Averting Skeptastrophe

The position of the H2earth Institute is that the impending planetary emergency is of sufficient probability and probable magnitude that any and all steps that can be taken toward its mitigation must be pursued, regardless of cost or risk, all in tandem and as aggressively as possible.

Those who contend that Hydrogen is merely an energy carrier, or takes more energy to produce than it returns, or that Hydrogen-on-Demand is 'scientifically impossible' are all arguing, in effect, that doing nothing is preferable to assuming some technological risk.  It reflects not the skepticism of "Can it work?" but the cynical "Dont even try!"; an unsubstantiated faith that 20th Century science had already learned it all, and that there is nothing new to discover or invent in the 21st.  We believe this position is intellectually dishonest and indefensible. Doing less than everything-that-can-be-done is an inadequate response to the prospect of immanent human extinction.

The world cannot afford the time to debate whether Global Warming is real, or whether Solar or Wind or Nuclear is the most preferable alternative to fossil fuels.  Arguments over Electric Vehicles vs. Biofuels, Corn Ethanol vs. Cellulosic Ethanol, Hydrogen Reformation vs. Waterfuel, all of these are noisy sideshows intended to distract people from the burning world around them. 

The simple fact is that the same paid hacks who pretend to be honest skeptics on free energy issues are also the ones promoting the idea that Global Warming is a hoax, not real, not proven, or, at the very least, not anthropogenic in nature. They brand proponents as "gullible rubes", and the mounting evidence as just more "dirty test tubes" and "bad calorimetry".  They are paid by Dirty Big Oil to "debunk" both ideas, Global Warming and Free Energy, and for exactly the same reason.

When you are told by the priests of science that you cannot run your car on water, you are being deliberately lied to by people who are paid by Dirty Big Oil specifically to voice these opinions, to sound 'authoritative' when doing so (especially where the technologies they supposedly "debunk" are beyond their sphere of expertise) and, thereby to distract people from thinking - and experimenting - for themselves.

"The message is very simple:

Think for Yourself,

and

Question Authority"

- Dr. Timothy Leary

Links to Think

The Sovereignty of  Science Journal of Scientific Exploration  Vol 14 (2000), No 1, Pp 115-120

Closed Minded Science

Skeptagion!

   We've created a forum for skeptics, but we dont really think it will work, and if it does, they probably wont use it.  Even if they DO use it, its highly unlikely they will ever present any hard evidence, from credible sources, that would stand up to scrutiny, to support their irrational, unfounded, insubstantial beliefs...

Expert Testimony

"Space travel is bunk" -Sir Harold Spencer Jones, Astronomer Royal of Britain, 1957, two weeks before the launch of Sputnik

"There is practically no chance communications space satellites will be used to provide better telephone, telegraph, television, or radio service inside the Unided States." -T. Craven, FCC Commissioner, 1961

"There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will." -- Albert Einstein, 1932

"The more success the quantum theory has, the sillier it looks." - Albert Einstein, 1912

"The energy produced by the atom is a very poor kind of thing. Anyone who expects a source of power from the transformation of these atoms is talking moonshine" - Ernst Rutherford, 1933

"The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?" - David  Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s.

"All a trick." "A Mere Mountebank." "Absolute swindler." "Doesn't know what he's about." "What's the good of it?" "What useful purpose will it serve?" - Members of Britain's Royal Society, 1926, after a demonstration of television.

"The more important fundamental laws and facts of physical science have all been discovered, and these are now so firmly established that the possibility of their ever being supplanted in consequence of new discoveries is exceedingly remote.... Our future discoveries must be looked for in the sixth place of decimals." - physicist Albert. A. Michelson, 1894

"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." - Lord Kelvin,  president, Royal Society, 1895.

"It is apparent to me that the possibilities of the aeroplane, which two or three years ago were thought to hold the solution to the [flying machine] problem, have been exhausted, and that we must turn elsewhere." - Thomas Edison, 1895

"The demonstration that no possible combination of known substances, known forms of machinery, and known forms of force can be united in a practicable machine by which men shall fly for long distances through the air, seems to the writer as complete as it is possible for the demonstration of any physical fact to be." - astronomer S. Newcomb, 1906

"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value." - Marechal  Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre.

