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<!-- Image with inadequate rationale removed: [[Image:zetetic-scholar-12-13.jpg|right|right|256px|thumb|[[Marcello Truzzi]] founded the [[Zetetic Scholar]] journal, in which he popularised the term '''''pseudoskepticism''''' in the late 1980s]] --> |
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#redirect [[Marcello Truzzi#Pseudoskepticism]] |
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'''Pseudoskepticism''' (or '''pseudoscepticism''') or '''pathological skepticism''' denotes thinking that claims to be skeptical but is not. The term is most commonly encountered in the form popularised by [[Marcello Truzzi]], where he defined pseudoskeptics as those who take "the negative rather than an [[agnostic]] position but still call themselves 'skeptics'".<ref name="truzzi1">{{cite journal | last = Truzzi | first = Marcello | authorlink= Marcello Truzzi | url = http://www.anomalist.com/commentaries/pseudo.html | title = On Pseudo-Skepticism | year = 1987 | journal = Zetetic Scholar | issue = 12/13 | pages = 3-4| accessdate = 2008-10-10}}</ref> Generally the term is used for somebody who declares disbelief rather than simply withholding belief. |
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== Truzzi's characterisation of pseudoskeptics == |
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The term ''pseudoskepticism'' was popularised and characterised by Truzzi.<ref name="truzzi1">{{cite journal | last = Truzzi | first = Marcello | authorlink= Marcello Truzzi | url = http://www.anomalist.com/commentaries/pseudo.html | title = On Pseudo-Skepticism | year = 1987 | journal = Zetetic Scholar | issue = 12/13 | pages = 3-4| accessdate = 2008-10-10}}</ref> |
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While a Professor of Sociology at [[Eastern Michigan University]] in 1987, Truzzi gave the following distinction between what he saw as true skepticism, and pseudoskepticism, in the journal Zetetic Scholar (which he founded): |
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{{quotation|"In science, the burden of proof falls upon the claimant; and the more extraordinary a claim, the heavier is the burden of proof demanded. The true skeptic takes an agnostic position, one that says the claim is not proved rather than disproved. He asserts that the claimant has not borne the burden of proof and that science must continue to build its cognitive map of reality without incorporating the extraordinary claim as a new "fact." Since the true skeptic does not assert a claim, he has no burden to prove anything. He just goes on using the established theories of "conventional science" as usual. But if a critic asserts that there is evidence for disproof, that he has a negative hypothesis --saying, for instance, that a seeming psi result was actually due to an artifact--he is making a claim and therefore also has to bear a burden of proof....<br/><br> |
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"...Thus, if a subject in a psi experiment can be shown to have had an opportunity to cheat, many critics seem to assume not merely that he probably did cheat, but that he must have, regardless of what may be the complete absence of evidence that he did so cheat and sometimes even ignoring evidence of the subject's past reputation for honesty. Similarly, improper randomization procedures are sometimes assumed to be the cause of a subject's high psi scores even though all that has been established is the possibility of such an artifact having been the real cause. Of course, the evidential weight of the experiment is greatly reduced when we discover an opening in the design that would allow an artifact to confound the results. Discovering an opportunity for error should make such experiments less evidential and usually unconvincing. It usually disproves the claim that the experiment was "air tight" against error, but it does not disprove the anomaly claim."|Marcello Truzzi|On Pseudo-Skepticism, Zetetic Scholar, 12/13, pp3-4, 1987<ref name="truzzi1"/>}} |
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Thus in Truzzi's example pseudoskepticism lies in biting off more than one can chew, by replacing a claim that the experiment demonstrates psi, with a counterclaim, that the experiment has flaws, therefore the subject took the opportunity to cheat. |
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In his view this is unnecessary, science is not obliged to accept extraordinary claims, and should be content to point to the flaws which weaken the evidential power of the experiment; Truzzi himself coined the saying "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof." Not only that, it is over-ambitious, Truzzi argues. Claims made by any party must be supported, he says, by empirical evidence, not assumption. |
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== Contemporary usage == |
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L. David Leiter, a member of the [[fringe science|fringe]] [[Society for Scientific Exploration]], uses the terms 'pseudo-skepticism' and 'pathological skepticism' to refer to the "organized skepticism" he found in the "Philadelphia Association for Critical Thinking" (PhACT). Leither claimed that the PhACT members with whom he became aquainted each had an "unfortunate experience with a faith-based philosophy" at an earlier period in their lives, and that thay had sought an organized skeptical group as a reaction to this. "Instead of becoming scientifically minded, they become adherents of [[scientism]], the belief system in which science and only science has all the answers to everything" and that even many of these members are unwilling to spend the time to "read significantly into the literature on the subjects about which they are most skeptical". He goes on to characterize members of skeptical organizations as "scientifically inclined, but psychologically scarred," similar to those who "might join any other support group, say, [[Alcoholics Anonymous]]."<ref name="ldl">{{cite journal|title=The Pathology of Organized Skepticism |last=Leiter | first = L. David |journal= [[Journal of Scientific Exploration]]|date= 2002 |publisher= [[Society for Scientific Exploration]]|url=http://www.scientificexploration.org/journal/jse_16_1_leiter.pdf}}</ref> |
