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Shameless Joe Nickel

jakesteele said:
How am I not going to with what you call a fight? I've seen nothing yet that would indicate that. There's a bit of rat packing going on but that's to be expected because I did start the thread.

Rat packing - three or more people attacking or challenging a person at once.
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Why do you need what looks like a pejorative term for entirely normal behaviour on a discussion forum? What else did you expect to happen?
 
zooterkin said:
Why do you need what looks like a pejorative term for entirely normal behaviour on a discussion forum? What else did you expect to happen?
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Because disagreeing with jakesteele is bad, but there are different ways to disagree with jakesteele, so there need to be different terms for all of them otherwise the charge sheet gets a bit dull to read.

Dave
 
dog-piling
rat-packing
eagle-nesting
hive-waggling
chicken-pecking

Each of these is a distinct kind of rhetoric.
 
jakesteele said:
Because I post here is the reason I'm calling him out. I am the sworn enemy of skeptibunkerism.
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jakesteele said:
A skeptibunker is someone who is part skeptic and part debunker.

Skeptic: one who is yet undecided as to what is true; one who is looking or inquiring for what is true; an inquirer after facts or reasons. the method of suspended judgment, systematic doubt, or criticism that is characteristic of skeptics
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Which part of your definition of skepticism are you a sworn enemy of?
 
jakesteele said:
This thread is about Shameless Joe Nickel,
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Is Joe Nickell your way of breaking the ice in order to talk about subjective skeptics every so often or every few years? You've been bringing this up since 2009 (at least).
jakesteele said:
The whole thread since I made my first post has been about debunking not just him, but subjective skeptics in general. He is just the tip of the iceberg. Joe Nickell is another example of this type of debunkery that is very misleading and facile.
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jakesteele said:
How am I not going to with what you call a fight? I've seen nothing yet that would indicate that. There's a bit of rat packing going on but that's to be expected because I did start the thread.

Rat packing - three or more people attacking or challenging a person at once.
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Ah a pejorative. Something I've noticed across psi sympathetic forums is when the sympathies are disturbed the disturbed reply with perjoratives.

Which is most likely? Someone through shear force of will circumvents the laws of nature to levitate? Or. The stories of levitation have a down to earth explanation?
 
The Shrike said:
So someone who has suspended judgement and inquired about the veracity of a claim, having concluded that a prosaic explanation successfully addresses the claim, is no longer a skeptic? Can a skeptic ever resolve a claim without earning the pejorative debunker?
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It all depends on the situation and what the conclusions are. In the case of Shameless Joe, he came up with an explanation that defies belief and is equally farfetched as levitation. He was doing fine when he talked about how it might have been attributable to superstition, folklore, etc. He should have left it at that. Instead, he comes up with this ludicrous explanation that even a child could see that this is impossible for any human being to do. This is debunking at its worst.

Meanwhile, the hopping dingleberries ("flying yogis") are worth the price of admission for that clip!
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I had a friend who blew five grand to learn how to hippety hop. Last time I saw him his feet were planted just as firmly as before he blew his dough.
 
zooterkin said:
Why do you need what looks like a pejorative term for entirely normal behaviour on a discussion forum? What else did you expect to happen?
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It all depends on the intensity, the frequency, the mood, tone, etc. Since everybody's playing nice, I retract my statement about rat packing.
 
Cosmic Yak said:
Which part of your definition of skepticism are you a sworn enemy of?
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I'm not tracking you on this one. I am the sworn enemy of skeptibunkerism, not skepticism itself.

A skeptibunker is someone who wears two hats. When dealing with math, science, etc., everything is rational, logical, objective. The trouble comes in when they deal with what skeptics call woo, this is where things can become irrational, ludicrous, etc. Shameless Joe is a prime example of this. He is also a forensic document examiner and I'm sure he does a good job at that, but when he deals with what he calls woo, he becomes unhinged and comes up with an Implausible Plausibile™ Trying to make something fit where it doesn’t fit. Every explanation MUST be a plausible and mundane one, even when it is patently absurd
 
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Dave Rogers said:
And yet you post on this site, which as you've said is part of the skeptics' movement. By your own logic we can conclude that Joe Nickell publicly represents either you too, or none of us.

