An examination of the question: can skeptics be skeptical of skepticism?

John Jackson © 2008

• Skeptical
  
  Skeptical means doubtful. The Cambridge online dictionary defines skeptical as “doubting that something is true or useful”. For example: “The minister claimed that raising fuel tax would help combat global warming; but the audience were skeptical”.
  
  
• Skepticism
  
  The common usage of skepticism also means to be doubtful. For example: “The government’s claim to have reduced poverty was met with skepticism”.
  
  However, scientific skepticism, as used by skeptics, does not simply mean to be doubtful. In fact, skepticism is actually a methodology, not a single concept. It is an approach to claims and knowledge that includes many components (see: What is Skepticism?).

Whenever a word has more than one meaning, there’s always the possibility of making a fallacy of equivocation and that is what is happening with the question “are you skeptical of skepticism?” When people use this question they intend it to mean “are you doubtful of your system of doubt?” but when it’s applied to scientific skepticism, what they’re actually asking is “are you doubtful of your methodology?” – in other words, do you or can you question your methods of inquiry?

The intended use of the question is meant to create the paradoxical situation described above but the actual question (as it pertains to scientific skepticism that skeptics advocate) creates no such problem.

The methods of inquiry that constitute skepticism should be subject to doubt and inquiry in the same way that other things are investigated in this manner and the fact that methodologies are open to scrutiny in this way just adds to the strength of skepticism as a tool for acquiring knowledge. Indeed, this is why skepticism has changed from early skepticism where knowledge was thought to be impossible (which is self-refuting!) to modern scientific skepticism that is used as a tool to acquire knowledge. If skepticism wasn’t open to doubt or scrutiny, it would never change.

Conclusion

The question “are you skeptical of skepticism?” is meant to show that skepticism leads to skeptics holding a paradoxical position; however, as has been explained, this seeming paradox is only created by making a fallacy of equivocation by those who don’t know what modern, scientific skepticism actually is.

Skepticism is not the same as merely being skeptical; and not only can skeptics be skeptical of skepticism – they should be.

Do irrational beliefs lead to harm?

John Jackson © UK-Skeptics

It can seem like a very pertinent question and it can be surprisingly difficult to answer; particularly when you’re dealing with a single case like someone’s mother who believes in angels: “If she believes and it brings her comfort, what’s the harm?“

The problem with this argument is that it’s based on the Hasty Generalisation fallacy (the fallacy of insufficient sample), and the False Dichotomy fallacy (where only two alternatives are considered). The implication being that if one person’s mother believes something weird and hasn’t been harmed by it then this sort of belief is therefore universally harmless. The skeptic’s position is further confounded by the fact that the idea of ‘bringing comfort’ is an Appeal to Emotion so trying to oppose or take that belief away makes the skeptic look somewhat mean and cold-hearted.

It is probably better to acknowledge that for most people, most of the time, that holding weird or irrational beliefs will not result in harm. In fact, people hold these beliefs because they get some benefit from them. Belief in the afterlife and that mediums can pass messages from the dead can give people the comfort of believing (they’d claim knowing) that their loved ones haven’t really died, or adopting a ‘holistic lifestyle’ of only eating organic food and only using alternative medicine can give people a feeling of empowerment by taking control of their health (the ‘illusion of control’), promoting well-being and preventing disease, for example.

However, such beliefs do pose the threat of harm. Someone who treats their family with homeopathic remedies rather than conventional medicine will not be harming anyone most of the time as most illnesses and diseases are fought off by the immune system anyway; but if a family member actually develops something serious and it is treated with homeopathic remedies, that is when the potential for harm occurs.

So what we have here is not an absolute position where we can say that everyone who holds weird beliefs is going to be harmed by them, but a one where we can say that people who hold and trust in unaccepted and even disproved ideas are putting themselves at an increased risk of being harmed. Holding irrational beliefs is a risk factor for harm, not an absolute.

Irrational beliefs, and actions based upon them, are more likely to cause harm to people in times of crisis rather than in their day-to-day lives.

How harm can occur

The “what’s the harm?” arguments tend to be used with regard to single cases with a certain context – as illustrated in the introduction; however, harm from irrational beliefs can occur in many different ways depending on who holds them and the position they hold in society. Some ways in which harm can arise from irrational beliefs include:

• Economic harm
  
  This can occur to individuals, businesses, government agencies, institutions, etc. Spending hours on the phone to ‘gifted psychics’ can prove extremely costly to the individual; lending huge sums of money to people who can’t afford to pay it back in the chase for more profit can prove extremely costly to banks, the government, and ultimately the taxpayer (as we have recently found to our cost!); spending money to ‘invest’ in an MLM business in the hope of making it rich…. one day.
  