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Prof. Hugo Meynell from Department of Religious Studies at the University of Calgary, labels as 'pseudo-skepticism' the "extreme position that all significant evidence supporting paranormal phenomena is a result of deception or lies".<ref>Michael Stoeber, Hugo Anthony Meynell, ''Critical Reflections on the Paranormal'', SUNY Press, 1996, ISBN 0791430634, 9780791430637 [http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=c_A_wfFe-CoC&pg=PA25&dq=Pseudo-skepticism&sig=ACfU3U372C-YJbYhNmNzNYVOmlVA78cnmQ#PPA16,M1 page 16]</ref> Psychiatrist Dr. Richard P. Kluft, MD has noted that:<ref>Kluft, Richard P., "Editorial: Building upon our foundations" (June 1994) in [https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/handle/1794/1508 ''Dissociation'', Vol. 7, No. 2, p. 079-080], publ. Ridgeview Institute and the International Society for the Study of Dissociation</ref> |
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{{quote|".. today genuine skepticism of the benign sort that looks evenly in all directions and encourages |
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the advancement of knowledge seems vanishingly rare. Instead, we find a prevalence of pseudo-skepticism consisting of harsh and invidious skepticism toward one's opponents' points of view and observations, and egregious self-congratulatory confirmatory bias toward one's own stances and findings misrepresented as the earnest and dispassionate pursuit of clinical, scholarly, and scientific truth."}} |
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Susan Blackmore, a parapsychologist who became more skeptical and eventually became a CSICOP fellow in 1991, describes the "worst kind of pseudoskepticism" in 1994: |
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{{quote|"There are some members of the skeptics’ groups who clearly believe they know the right answer prior to inquiry. They appear not to be interested in weighing alternatives, investigating strange claims, or trying out psychic experiences or altered states for themselves (heaven forbid!), but only in promoting their own particular belief structure and cohesion . . . I have to say it—most of these people are men. Indeed, I have not met a single woman of this type."."<ref>JE Kennedy, "[http://jeksite.org/psi/jp03.pdf The Capricious, Actively Evasive, Unsustainable Nature of Psi: A Summary and Hypotheses]", ''The Journal of Parapsychology'', Volume 67, pp. 53–74, 2003. See Note 1 page 64 quoting Blackmore, S. J. (1994). Women skeptics. In L. Coly & R. White (Eds.), ''Women and parapsychology'' (pp. 234–236). New York: Parapsychology Foundation.</ref>}} |
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<!-- Secrets for etymologists removed: |
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== Other usages == |
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Prior to Truzzi, the term "pseudo-skepticism" had occasionally been used in 19th and early 20th century [[philosophy]]. |
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On [[31 August]] [[1869]], Swiss philosopher [[Henri-Frédéric Amiel]] wrote in his diary: |
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{{quote|My instinct is in harmony with the pessimism of Buddha and of [[Schopenhauer]]. It is a doubt which never leaves me, even in my moments of religious fervor. Nature is indeed for me a Maïa; and I look at her, as it were, with the eyes of an artist. My intelligence remains skeptical. What, then, do I believe in? I do not know. And what is it I hope for? It would be difficult to say. Folly! I believe in goodness, and I hope that good will prevail. Deep within this ironical and disappointed being of mine there is a child hidden — a frank, sad, simple creature, who believes in the ideal, in love, in holiness, and all heavenly superstitions. A whole millennium of idyls sleeps in my heart; I am a pseudo-skeptic, a pseudo-scoffer.<ref>Charles Dudley Warner, Editor, ''Library Of The World's Best Literature Ancient And Modern, Vol. II'', 1896. Online at Project Gutenberg (eg. [http://library.beau.org/gutenberg/1/2/7/8/12788/12788-h/12788-h.htm#HENRI_FREDERIC_AMIEL here])</ref>}} |
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In 1908 [[Henry Louis Mencken]] wrote on [[Friedrich Nietzsche]]'s criticism of philosopher [[David Strauss]] that: |
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{{quote|Strauss had been a preacher but had renounced the cloth and set up shop as a critic of Christianity. He had labored with good intentions, no doubt, but the net result of all his smug agnosticism was that his disciplines were as self-satisfied, bigoted, and prejudiced in the garb of agnostics as they had been before Christians. Nietzsche's eye saw this and in the first of his little pamphlets "David Strauss, der Bekenner und der Schriftsteller" ("David Strauss, the Confessor and the Writer"), he bore down on Strauss's bourgeoise pseudo-skepticism most savagely. This was 1873.<ref>H. L. (Henry Louis) Mencken, ''The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche'' (1908) publ. T.F. Unwin. Reprinted in ''Friedrich Nietzsche'', Originally published: Boston : Luce and Co., 1913. [http://books.google.com/books?id=_r71AzHvf64C&vid=ISBN1560006498&dq=%22pseudo+skepticism%22&pg=PA30&lpg=PA30&sig=GmCpU7uH_ZS-fJj_BF8vtbnaHrk&q=%22pseudo+skepticism%22 p.30].</ref>}} |