Dave
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I'm a conservative who posts on liberal websites. I try to stay away from black and white/all or nothing extremes...most of the time, anyways.
 
Steve001 said:
Ah a pejorative. Something I've noticed across psi sympathetic forums is when the sympathies are disturbed the disturbed reply with perjoratives.

Which is most likely? Someone through shear force of will circumvents the laws of nature to levitate? Or. The stories of levitation have a down to earth explanation?
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My first guess would be folklore, superstition, etc. My second guess is, "who knows for sure?"
 
The Flying Yogis are doing nothing but hopping. Yet believers say they are actually levitating -flying even [cue Snagglepuss]. Now, I can’t sit in lotus position and hop; hell, I can’t even sit in lotus position! I’d wager that most would-be Yogis can’t hop in Lotus either. But it seems obvious that the Yogis are merely performing a moderately difficult physical feat after a lot of practice. The credulous accept the miraculous explanation and dismiss the mundane. This is not anything new

Therefore, to my ears, Nickell’s argument is that the Flying Monk can be explained by a similar dynamic: difficult physical feats appearing to be miraculous to the credulous. I don’t think you’ll find him arguing that it’s the only explanation.

Seems to me the Skeptibunkers Hall of Fame just lost one member in the form of Rational Joe Nickell.

Your whole idea of a “Skeptibunker” is flawed. Although I do often retreat to my skeptibunker when faced with yet another claim of a miracle.


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Gamolon said:
Is Joe Nickell your way of breaking the ice in order to talk about subjective skeptics every so often or every few years? You've been bringing this up since 2009 (at least).
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Not on this thread. I was going through some old folders and found this and I thought I would share this with y'all.
 
Gamolon said:
Is Joe Nickell your way of breaking the ice in order to talk about subjective skeptics every so often or every few years? You've been bringing this up since 2009 (at least).
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Not on this thread. I was going through some old folders and found this and I thought I would share this with y'all as an example of skepticism gone bad.
 
jakesteele said:
My first guess would be folklore, superstition, etc. My second guess is, "who knows for sure?"
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Who knows for sure is correct, but this isn't about that. It's about which is more likely and you named some of the more likely as did Joe. At 26 minutes in the vid Joe and some others noted there are only two ways to levitate, a. to apply a counter force to gravity, b. to negate gravity altogether. Each complicates willful levitation.
 
jakesteele said:
I'm not tracking you on this one. I am the sworn enemy of skeptibunkerism, not skepticism itself.
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And yet you included skepticism within the definition of the thing you are the sworn enemy of.
Perhaps you should think of a different name for the thing you are opposing.
How about "double standards"?
jakesteele said:
A skeptibunker is someone who wears two hats. When dealing with math, science, etc., everything is rational, logical, objective. The trouble comes in when they deal with what skeptics call woo, this is where things can become irrational, ludicrous, etc. Shameless Joe is a prime example of this. He is also a forensic document examiner and I'm sure he does a good job at that, but when he deals with what he calls woo, he becomes unhinged and comes up with an Implausible Plausibile™ Trying to make something fit where it doesn’t fit. Every explanation MUST be a plausible and mundane one, even when it is patently absurd
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As others have pointed out, you should have continued watching the video.
Nickell posited athletic ability as a possible explanation for the claimed levitating feats of the Friar. Then a spokesman for TM came on, and said that, rather that trying to reject the idea of actual levitation, we should instead redefine science to include this concept. He does not appear to have elaborated on this suggestion: a little factual underpinning such as an explanation as to how meditation can overcome gravity, might have helped.
Is this your idea of a plausible explanation? It's certainly not mine.

They then went on to give a demonstration of this supposed levitation, which was clearly nothing more than hopping with the legs crossed.
What baffles me is that you slate Nickell for proposing that people were fooled by a feat of athleticism, when to so-called proof of modern-day levitation is exactly that. The followers of TM are either being fooled by obvious nonsense, or they are deliberately lying, in order to attract more recruits, and therefore more income.
Nickell's claim about the historical story of levitation is made plausible by the example in the video. What difference do you see between the two examples?
 
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