"Caterpillar landships are idiotic and useless. Those officers and men are wasting their time and are not pulling their proper weight in the war" - Fourth Lord of the British Admiralty, 1915, in regards to use of tanks in war.

"The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon." - Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria 1873.

"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." - Western Union internal memo, 1876.

"Such startling announcements as these should be deprecated as being unworthy of science and mischievous to to its true progress" - Sir William Siemens, 1880, on Edison's announcement of a successful light bulb.

"We are probably nearing the limit of all we can know about astronomy." - Simon Newcomb, astronomer, 1888

"Fooling around with alternating current is just a waste of time. Nobody will use it, ever." - Thomas Edison, 1889

"Everything that can be invented has been invented." - Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.

"Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy." - Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil in 1859.

"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction." - Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872

"..so many centuries after the Creation it is unlikely that anyone could find hitherto unknown lands of any value." - committee advising Ferdinand and Isabella regarding Columbus' proposal, 1486

"The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a mouse. There is no evidence that people want to use these things." - John Dvorak, 1984

"As we look to the horizon of a decade hence, we see no silver bullet. There is no single development, in either technology or in management technique, that by itself promises even one order-of-magnitude improvement in productivity, in reliability, in simplicity." - Frederick P Brooks, Developer of the IBM360, 1986

"There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home." - Ken Olson of Digital Equipment, 1977

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." - Thomas Watson of IBM, 1943

"Most computers will probably still occupy a large room, however, because of the space needed for the ancillary software - the tapes and cards to be fed in, the operating staff, and the huge piles of paper for printing out the results." - Prof Desmond King-Hele, 1970

"What the hell is [a microprocessor]  good for?" -Robert Lloyd of IBM's Advanced Computing Systems Division, 1968

"Transmission of documents via telephone wires is possible in principle, but the apparatus required is so expensive that it will never become a practical proposition." - Dennis Gabor, 1962

"The general application of the transistor in radio and television is far in the future." - Lee deForest, Co-Inventor of Television,  1952

"[Television] won't be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night." - Darryl F Zanuck, 1946

"The problem with television is that the people must sit and keep their eyes glued on a screen: the average American family hasn't time for it." -The New York Times, 1939

"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" - H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927.

By D. Owens
 

Ever get into an argument with a skeptic only to end up exasperated and feeling you've been bamboozled? Skeptics are often highly skilled at tying up opponents in clever verbal knots. Most skeptics are, of course, ordinary, more-or-less honest people who, like the rest of us, are just trying to make the best sense they can of a complicated and often confusing world. Others, however, are merely glib sophists who use specious reasoning to defend their prejudices or attack the ideas and beliefs of others, and even an honest skeptic can innocently fall into the mistake of employing bad reasoning.

In reading, listening to and sometimes debating skeptics over the years, I've found certain tricks, ploys and gimmicks which they tend to use over and over again. Here are some of 'em. Perhaps if you keep them in mind when arguing with a skeptic, you'll feel better when the debate is over. Shucks, you might even score a point or two.

* * *

1.) RAISING THE BAR: (Or IMPOSSIBLE PERFECTION) This trick consists of demanding a new, higher and more difficult standard of evidence whenever it looks as if a skeptic's opponent is going to satisfy an old one. Often the skeptic doesn't make it clear exactly what the standards are in the first place. This can be especially effective if the skeptic can keep his opponent from noticing that he is continually changing his standard of evidence. That way, his opponent will eventually give up in exasperation or disgust. Perhaps best of all, if his opponent complains, the skeptic can tag him as a whiner or a sore loser.

Skeptic: I am willing to consider the psi hypothesis if you will only show me some sound evidence.

Opponent: There are many thousands of documented reports of incidents that seem to involve psi.

S: That is only anecdotal evidence. You must give me laboratory evidence.

0: Researchers A-Z have conducted experiments that produced results which favor the psi hypothesis.

S: Those experiments are not acceptable because of flaws X,Y and Z.

0: Researchers B-H and T-W have conducted experiments producing positive results which did not have flaws X,Y and Z.