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Professor of Philosophy at the University of Illinois, Frederick L. Will used the term "pseudo-skepticism" in 1942. Alasdair MacIntyre writes: |
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{{quote|[Frederick] Will was no exception. He began as an analytical philosopher, distinguishing different uses of language with the aim of showing that certain traditional philosophical problems need no longer trouble us, once we have understood how to make the relevant linguistic distinctions. The enemies were two: the philosophical skeptic who poses these false problems and the philosopher who thinks that the skeptic needs to be answered. So in "Is there a Problem of Induction?" (''Journal of Philosophy'', 1942) it is two senses of "know" that are to be distinguished: "All the uneasiness, the pseudo-skepticism and the pseudo-problem of induction, would never appear if it were possible to keep clear that 'know' in the statement that we do not know statements about the future is employed in a very special sense, not at all its ordinary one.<ref>Alasdair MacIntyre "[http://www.uea.ac.uk/~j018/FLW-P&R.htm Foreword]" to the book ''Pragmatism and Realism'' by Frederick L. Will (1997) quoting his earlier paper "[http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-362X%2819420910%2939%3A19%3C505%3AITAPOI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-M&size=LARGE Is There a Problem of Induction?]" ''Journal of Philosophy'', Vol. 39, No. 19 ([[September 10]], [[1942]]), pp. 505-513</ref>}} |
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[[University of Notre Dame|Notre Dame]] Professor of English, John E. Sitter used the term in 1977 in a discussion of [[Alexander Pope]]: "Pope's intent, I believe, is to chasten the reader's skepticism — the pseudo-skepticism of the overly confident 'you' ... "<ref>John E. Sitter, "[http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0039-3657%28197722%2917%3A3%3C435%3ATAOPET%3E2.0.CO%3B2-F&size=LARGE The Argument of Pope's Epistle to Cobham]" ''Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900'', Vol. 17, No. 3, Restoration and Eighteenth Century (Summer, 1977), pp. 435-449</ref> |
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--> |
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== See also == |
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{{Col-begin}} |
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{{Col-1-of-2}} |
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* [[Debunker]] |
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* [[Scientific skepticism]] |
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{{Col-2-of-2}} |
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* [[Skepticism]] |
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* [[Agnosticism]] |
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{{col-end}} |
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== Notes and references == |
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{{reflist|2}} |
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{{skepticism}} |
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[[Category:Philosophy of science]] |
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[[Category:Pseudoscience]] |
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[[Category:Skepticism]] |
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[[Category:Scientific method]] |
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[[Category:Types of scientific fallacy]] |
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[[Category:Scientific skepticism| ]] |
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[[de:Skeptikerbewegung#Gegenpositionen]] |
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[[es:Pseudoescepticismo]] |
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[[ko:사이비 회의주의]] |
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[[nl:Pseudoscepticisme]] |
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[[fi:Pseudoskeptismi]] |
Revision as of 21:27, 30 June 2009
Pseudoskepticism (or pseudoscepticism) or pathological skepticism denotes thinking that claims to be skeptical but is not. The term is most commonly encountered in the form popularised by Marcello Truzzi, where he defined pseudoskeptics as those who take "the negative rather than an agnostic position but still call themselves 'skeptics'".[1] Generally the term is used for somebody who declares disbelief rather than simply withholding belief.
Truzzi's characterisation of pseudoskeptics
The term pseudoskepticism was popularised and characterised by Truzzi.[1]
While a Professor of Sociology at Eastern Michigan University in 1987, Truzzi gave the following distinction between what he saw as true skepticism, and pseudoskepticism, in the journal Zetetic Scholar (which he founded):
"In science, the burden of proof falls upon the claimant; and the more extraordinary a claim, the heavier is the burden of proof demanded. The true skeptic takes an agnostic position, one that says the claim is not proved rather than disproved. He asserts that the claimant has not borne the burden of proof and that science must continue to build its cognitive map of reality without incorporating the extraordinary claim as a new "fact." Since the true skeptic does not assert a claim, he has no burden to prove anything. He just goes on using the established theories of "conventional science" as usual. But if a critic asserts that there is evidence for disproof, that he has a negative hypothesis --saying, for instance, that a seeming psi result was actually due to an artifact--he is making a claim and therefore also has to bear a burden of proof....
