even though I think the latter suspects that he may have screwed up. Anderson and Entous are mainstream journalists!


ETA: About the 'Havana Syndrome' and the media: How could I forget to mention Fair Observer?!! See posts 1,712, 1,671 and 1,071.
 
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Yeah, I'm glad to be able to skim studies and papers (and compare them) and get a good idea of whether what I'm reading is good enough to draw weak or strong conclusions from, whether it's too mushy to do much with, or whether it's too far over my head for me to judge.

I feel like that's the only comprehension-gated part of skepticism.

It's often not hard to follow up on something that sounds like nonsense and see what's behind it, these days. Someone told me 'they' made dolphin-cow hybrids but 'the US government made them destroy them before they progressed too far' because it was illegal or.. something like that?

Not knowing much about that kind of biology I doubted it was even possible but tracked down the Youtube video failing to explain a paper very well, and from there a few papers. It was research in Spain or Brazil or something, using cow eggs from the slaughterhouse trash, to test different methods of preserving dolphin sperm. They wanted to see which method got you the most/healthiest after freezing and thawing, that kind of thing. So you let the dolphin sperm go at the cow eggs and see how well they do at fertilizing them.

I was surprised to learn a lot of really wild crosses will fertilize each other, but not surprised to learn they typically can't do more than divide a dozen times before they get confused and die. The papers had photos of their little guys with 2-16 cells. They destroyed them after a few days of progress, so they could test them for actual dolphin DNA, cause apparantly in whatever circumstances these are, the cow eggs go off on their own sometimes.

I found a similar paper with I think it was jaguars and house cats, doing the same sort of preservation comparison testing, with the experimenters very excited because some of them got all the way to the blastula(?) phase before it petered out. Showing that it was a great cross to use to easily test viability.

The youtube video about the dolphins had thousands of comments wondering if anyone had pictures of the embryos so they could see what these hybrids looked like.
 
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... whether it's too mushy to do much with, or whether it's too far over my head for me to judge.


Over one's head and out of one's field of expertise. Happens all the time, obviously, and then choosing between skepticism and gullibility isn't even an option. How do you respond to claims about quantum physics, for instance, if you're not a quantum physicist? Other than: 'Well, if you say so!'

At one point, the group of Danish skeptics were confronted with a woo with some kind of degree in physics who made claims, allegedly based on quantum physics, about something that sounded weird, but even though one of us had majored in physics, we had to ask Benny Lautrup at the Niels Bohr Institute, who declared that it was utter nonsense and techno babble.

We believed him and were well-aware that it was nothing but belief. How could we have been skeptical of something we didn't understand? And we never pretended to have been able to understand a serious explanation based on quantum physics.
Fortunately, we have never had to make any decisions based on our (lack of) knowledge about quantum physics, so it doesn't have any practical consequences anyway. :)


PS
So no ManBearPig anytime soon?!
 
Ha! Yeah, if it's something both complex and unfamiliar I have to just ask someone who seems knowledgable and trustworthy in the field. Or if the problem is just that the semiotics and jargon are too thick I usually decide that I don't care.

Luckily I am comfortable with holding provisional ideas about things.

(I initially misread "Bird and frog species can produce viable hybrids up to twenty million years after speciation. Mammal species can only produce viable hybrids up to two or three million years after speciation" and thought 'Gosh, how weird! A frog and a bird!')
 
It's not linear. And there are multiple factors.

Statistically, we would model this with multiple regression analysis to establish how intelligence matters, all else the same.

A beautiful girl in a bikini can say the dumbest thing and a great deal of the male population will lose their skepticism. If it is a fat old hag saying the same thing, their skepticism magically returns.
 
It's not linear. And there are multiple factors.

Statistically, we would model this with multiple regression analysis to establish how intelligence matters, all else the same.


That sounds just this side of Depak Chopra.
 
I think it does. You need to know things about the topic in order to have skepticism about it. Smart people make the best skeptics.

Not necessarily. I used to know this guy in Kentucky who could barely read and couldn’t do basic math.

He thought psychics and horoscopes were a scam….even at the age of 4!
 
Not necessarily. I used to know this guy in Kentucky who could barely read and couldn’t do basic math.

He thought psychics and horoscopes were a scam….even at the age of 4!
True, but there might be a fine line between being observant and being fluidly skeptical. If the four year old was familiar with being tricked, he might recognize a trick. That doesn't mean he would recognize a more complex or subtle manipulation.

And welcome to the forum, from the other side of the Walt!
 
True, but there might be a fine line between being observant and being fluidly skeptical. If the four year old was familiar with being tricked, he might recognize a trick. That doesn't mean he would recognize a more complex or subtle manipulation.

And welcome to the forum, from the other side of the Walt!

Thank you! But did you mean “the world”?

I am assuming you are Australian?
 
Not necessarily. I used to know this guy in Kentucky who could barely read and couldn’t do basic math.