S: The positive results are not far enough above chance levels to be truly interesting.

0: Researchers C-F and U-V produced results well above chance levels.

S: Their results were achieved through meta-analysis, which is a highly questionable technique.

O: Meta-analysis is a well-accepted method commonly used in psychology and sociology.

S: Psychology and sociology are social sciences, and their methods can't be considered as reliable as those of hard sciences such as physics and chemistry.

Etc., etc. ad nauseum.

2.) SOCK 'EM WITH OCCAM: Skeptics frequently invoke Occam's Razor as if the Razor automatically validates their position. Occam's Razor, a principle of epistemology (knowledge theory), states that the simplest explanation which fits all the facts is to be preferred -- or, to state it another way, entities are not to be multiplied needlessly. The Razor is a useful and even necessary principle, but it is largely useless if the facts themselves are not generally agreed upon in the first place.

3.) EXTRAORDINARY CLAIMS: Extraordinary claims, says the skeptic, require extraordinary evidence. Superficially this seems reasonable enough. However, extraordinariness, like beauty, is very much in the eye of the beholder. Some claims, of course, would seem extraordinary to almost anyone (e.g. the claim that aliens from Alpha Centauri had contacted you telepathically and informed you that the people of Earth must make you their absolute lord and ruler). The "extraordinariness" of many other claims, however, is at best arguable, and it is not at all obvious that unusually strong evidence is necessary to support them. For example, so many people who would ordinarily be considered reliable witnesses have reported precognitive dreams that it becomes difficult to insist these are "unusual" claims requiring "unusual" evidence. Quite ordinary standards of evidence will do.

4.) STUPID, CRAZY LIARS: This trick consists of simple slander. Anyone who reports anything which displeases the skeptic will be accused of incompetence, mental illness or dishonesty, or some combination of the three without a single shred of fact to support the accusations. When Charles Honorton's Ganzfeld experiments produced impressive results in favor of the psi hypothesis, skeptics accused him of suppressing or not publishing the results of failed experiments. No definite facts supporting the charge ever emerged. Moreover, the experiments were extremely time consuming, and the number of failed, unpublished experiments necessary to make the number of successful, published experiments significant would have been quite high, so it is extremely unlikely that Honorton's results could be due to selective reporting. Yet skeptics still sometimes repeat this accusation.

5.) THE SANTA CLAUS GAMBIT: This trick consists of lumping moderate claims or propositions together with extreme ones. If you suggest, for example, that Sasquatch can't be completely ruled out from the available evidence, the skeptic will then facetiously suggest that Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny can't be "completely" ruled out either.

6.) SHIFTING THE BURDEN OF EVIDENCE: The skeptic insists that he doesn't have to provide evidence and arguments to support his side of the argument because he isn't asserting a claim, he is merely denying or doubting yours. His mistake consists of assuming that a negative claim (asserting that something doesn't exist) is fundamentally different from a positive claim. It isn't. Any definite claim, positive or negative, requires definite support. Merely refuting or arguing against an opponent's position is not enough to establish one's own position.. In other words, you can't win by default.

As arch-skeptic Carl Sagan himself said, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. If someone wants to rule out visitations by extra-terrestrial aliens, it would not be enough to point out that all the evidence presented so far is either seriously flawed or not very strong. It would be necessary to state definite reasons which would make ET visitations either impossible or highly unlikely. (He might, for example, point out that our best understanding of physics pretty much rules out any kind of effective faster-than-light drive.)

The only person exempt from providing definite support is the person who takes a strict "I don't know" position or the agnostic position. If someone takes the position that the evidence in favor of ET visitations is inadequate but goes no farther, he is exempt from further argument (provided, of course, he gives adequate reasons for rejecting the evidence). However, if he wants to go farther and insist that it is impossible or highly unlikely that ET's are visiting or have ever visited the Earth, it becomes necessary for him to provide definite reasons for his position. He is no longer entitled merely to argue against his opponent's position.

There is the question of honesty. Someone who claims to take the agnostic position but really takes the position of definite disbelief is, of course, misrepresenting his views. For example, a skeptic who insists that he merely believes the psi hypothesis is inadequately supported when in fact he believes that the human mind can only acquire information through the physical senses is simply not being honest.

