I'm Skeptical

Recently, the question of whether to release Osama bin Laden's death-photos was in the news. Pundits warned that the skeptics might need more evidence. I found my self shouting, "stop calling them skeptics, they're conspiracy theorists!" A skeptic avoids the rush to judgement and waits to find what can be understood from available information. A conspiracy theorist embraces notions of unseen agents pulling their strings and is inoculated against information that reasonable people would accept. To heck with them!

Michael Shermer is a prominent skeptic. If you liked his discussion of the apocalypse, you may like his review of a study that finds statistical significance for phychic precognicance. The title, "Extrasensory Pornception", is a shout-out to Stephen Colbert.

I have a few critisisms of Shermer:

1. His third point, that "paranormal effects, which are rarely allegedly detected at all, are always so subtle and fleeting as to be useless for anything practical" sounds like bias on Shermer's part. If their detectable, their detectable. Does a scientist assume that such effects would be of no practical value? Am I missing his point?


2. And maybe I'm not understanding point four. If "Bem’s 3 percent above-chance effect in experiment 1 was not consistent across his nine experiments" was that because a 3-percent result only occurred in experiment 1, or do the experiments average 3-percent, in which case, some must by higher than 3-percent?

Anyway, there is a taste of skeptical thinking.

I suppose you might be thinking that skiptics and conspiricy theorists are just two different kinds of cranks.

Alright then, here's a joke:

(My brother likes seal jokes. You know, with punch lines like "just don't give me a Canadian Club.")

So a seal waddles into a bar and the bartender asks, "What'll ya have?"

The seal says, "I'd like to toast the Navy Seals with a bin Laden."

"How do you make a bin Laden?" the bartender asks.

"Two shots and a splash..."