[tpmoney]

I would ask whether the recent era is marked by more “we need to hear these guys out” style skepticism or more “online atheist” style skepticism. From my perspective, the “online atheist” version seems to have been a much more common one. From the aforementioned “online atheists” to Neil “a new year is just the earth going around the sun and nothing to celebrate” DeGrasse Tyson, to “I fucking love science” facebook feeds that very quickly became political dunking fodder rather than a genuine love of scientific things. From my perspective the current era has been marked by a significant lack of willingness for most people to hear anyone they don’t already agree with out.

A different commenter said something to the effect that the skeptic is not obligated to ignore years of research and contrary evidence. And I agree that they are not obligated to do so. But one can approach that in two ways, one can simply dismiss new claims out of hand because they contradict everything “everyone knows” and have been hashed before. Or one can ask for the evidence and simply hold the claimants to the same standards any “real” science is supposed to be held to. Ask for the evidence, ask for the studies and hold them to the same rigor that their counter evidence was already held to. You might not be obligated to do these things, but doing things you’re not obligated to do is one of those things that makes society run smoother.

The goal of engaging then isn’t to convince the person with the claim, but rather to convince outside observers that the extraordinary claim was given a fair chance to be proven and was not, even with that fair chance. XKCDs “lucky 10,000” idea also applies to “scientific woo”. The “lucky 10,000” will need to be convinced all over again every time, and if they have on the one hand a side with rocky but surface level convincing evidence, and on the other side mere derision and out right dismissal without examining the claims, then it shouldn’t be surprising that more and more people find the bad evidence convincing and the skeptics unconvincing.

[tstactplsignore]

I agree that the balance here is not entirely clear. But I think it's important to not let our perceptions of that balance be influenced by our personal social circles. If you encounter a lot of "online atheist" skeptics in your life, then I think it's important to just note that like, statistically, you're in a bubble. This kind of intense scientific skepticism isn't very common in a world where all sorts of clearly scientifically illiterate ideas poll at very high numbers.

I think there's a third way between "hear them out" and "online atheist", and that's basically a kind and gentle dialogue questioning pseudoscientific ideas while still focusing on trying to make clear the cognitive errors they are likely making.

LLMs are actually pretty good at this [1], which is remarkable, because LLMs are pretty stupid, and rarely knowledgeable about the details or nuances of any particular debate, especially on niche scientific topics. Like Ken Ham would "win" a debate about creationism with chatGPT because he's familiar with all of the tricky creationist arguments about radioisotype dating that ChatGPT isn't. But if we look at why AI typically succeeds in debunking conspiracy theorists when "online atheists" fail, I think it is because AI has infinite patience and respect for the user, where-as any online human debater eventually loses their patience, whether with an individual or over time. Being able to share new information with people while also being patient and respectful is basically this secret but it's just incredibly difficult to a person to do it.

Figuring out how to teach a generation of skeptics that aren't burnt out, jaded, and angry, is probably the secret sauce here to fighting misinformation.

[1] https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adq1814

[tpmoney]

> If you encounter a lot of "online atheist" skeptics in your life, then I think it's important to just note that like, statistically, you're in a bubble. This kind of intense scientific skepticism isn't very common in a world where all sorts of clearly scientifically illiterate ideas poll at very high numbers.

My point (and I believe a large part of the author’s) is that “online atheist” style skepticism isn’t actually any sort of “intense scientific skepticism”. It’s largely schoolyard bullying that (in many cases) happens to be right, but isn’t right because they’re doing any actual scientific rigor, but because they happen to have aligned themselves with the “correct” side.

But that same self assured smugness, and absolute conviction in their side being correct and therefore having no need to consider alternative view points and at least examine the arguments and evidence is all around us. Trump style politics is this writ large, but modern day politics is awash in this sort of behavior. Any item that happens to get sucked into the culture war vortex becomes an instant “everyone knows $X and only an idiot would believe otherwise so the only appropriate response is mockery”. Are you a conservative? Mock the foolish girly-men and “fee-fees” havers for daring the question the obvious fact of men and women being different and immutable traits. Are you liberal? Mock the bigots and the TERFs for daring to question the obvious fact that gender is a complete social construct and distinguishing them has no value in modern society. Are you a dyed in the wool capitalist? Mock the socialists and the heavy handed regulators for ignoring the decades of evidence that communism and socialism destroyed societies and people. Are you a communist? Mock the free market worshiping fools who can’t see the obvious destruction capitalism is reigning down on their societies every day. Bumper sticker politics and “science” is to my mind the norm, not the exception. Between tweets, hashtags, news media soundbites and clickbait headlines who has time for nuanced or even minimally genuine consideration of alternative perspectives? It’s much more fun and easy to just fire off the latest hot take and get some internet updoots. And yes I recognize the irony in the width of the brush I’m painting with here, but my point is this isn’t just tiny bubbles of online spaces, this behavior is (in my opinion) everywhere and permeates the entire public discourse. In fact I would wager that one would be pretty hard pressed to pick any major media outlet that could be honestly accused of “too much hearing out of the other side” and certainly even harder pressed to find one that applies any sort of rigorous evaluation of the evidence.

> I think there's a third way between "hear them out" and "online atheist", and that's basically a kind and gentle dialogue questioning pseudoscientific ideas while still focusing on trying to make clear the cognitive errors they are likely making

Perhaps we are not meaning the same things with our words, because to me what you just described is exactly what I would describe as “hearing someone out”. Allowing them to say their piece and then applying the same fair and rigorous standards to all the evidence and arguments presented for all sides.

[tstactplsignore]

Ah - I see. I totally agree that tone and manner of rhetoric and speech should be drastically improved among most "online atheists".

I do distinguish between being nice and reasonably and truly "hearing someone out" though. To me, the difference is that when truly hearing someone out, you will be interrogating the exact data and logic behind the validity of their individual claims to their fullest extent. This is how I would respond to e.g., a scientific work that I view as potentially valid, serious, and important.

However, in some cases, I have found (and suspect in general) doing so can be counter-productive. Here is one example: a recent report made by climate change deniers using AI: https://xcancel.com/RWMaloneMD/status/1903468473579340261

Regardless of the motivations of the original authors, thousands of well-meaning people have now boosted or referenced this work as part of their rejection of climate change. But I don't think this work should be "heard out" in the sense that every single claim in it should be addressed by a skeptic of the work, the way one would approach a serious scientific work. This takes a ton of time and effort and is simply infeasible - and often draws one into an endless back and forth where individual points get lost. Rather, in this case I'd focus on describing the general epistemic errors being made, and heuristics that can be used to avoid these errors.

Another case I guess is the OP article. This article is apparently written by someone who is a believer in parapsychology! I believe there is little to be gained for me to spend time evaluating the claims of parapsychologists: in that sense, I am a "bad skeptic" according to the author. But it is really just not an appropriate use of my time. Rather, I would argue from a position of general skepticism and logical positivism and remind others that these are extraordinarily claims that if true, would imply so much of what we know about the world is wrong.

I hope my distinction here makes sense now. My reading of the OP is he isn't just saying "be nice", but "take us seriously". I think we've got to try our best to be nice. But to take something seriously is a much bigger ask, and one that is not necessarily always beneficial in every circumstance.