Third Blog Entry In A Series of Six

There's an interesting FPP (front page post) on MetaFilter today: Skepticism Refocused. The point of discussion is a post by John Horgan on his Scientific American blog, wherein he addresses the Skepticism movement. The body of Horgan's post is a reprint of a speech he made to the Northeast Conference on Science And Skepticism, and then there's some addendums where he addresses a few prominent critics.

Anyway, Horgan's thesis is that Skepticism as a movement is prone to tribalism and group think, and they should broaden their range of targets to include subjects that may be controversial within the Skeptical community. As he says:

"“The Science Delusion” is common among Capital-S Skeptics. You don’t apply your skepticism equally. You are extremely critical of belief in God, ghosts, heaven, ESP, astrology, homeopathy and Bigfoot. You also attack disbelief in global warming, vaccines and genetically modified food.

These beliefs and disbeliefs deserve criticism, but they are what I call “soft targets.” That’s because, for the most part, you’re bashing people outside your tribe, who ignore you. You end up preaching to the converted.

Meanwhile, you neglect what I call hard targets. These are dubious and even harmful claims promoted by major scientists and institutions. In the rest of this talk, I’ll give you examples of hard targets from physics, medicine and biology. I’ll wrap up with a rant about war, the hardest target of all."

The examples he gives are:

1. The concepts of multiverses, String Theory, and The Singularity

Which he says are unscientific and "hurt the credibility of science" because there's no way to prove them right or wrong.

      2.  Excessive cancer testing in mainstream medicine

Which he says often does more harm than good, because it subjects many patients to false positives and cancer treatments they don't need. This is exacerbated by the health care industry in the US, that "prioritizes profits over health."

       3. Over medicating mental illness

Which he objects to for the same reasons and with the same results as point two.

       4. Behavioral genetics

This is the idea that many (perhaps all) human behaviors can be traced to specific genes in our DNA. He says that this concept is completely unproven, but accepted as fact by the press and general public.

       5. The Deep-Roots Theory of War

This is a really interesting one that I'd never heard of before. According to Hogan, there's two competing theories on war. One that he calls the Dee-Roots theory posits that the concept of warfare is innate to human nature, and probably has a biological basis. (Behavioral genetics again.) Hogan prefers an opposing theory that says war is a human invention, like agriculture and the wheel, that didn't exist before 12 000 years ago. He finds the support for the Deep-Roots theory among otherwise very intelligent scientists depressing, since it contrasts so strongly with the way that intellectuals of previous generations were dedicated to the complete eradication of war. (Although as klangklangston points out on MetaFilter, the most prominent "Deep-Rooter" Steven Pinker is not in any any arguing that war is inevitable,)

I like Horgans general thesis here. The Skeptical movement really should go after harder targets in between debunking faith healers and Sasquatches, and maybe even risk alienating their own members. Real top shelf Skeptics should be the opposite of the White Queen from Through The Looking Glass, and be prepared to disbelieve at least six things before breakfast. Or to put it more seriously, a skeptic should never be afraid to examine their own beliefs and look for flaws. But after some reflection , I'm not sure I agree with all of Horgan's suggested targets.

For one thing, there's nothing wrong with string theory or the idea of multiverses, even if they can't be proven, When we think about the biggest questions like these, just the attempt to solve them makes us smarter. I do agree that the transhumanism people are getting dangerously close to a religion, though.

As for his problems with medicine and behavior genetics, I don't know enough about those subjects to have an informed opinion, but his call for skepticism seems like a good idea. It couldn't hurt, anyway.

And finally, the "Deep Roots" theory of war. I've never heard of this one before, and it sounds fascinating! But again, I don't know enough to even have an opinion on whether war is ingrained in human nature or something we invented after language and fire. Still, it's an interesting idea to think about.