

Undiscriminating Skepticism - IsaacSchlueter
http://lesswrong.com/lw/1ww/undiscriminating_skepticism/

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macrael
To some degree it sounds like the author is just describing another "tribe":
the one that he is a part of.

The main argument of the piece is: don't trust that someone who calls
themselves a skeptic is a "good" skeptic until they've expressed a skeptical
opinion that cuts against the grain of mainstream belief. Otherwise, they may
be just pretending to be a rationalist when they really just believe whatever
the mainstream believes.

These are his main examples:

> Personally, I think that Michael Shermer blew it by mocking molecular
> nanotechnology, and Penn and Teller blew it by mocking cryonics ...
> Conversely, Richard Dawkins scooped up a huge truckload of actual-
> discriminating-skeptic points, at least in my book, for not making fun of
> the many-worlds interpretation when he was asked about in an interview;

The Dawkins example demonstrates his thesis very clearly. Dawkins is skeptical
of a generally accepted theory (that the OP is also skeptical of) therefore
the OP now considers him an "actual-disciminating-skeptic". However, his first
two examples attempt to support the inverse of his thesis: if someone
expresses a skeptical opinion that agrees with the mainstream, then they are
not a "good" skeptic ("they blew it"). But that is a ridiculous claim that the
OP himself dismisses in the first few paragraphs talking about how religion is
no longer a good litmus test for skepticism. So, it seems like the OP is
actually arguing that if a self professed skeptic expresses a mainstream
skeptical opinion _that the OP disagrees with_ , then they are not a "good"
skeptic. Which is a bad, close-minded argument. The OP places himself in a
"rationalist" tribe where dissenting opinions are no more tolerated than they
are in the mainstream tribe.

~~~
mquander
I think your characterization is very unfair to the article. Right after what
you quoted, the following is stated explicitly:

" _Of course you may not trust me about any of [the examples you wrote about].
And so my purpose today is not to propose a new litmus test to replace
atheism.

But I do propose that before you give anyone credit for being a smart,
rational skeptic, that you ask them to defend some non-mainstream belief...you
ought to have to stick your neck out and say something a little less usual -
say where you are not skeptical (and most of your tribemates are) or where you
are skeptical (and most of the people in your tribe are not)."_

I don't see how it can be written any clearer than that. The point of picking
those examples is not that they are the perfect tests of skepticism; it's that
most of the Less Wrong readership has thought hard about cryonics, many-
worlds, nanotech, and AI, and so they are some reasonable examples.

~~~
macrael
I stand by what I wrote. My main issue is with the Shermer, Penn, and Teller
examples. The author uses those to attempt to prove a different point than the
rest of the article discusses, and it is a bad point. There's a difference
between saying "Someone is probably a 'good' skeptic if they have said
something that the mainstream disagrees with" and saying "Someone is probably
a 'bad' skeptic (charlatan?) if they have said something the mainstream agrees
with that I disagree with." Even if that label is only personal (as you quote,
he's not trying to make everyone apply the same labels to those people) it is
a bad way to apply it.

However, I also find the whole idea of a "skeptic test" a bit disquieting.
Paraphrasing what you quoted above: "Don't give someone credit for being a
smart, rational skeptic until they have defended some non-mainstream belief,
until they have stuck their neck out to say something a little less usual."
That's a bit aggressive for my taste.

~~~
gwern
No, the Shermer example is right on. Shermer _knows_ he dishonestly argued
against cryonics; he knows that his little frozen-strawberry example is
factually incorrect (see his admission in
[http://web.archive.org/web/20100306205336/http://leitl.org/d...](http://web.archive.org/web/20100306205336/http://leitl.org/docs/public_html/tt/msg11904.html))
but still published it.

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dasil003
This is a solid article, because certainly some people do identify with the
rationalist tribe despite being not very good at it (isn't it true of all
tribes?). But there's something else that bothers me about the rationalist
tribe.

Why do people join it? Why does someone self-identify as a rationalist?

For the most part people are rational within the framework they have that
allows them to get by in the world. Sure it's important to question beliefs to
further the state of science, etc, but why is is it critical that any idea one
holds be proven to the best of our abilities? I don't understand why belief in
god has to imply there is anything magic or supernatural; it just might be
something we don't understand. Certainly it seems possible that the universe
exists within frameworks whose workings can never be fully understood from our
current physical position. The rationalist view seems to be to let the
astrophysicists do their work, but don't you dare believe in something that is
outside the realm of what they will eventually discover.

I understand religion has done a lot of awful things in the past, and so it
deserves to be torn down as an institution, but most bad things are propagated
by extremely rational actors out of greed and self-interest. I don't see the
harm in people believing in astrology or not being atheists, I'd rather see
the rationalists take their arguments against the people who are actually
doing major harm in the world (eg. profiting from massive environmental
destruction).

~~~
sgoranson
I think rationality is useful because it is the only reliable path to truth.
And truth is required to accomplishing almost everything. Except
happiness...which may have been your original point.

~~~
dasil003
Or more generally, inner truth. This is why I am not a rationalist or an
objectivist. Human experience itself is subjective, and even if through
supreme rationality we are able to pry apart our psyches and lay it bare as a
pile of neurons then what? Do we feel good about that?

I choose to believe in a higher consciousness because it makes my life richer,
not because I am hiding from rational, physical, objective truth.

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scott_s
I think a wonderful example of the phenomenon of people expressing skepticism
that goes against their tribe is the recent Carrier IQ senstation.

There is, as far as I know, no clear evidence of what exactly is being
recorded, and what exactly is being sent. Several people on HN yesterday
pointed this out, and then pointed out that it's possible what's being
recorded and sent are benign stats that most of us agree to in other places,
such as with a web browser. This skepticism was not met well by our tribe.

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pcvarmint
I think a better subject would be a study of "scientism".

<http://mises.org/resources/4318/Scientism-and-Values>

Too often it's not "facts" and "science" that are being debated, but rather
values, even though postmodern philosophers have doubted the distinction.

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ropman76
A very solid article that addresses the "sins of the intellect".