7.) YOU CAN'T PROVE A NEGATIVE: The skeptic may insist that he is relieved of the burden of evidence and argument because "you can't prove a negative." But you most certainly can prove a negative! When we know one thing to be true, then we also know that whatever flatly contradicts it is untrue. If I want to show my cat's not in the bedroom, I can prove this by showing that my cat's in the kitchen or outside chasing squirrels. The negative has then been proven. Or the proposition that the cat is not in the bedroom could be proven by giving the bedroom a good search without finding the cat. The skeptic who says, "Of course I can't prove psi doesn't exist. I don't have to. You can't prove a negative," is simply wrong. To rule something out, definite reasons must be given for ruling it out.

Of course, for practical reasons it often isn't possible to gather the necessary information to prove or disprove a proposition, e.g., it isn't possible to search the entire universe to prove that no intelligent extraterrestrial life exists. This by itself doesn't mean that a case can't be made against the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence, although it does probably mean that the case can't be as air-tight and conclusive as we would like.

8.) THE BIG LIE: The skeptic knows that most people will not have the time or inclination to check every claim he makes, so he knows it's a fairly small risk to tell a whopper. He might, for example, insist that none of the laboratory evidence for psi stands up to close scrutiny, or he might insist there have been no cases of UFO's being spotted by reliable observers such as trained military personnel when in fact there are well-documented cases. The average person isn't going to scamper right down to the library to verify this, so the skeptic knows a lot of people are going to accept his statement at face value. This ploy works best when the Big Lie is repeated often and loudly in a confident tone.

9.) DOUBT CASTING: This trick consists of dwelling on minor or trivial flaws in the evidence, or presenting speculations as to how the evidence might be flawed as though mere speculation is somehow as damning as actual facts. The assumption here is that any flaw, trivial or even merely speculative, is necessarily fatal and provides sufficient grounds for throwing out the evidence. The skeptic often justifies this with the "extraordinary evidence" ploy.

In the real world, of course, the evidence for anything is seldom 100% flawless and foolproof. It is almost always possible to find some small shortcoming which can be used as an excuse for tossing out the evidence. If a definite problem can't be found, then the skeptic may simply speculate as to how the evidence *might* be flawed and use his speculations as an excuse to discard the information. For example, the skeptic might point out that the safeguards or controls during one part of a psi experiment weren't quite as tight as they might have been and then insist, without any supporting facts, that the subject(s) and/or the researcher(s) probably cheated because this is the "simplest" explanation for the results (see "Sock 'em with Occam" and "Extraordinary Claims"; "Raising the Bar" is also relevant).

10.) THE SNEER: This gimmick is an inversion of "Stupid, Crazy Liars." In "Stupid, Crazy Liars," the skeptic attacks the character of those advocating certain ideas or presenting information in the hope of discrediting the information. In "THE SNEER," the skeptic attempts to attach a stigma to some idea or claim and implies that anyone advocating that position must have something terribly wrong with him. "Anyone who believes we've been visited by extraterrestrial aliens must be a lunatic, a fool, or a con man. If you believe this, you must a maniac, a simpleton or a fraud." The object here is to scare others away from a certain position without having to discuss facts.

* * *

To be fair, some of these tricks or tactics (such as "The Big Lie," "Doubtcasting" and "The Sneer") are often used by believers as well as skeptics. Scientific Creationists and Holocaust Revisionists, for example, are particularly prone to use "Doubtcasting." Others ploys, however, such as "Sock 'em with Occam" and "Extraordinary Claims," are generally used by skeptics and seldom by others.

Unfortunately, effective debating tactics often involve bad logic, e.g. attacking an opponent's character, appeals to emotion, mockery and facetiousness, loaded definitions, etc. And certainly skeptics are not the only ones who are ever guilty of using manipulative and deceptive debating tactics. Even so, skeptics are just as likely as anyone else to twist their language, logic and facts to win an argument, and keeping these tricks in mind when dealing with skeptics may very well keep you from being bamboozled.