  
• Direct harm
  
  Direct harm occurs as a direct consequence of an action: Suffering a stroke after a chiropractic neck manipulation; being poisoned or killed by the unknown compounds in a herbal remedy; severely malnourished children due to being fed a strict vegan diet by their parents; orphaned children through their mother needlessly dying in childbirth because her religion has interpreted scripture so that blood transfusions are not allowed.
  
  
• Indirect harm
  
  Indirect harm occurs as a consequence of previous action or due to the beliefs and actions of others: Children dying through needless treatments for autism because the parents believe that it was caused by heavy metals in a vaccine despite the evidence against this; physical/emotional harm caused by avoiding proper medical care because of the belief in alternative medicine; children being harmed or killed by preventable diseases because their parents believe the anti-vaccination propaganda.
  
  
• Psychological harm
  
  Caused by psychological investment in irrational concepts: False hope being given by ‘psychic detectives’ who involve themselves with murder and missing persons cases; distrusting things like medicine/science/institutions/etc. through conspiracy theories; irrational fears of things like Mercury in fillings, Aspartame in food, or fluoride in water; stress and anxiety caused through the belief in curses and spells, possession by demons, etc.
  
  
• Social harm
  
  This can manifest itself by things such as: poor public policy (using lie detectors to monitor paedophiles); wasting resources (using taxpayers’ money to fund homeopathic hospitals); preventing scientific research and advances because of religious arguments; making major decisions without basing them on evidence or in spite of the evidence – e.g. going to war based on the belief that the enemy possesses weapons of mass destruction.

Evidence

Although we often hear of such harm and it makes intuitive sense that believing in things that aren’t true would have the potential for harm, it is surprisingly difficult to quantify this harm. Of course that doesn’t mean it isn’t occurring, it’s just that no one is monitoring and measuring it systematically.

It is known and accepted (by skeptics, at least) that in some cases people are psychologically harmed by their visits to mediums in the quest to contact a dead loved one. This can result in harm caused by things the medium comes out with in one reading or it can be a case of the person developing what’s known as ‘psychic dependency’ (where they become ‘addicted’ to mediums and ’spirit contact’ and get trapped in the grieving process) – however, there are no official figures as to the prevalence of this type of harm.

Fortunately, there is a website that is documenting cases of harm that have been reported in the media. See: What’s the Harm?

These cases are only the ones that have made the media, and so will be a gross under-representation of the true figures, but at least they do provide an evidence trail as the stories can be verified, and there’s a section providing scientific evidence too.

Conclusion

The case for harm caused by irrational or ‘weird’ beliefs is probably a one that is overstated much of the time. For most people, most of the time, their beliefs will not cause them any harm (and probably provide benefits) – which is likely why they persist.

However, this does not mean that such beliefs are without their consequences. The potential for the different types of harm outlined above increase when people rely on them most (times of crisis) or when people who have influence hold them. There is no reason why someone who holds weird beliefs or an irrational world-view cannot make high office!

Arguing with someone asking “what’s the harm?” can be difficult, as whether a belief (or action based upon it) causes harm is context dependent.

Telling someone that their granny is at risk of harm because she attends a spiritualist church to get messages from her late husband is really not making a strong case (in fact it would make the skeptic look foolish); but when it’s a government official who believes in homeopathy and is in a position to allocate public money, then the case for harm is clear cut – in this instance spending money on homeopathy instead of proper medical care could result in indirect harm (patients losing out on real treatment because the money was spent in a homeopathic hospital instead, for example).

So yes, irrational beliefs can and do lead to harm. It is also frequently quite difficult to get this point across in a debate, as the context is often not appropriate; for example, single-case scenarios considered at one point in time only. To understand the potential for harm, we need to assess the bigger picture; for that is the correct context in which to appreciate this issue.

John Jackson © UK-Skeptics

The first reason this occurs is through the fallacy of equivocation (confusing the different meanings of the same word).

1) Equivocation

In general usage, skeptic(al) simply means to be doubtful; whereas skepticism (or to be a skeptic) means adopting a critical approach to claims based on doubt, suspension of judgement, inquiry, and forming provisional conclusions based upon evidence (see: What is Skepticism?). The common usage of ’skeptical’ can lead people to assume that skepticism (the method of inquiry) is simply about doubting things or disbelieving them. This confusion between the two meanings of the word often leads people to think that skeptics simply “don’t believe things”.