"...Thus, if a subject in a psi experiment can be shown to have had an opportunity to cheat, many critics seem to assume not merely that he probably did cheat, but that he must have, regardless of what may be the complete absence of evidence that he did so cheat and sometimes even ignoring evidence of the subject's past reputation for honesty. Similarly, improper randomization procedures are sometimes assumed to be the cause of a subject's high psi scores even though all that has been established is the possibility of such an artifact having been the real cause. Of course, the evidential weight of the experiment is greatly reduced when we discover an opening in the design that would allow an artifact to confound the results. Discovering an opportunity for error should make such experiments less evidential and usually unconvincing. It usually disproves the claim that the experiment was "air tight" against error, but it does not disprove the anomaly claim."
— Marcello Truzzi, On Pseudo-Skepticism, Zetetic Scholar, 12/13, pp3-4, 1987[1]
Thus in Truzzi's example pseudoskepticism lies in biting off more than one can chew, by replacing a claim that the experiment demonstrates psi, with a counterclaim, that the experiment has flaws, therefore the subject took the opportunity to cheat.
In his view this is unnecessary, science is not obliged to accept extraordinary claims, and should be content to point to the flaws which weaken the evidential power of the experiment; Truzzi himself coined the saying "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof." Not only that, it is over-ambitious, Truzzi argues. Claims made by any party must be supported, he says, by empirical evidence, not assumption.
Contemporary usage
L. David Leiter, a member of the fringe Society for Scientific Exploration, uses the terms 'pseudo-skepticism' and 'pathological skepticism' to refer to the "organized skepticism" he found in the "Philadelphia Association for Critical Thinking" (PhACT). Leither claimed that the PhACT members with whom he became aquainted each had an "unfortunate experience with a faith-based philosophy" at an earlier period in their lives, and that thay had sought an organized skeptical group as a reaction to this. "Instead of becoming scientifically minded, they become adherents of scientism, the belief system in which science and only science has all the answers to everything" and that even many of these members are unwilling to spend the time to "read significantly into the literature on the subjects about which they are most skeptical". He goes on to characterize members of skeptical organizations as "scientifically inclined, but psychologically scarred," similar to those who "might join any other support group, say, Alcoholics Anonymous."[2]
Prof. Hugo Meynell from Department of Religious Studies at the University of Calgary, labels as 'pseudo-skepticism' the "extreme position that all significant evidence supporting paranormal phenomena is a result of deception or lies".[3] Psychiatrist Dr. Richard P. Kluft, MD has noted that:[4]
".. today genuine skepticism of the benign sort that looks evenly in all directions and encourages the advancement of knowledge seems vanishingly rare. Instead, we find a prevalence of pseudo-skepticism consisting of harsh and invidious skepticism toward one's opponents' points of view and observations, and egregious self-congratulatory confirmatory bias toward one's own stances and findings misrepresented as the earnest and dispassionate pursuit of clinical, scholarly, and scientific truth."
Susan Blackmore, a parapsychologist who became more skeptical and eventually became a CSICOP fellow in 1991, describes the "worst kind of pseudoskepticism" in 1994:
"There are some members of the skeptics’ groups who clearly believe they know the right answer prior to inquiry. They appear not to be interested in weighing alternatives, investigating strange claims, or trying out psychic experiences or altered states for themselves (heaven forbid!), but only in promoting their own particular belief structure and cohesion . . . I have to say it—most of these people are men. Indeed, I have not met a single woman of this type."."[5]
See also
Notes and references
- ^ a b c Truzzi, Marcello (1987). "On Pseudo-Skepticism". Zetetic Scholar (12/13): 3–4. Retrieved 2008-10-10.
- ^ Leiter, L. David (2002). "The Pathology of Organized Skepticism" (PDF). Journal of Scientific Exploration. Society for Scientific Exploration.
- ^ Michael Stoeber, Hugo Anthony Meynell, Critical Reflections on the Paranormal, SUNY Press, 1996, ISBN 0791430634, 9780791430637 page 16
- ^ Kluft, Richard P., "Editorial: Building upon our foundations" (June 1994) in Dissociation, Vol. 7, No. 2, p. 079-080, publ. Ridgeview Institute and the International Society for the Study of Dissociation
- ^ JE Kennedy, "The Capricious, Actively Evasive, Unsustainable Nature of Psi: A Summary and Hypotheses", The Journal of Parapsychology, Volume 67, pp. 53–74, 2003. See Note 1 page 64 quoting Blackmore, S. J. (1994). Women skeptics. In L. Coly & R. White (Eds.), Women and parapsychology (pp. 234–236). New York: Parapsychology Foundation.