Recently, within that group, there was a minor stir when Phil Plait, former President of the James Randi Educational Foundation, made a little speech about the tone of skeptical arguments. His message, as he often sums it up, was simply “don’t be a dick.” It’s a catchphrase he borrowed from internet maven, Wil Wheaton. He is “concerned” that skeptics are engaging in “childish, demeaning behavior” and “taking the low road.” He’s afraid that people are being aggressive, and calling people “retards” and “idiots.” He’s playing the role of the tone police, for lack of a better term.

Now, ignoring the roots that I think that this entire speech has in some higher profile atheist disputes within the community, I can’t help but laugh at this topic.  Looking at this commentary, and the way in which it’s delivered, I can’t help but think of a whole range of conversations in my life.  The thing that sticks out to me, here is the hypocrisy of the “nice guy.” This is the guy who says, “I’m nice. You are not. You need to be like me.” He says, “I’m doing things right, and you are ruining it.” He says, “My way is the only way. Yours is abhorrent.” So, what bothers me about this argument? It’s fucking rude, for one. It’s wrong on top of that. But most of all, in telling you so very frankly how you should be acting (namely nice, like him), he is becoming the very thing that he wishes you were not. He’s being a dick.

Go back to that link and watch Phil’s speech, and tell me what words come to mind with his tone. Friendly? Fun? Scientific? Sorry, no. Try sanctimonious. Try preachy. Try accusatory. (Try unfounded…while we’re at it.) This is the irony of the tone-nazi. In an attempt to call out the imaginary devils of the skeptic movement, he becomes a devil himself. He’s stirring the pot, creating internal strife, and deriding his fellows. And worst of all, he’s doing all of it in the most unskeptical manner possible: with assertion, after assertion, after assertion. This is the “just-so” fallacy of skeptical speeches.

And did I mention it’s pretty fucking rude too?

Note: Am I being rude, in turn, by calling out Plait on his speech? Sure, possibly. But I’m not the one advocating his “don’t be a dick” policy. I happen to think that a firm and strident approach can be quite effective. Hell, I’d even defend a skeptic calling people “retarded” in certain circumstances. But Tone-Nazis are after one thing, and that’s to exercise control over you. Why do you think it was long considered taboo, for example, to discuss religion and politics in “polite company?” And notice, that the only two examples even lightly touched on in that video (one by Plait, and one by Bidlack in the Q&A) were….yep….religion and politics. I say, talk it up. A skeptic has nothing to fear from scrutiny.

Update: Phil has posted another addendum to his blog on this topic. Sure enough, his speech is really ringing true with, guess who? The religious skeptics! They feel that when other skeptics critically examine their beliefs, they are being personally attacked. I wonder if, as a thought experiment, we replaced all the crying religious skeptics he mentions with crying psychic skeptics. Would there be as much “let’s be nice” sentiment? I think not.

                          

THEY LIVE!

All this builds up to my skepticism in viewing this article in the Telegraph, which basically states that a poll showed that 20% of respondents believed that aliens existed and were walking among us right here on our very own planet Earth. I mean, come on! One in FIVE?!?! The first thing I checked was the sample size…it might be tiny.  Turns out it’s 23,000. That’s a pretty robust poll. But there the data on this poll ends. The article gives no information about who conducted the poll, or the methodology.

Google reveals a scant few articles about this poll, with most simply dropping the 20% number in a quick blurb along with a sensationalist headline and moving on to other things. I finally discovered that it was Reuters which commissioned the poll, and found their initial article about it. They also don’t reveal the methodology. The polling firm, Ipsos, has a little blurb about it but says nothing about the nature of the poll or how data was gathered.

So, bottom line? The information is interesting. If the responses correlate with the actual public opinion, then the findings are downright scary. Frankly, I don’t find them that hard to believe. People believe weird stuff. If accurate, then nearly 45% of Indians and Chinese think aliens are among us! They Live!! Additionally it says something interesting about relatively secular and socialist countries like Belgium, Sweden, and The Netherlands. Only about 8% of them put any stock in the idea. But all this is pointless if the poll was biased or flawed. Where is the careful reporting on this subject?

Now that I’ve blathered on about how silly polls can be, here’s one for you. Have at it….what’s your take?

View This Poll

                          

Well, they are now taking portions of their hour and a half-long podcasts and uploading them to YouTube along with some visual aids. So far there is only one video, but it’s a great start. Check out their YouTube video after the break…

Anyway, be sure to check out their YouTube page, their website, and if you enjoy their stuff, I definitely recommend subscribing to the full podcast on iTunes!

The SGU is a weekly podacst hosted by Dr. Steven Novella, a neurologist and professor at Yale. It’s produced in association with the James Randi Educational Foundation, the New England Skeptic Society, and Skepchick.org.

                          

Okay, spooky stuff, huh? I actually was first alerted to this video a few months ago, when one of my favorite podcasts (SGU) mentioned it and offered a few theories about what it is.

So… I recently ran across a guy calling himself “Captain Disillusion,” who has some excellent youTube debunking videos! Yeah, he’s a bit weird, but he knows his stuff. The vids are actually very entertaining, so I thought I would share. Here’s one about that very same “Blue Ghost” from the clip above.

If you enjoyed that, you can look at some of his other debunking videos here. Keep up the great work Captain Disillusion!

                          

So, basically what happened was this: I began noticing that chipmunks were omnipresent around me in school. They often appeared randomly outside my window as I worked diligently on papers. They would run suddenly across my path as I walked around campus. Sometimes they would even stop directly in front of me, in a worshipful reverence. The conclusion, I was acting God to the chipmunk community on my college campus. As I revealed this hypothesis to my friends, they too began to notice this extraordinary phenomenon! What a revelation!

So the question becomes, what powerful effect could bring a group of educated people to believe something so whacked? The answer, I recently found, is something called “confirmation bias.” Ta daa! Okay, so confirmation bias is a very common psychological effect that basically results in people looking for data to support a pre-established conclusion. In this case, the conclusion was that I was God to the chipmunks, and people would find evidence for that and use it to support the hypothesis. So, with that hypothesis in mind, every chipmunk sighting was carefully catalogued into peoples’ memories, as long as I was around, and events involving chipmunks without my presence were forgotten. The result is that people began to notice those events, and mistakenly catalogue them as evidence of my deification.

Okay, so my friends might not have been as credulous as I’m leading you to believe here, but I’m making a point about the way people record memories and use them to support beliefs. This in turn can be linked to hundreds of real world phenomena, and can explain how people come to believe strange things. The point? I’m not a chipmunk God (go figure) and chipmunk experiences declined rapidly in conjunction with my subsequent move to heavily urbanized New York City. Perhaps the chipmunks were appearing for other reasons, and my own bias led me to my fallacious conclusions. Or, maybe the chipmunks still worship me from afar, thinking I will return someday (a second coming, if you will) to lead them to the great acorn in the sky.

Thanks to The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe for helping me to understand confirmation bias and how it led me astray.