He thought psychics and horoscopes were a scam….even at the age of 4!
If this chap could barely read and couldn’t do basic math, his perception that 'psychics and horoscopes were a scam….even at the age of 4' might be more a failure of his imagination as I daresay he would have said the same about Einstein and Quantum Physics. Maybe he even supports MAGA...? Calling everything 'rubbish' does not of itself qualify a person as being a sceptic.
 
Does it require intelligence to be a skeptic?

I think it does. You need to know things about the topic in order to have skepticism about it. Smart people make the best skeptics.


This seems straightforward. In fact, so obvious that quite possibly someone's said it already. (I've only quickly skimmed through the thread, touching on the odd post that caught my eye, but haven't fully absorbed everything everyone's posted here.)

AIUI, skepticism, as we use the term here, is ...well, rationality, reasonability, realism (or maybe 'reality-ism'). Essentially, the Logic+Empiricism combo.

Many things go into it. Knowledge, for one: with the higher level of knowledge, then other things being equal, your conclusions will be more "real", more valid, than with less. Importantly, intellectual integrity as well: someone that is lacking in this crucial ingredient might, with all the knowledge in the world, will essentially be a monkey performing tricks mindlessly, and going through the motions of rational thought and discourse.

And similarly, intelligence as well. Everything else remaining the same, someone that is possessed of greater intelligence (no matter how you define it), will probably do a better job of arriving at 'correct', valid answers, and reasonable conclusions.

But yet, no, I don't think intelligence is necessary for skepticism. Not even a bare minimum level. Even someone with an IQ of, I don't know, 60? can be, within the constraints they face, either be skeptical or not (or more skeptical or less skeptical) --- as indeed can we all, within the constraints we face. It's a question of, I suppose, knowing and understanding what skepticism is and entails, and the instinctual drive to arrive at the truth (aka, I suppose, intellectual integrity, a crucial ingredient that many lack, including one or two otherwise knowledgeable and intelligent posters I've seen here).


-------------------------


Short answer: No, I don't believe intelligence is necessary for skepticism.


(Although, again, sure, it helps --- as do many other things, like access to information for instance, as well as, I suppose, the time and the leisure to look at and think about things with a bit more deliberation than a quick instinctive kneejerk, et cetera, et cetera. All of that helps, and intelligence as well, absolutely. But none of them is necessary, really --- so that, without a doubt, it would be completely wrong, completely misguided, to suggest that someone with a low IQ cannot be a skeptic. Absolutely, one man with an IQ of 60 can be more or less skeptical, in our sense of the word, than another man with an IQ of 60. Just like one man with a very high IQ can be more or less skeptical than another man that is as intelligent.)


(I know, I know. We're skeptical about IQ tests as well, and rightly so. I think this applies, what I've said here, regardless of how we think of intelligence, or how [or if] we measure it.)
 
The personal level of integrity is very important.

I watched a podcast where a guest just simply refused to think about a simple fail in her logic, got it 3/4 correct but would not budge on the last point that was clearly wrong. Others on the panel accepted there are two realities (sex vs gender) and would not resolve a scenario where it got sticky.
Steadfastly would not think about it, only acknowledge the difference.

College education for most of them too. I see a serious lack of something there. A skill critical to moving forward into life in the real world. Know where you stand on things and stick to what makes real sense.
Even if it offends another. Be able to defend why. Logically.
 
I'd say its about how trusting someone is. A trusting soul might buy almost anything hook, line and sinker. A guy who doesn't trust will be on his toes for inconsistencies.
 
I'd say its about how trusting someone is. A trusting soul might buy almost anything hook, line and sinker. A guy who doesn't trust will be on his toes for inconsistencies.
A guy who doesn't trust will find excuses to disbelieve even when trust is warranted. How do you think conspiracy theories gain traction?
 
I saw an interesting theory that one can only properly communicate - as in a debate - with others who are within the same band of ±10 IQ-range (assuming an sd of ±15 range). Outside of that range it becomes hard work. Since 68% of the population is within one standard deviation of the mean, it is perhaps little wonder the masses believe what's written in the popular press with little appreciation of the people behind how the 'news' is presented, For example, the recent focus on the number of people arriving as asylum-seekers on small boats across the channel, once barely mentioned in the popular press is now major news of national importance, which the average person in the street has picked up upon, most not even aware of the right-wing agenda behind the newspaper proprietors' political agenda. We rarely see the adverse news spotlighted on the newspaper proprietor class.

So in effect, it is futile to argue with those outside the parameters of understanding in terms of intelligence (as per thread topic) according to this theory. Is it true? <shrug> I don't know.

In a normal distribution, approximately 95% of the data fall within two standard deviations of the mean. Approximately 99.7% of the data fall within three standard deviations of the mean. Belief and why people believe, or disbelieve, is a nebulous concept which slips away from one's grasp the more one argues abstract issues.
 
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It does not take a lot of intelligence, my dog is quite skeptical of braunschweiger, because he is skeptical of the braunschweiger being pure, he suspects a pill is in there.

All it takes is to consider yourself wrong.
 
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