This is often seen in general discourse such as on internet forums. It is commonly seen in discussions about ghosts etc. whereby those who say they don’t believe in ghosts are termed the ’skeptics’; and questions such as “are you a believer or a skeptic?” add to this idea of skepticism equating to mere disbelief.

This confusion leads to people thinking of the idea of being a skeptic as something negative: people who don’t believe things; people who won’t accept things; people who are closed minded. Of course, that is not what skepticism is about at all. It’s about believing things and accepting things as long as they have good evidence to support them; and being open minded enough to reject ideas that are not supported by good evidence. This is a very positive attitude to have as it’s a good way of discerning what’s real from what’s bogus.

Many people do realise the positive nature of skepticism, however, and wish to be thought of as skeptics. Unfortunately, they tend to believe in things that do not have good evidence to support them and so to use the term ’skeptic’, they redefine what it means and hijack it to suit themselves. This leads to the second example of confusion over the word ’skeptic’.

2) Conceptual Hijacking and redefinition of the term

Believers in things like alternative medicine, but particularly the paranormal, often like to call themselves skeptics. Their basic technique is to label themselves as True Skeptics and to label skeptics as Pseudoskeptics.

What they are basing their thinking on goes back to early skepticism – namely, pyrrhonism. The idea was that we cannot know anything absolutely (with 100% certainty) which also means we cannot say that something is false with certainty either. This allows them to take the stance that despite over 100 years’ of systematic testing of psychic abilities, for example, and there’s no high quality evidence to support them, that such claimed abilities simply remain unproven (not disproved). This gives them the justification for the belief in psychic powers despite the lack of good evidence.

This out-of-date stance is based on the ‘problem of induction’ which was solved by Karl Popper with his idea of scientific conclusions being falsifiable.

What we can now say, with perfectly sound reasoning, is that if something has been tested (e.g. for over 100 years) and no proof of it has come to light then we can say it doesn’t exist (the scientific statement) with the proviso that we will change our stance should supporting evidence come to light (the falsifiability criterion). That is the stance taken by modern skepticism.

So, if a skeptic says, “psychic abilities don’t exist,” it is a perfectly valid scientific statement as it is supported by the (lack of) evidence and it is capable of being proved false. It is not a statement based on prior disbelief or denial; it is a neat statement of fact based upon the evidence – which has been being gathered since Victorian times!

A perfect example of this is here: skeptical investigations.

The third way in which the word skeptic gets used is with denialist groups or groups who oppose or disbelieve in something.

3) Denialism

The pattern seems to be to use the name of whatever it is you oppose or deny and stick the word ’skeptics’ on the end. So we have groups like:

• Euroskeptics;
• Global Warming Skeptics;
• Cholesterol Skeptics;
• 9/11 Skeptics;
• Vaccine Skeptics;
• Etc.

Or to use the phrase “skeptics of” followed by whatever they deny. Such as:

• Skeptics of Global Warming;
• Skeptics of Evolution;
• Etc.

The irony being with such groups is that they are the complete opposite of skeptics: they hold preconceived conclusions on issues and really do argue before the evidence is in or despite the evidence; and do so dogmatically.

This use of the word is similar to how it is used in place of ‘disbeliever’; however, its usage is much more severe as the meaning conveyed is diametrically opposed to what skepticism actually is. This usage is probably the most damaging one to skepticism and, unfortunately, it is popular with the media. It’s a quick and easy way to label opposition and denialist groups.

What can we do about this?

The usage of the word skeptic in so many different ways and contexts certainly does not help the image of skeptics or skepticism as we’re perceived as being examples of these common usages. We can’t stop people using the word as they please because, as if often pointed out, no one owns the word skeptic.

We could, however, actively promote the use of the term skeptic and of ourselves as skeptics by promoting what we are about and why these other usages are really not accurate.

Some people prefer not to use the name skeptic at all and so avoid the issue. However, what is being achieved by this approach? It simply adds to our identity being swamped by the misperceptions.

We could go for a new name which would avoid the negative connotations associated with skeptic; but then we’d have to build the identity from scratch, and as ‘The Brights’ found out, that’s not as easy as it may seem. In addition, despite years of consideration about this issue, no one has ever come up with a better word than ‘Skeptic’ as a descriptive label.

Skepticism is a very smart and intelligent approach to claims of all kinds. The method is both powerful and positive in attaining answers to questions that are much more likely to be right than wrong. There really shouldn’t be a problem with skeptics promoting skepticism!

Rather than worry about the other uses of the word skeptic, we should (at least attempt to) make our usage of the word become a fourth mainstream alternative, and popularise our usage of it.

http://skepticblog.org/2008/11/17/skeptic-the-name-thing-again/