Re: CO2

[Hugh Haskell <hhaskell@MINDSPRING.COM>]

At 15:54 -0700 8/7/01, William Beaty wrote:

> Both types suffer from fixed beliefs.  In the middle are
> people who are neither.  Historically they have called themselves by the
> name "skeptic", but unfortunately the Scoffers have coopted this name in
> the last few decades, and "skeptic" today brings to mind scoffers such as
> members of CSICOP, rather than open minded scientists who wish to
> investigate reported anomalies rather than rejecting them out of hand.

In general this was a nice summary of why urban legends become such,
but I have to take some exception to the aspersion you cast at CSICOP
in the above snippet. I have been a member of CSICOP for many years,
and am the proud posessor of a complete set of Skeptical Inquirer
(including those issues when it was called The Zetetic), and also the
Skeptics Society, Michael Shermer's organization in Pasadena. As I
read the various publications of these organizations, I see very
little evidence of the "scoffing" that you have accused them of here.
Their journals are filled with carefully designed tests of claims
made by a whole assortment of kooks, quacks, cranks, and frauds, as
well as some made by serious investigators.

We all know that scientists are not perfect in the realm of accepting
the new. The history of science is full of examples of the scoffers
being made up of mainstream scientists who were later proved wrong,
the work of McClintock, Pasteur and Semmelweiss come to mind in the
life sciences field, and Wegener in geophysics, but there are lots of
others. Nevertheless, there are areas, mostly in the realms of what
is called ESP or PSI, where some sort of research has been going on
now for well over 150 years, without a shred of credible evidence yet
being produced. Do we have to continue to take these fields seriously
forever? I would assert that after all this time, we can safely
dismiss out of hand most, if not all, of the claims of these folks,
while keeping a door open just in case someone should come up with
the extraordinary evidence these extraordinary claims demand before
they can be taken seriously. Another area in the same status is that
of perpetual motion (or more broadly, non-conservation of energy).
Are we not by now, to be allowed to stop paying attention to bizarre
claims once we determine that they are claiming something that
violates either the first or second law of thermodynamics, or both?
How many times do we have to show some misguided investigator where
he or she went wrong in their effort to verify astrology, or
homeopathy, or the efficacy of prayer, or creationism, or any number
of other strange and wonderful phenomena. IF we all took every one of
these claims seriously we would be so wrapped around the axle
investigating non-existent trivia that we would never be able to get
done what we were hired for.

So I assert that at some point, and in some areas, scoffing is the
only rational attitude to take. Having said that, I think that we
need organizations like CSICOP who do make the investigations
necessary to illustrate to the public the fallacies that are being
shoved at them that they should not believe, as futile as it
sometimes is to try to convince them. And, as I said, I don't see
much scoffing around CSICOP. After all their stated mission is
"Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal," with emphasis
on *scientific.* For one, I'm glad they are there, doing their thing.
It enables me to scoff with a lot more confidence. :-)

Hugh
--

Hugh Haskell
<mailto://haskell@ncssm.edu>
<mailto://hhaskell@mindspring.com>

(919) 467-7610

Let's face it. People use a Mac because they want to, Windows because they
have to..
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