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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
 Posted - 11/30/2010 : 09:15:47 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by filthy
Digging is work. To do two hours of research just to be sure that your three paragraph statement will withstand scrutiny can be too tedious for many people. There is not only finding the information, but checking the credentials of those who put forth that info as well. What it boils down to is: who are you going to rely on when it comes to, say, paleontology; Jack Horner or Ken Ham? To see the difference, you need to dig. You don't have to dig very deeply to find the difference with that pair. They are extreme examples, are Horner and Ham, the respected professor and the dismal charlatan, but you've got to check anyway. Scientists get it wrong now & again, and it behooves the skeptic look around a bit more to be certain. "Have faith, but verify." Don't recall who said that.
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Exactly! |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 11/30/2010 : 09:31:11 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
Dude:
Laden's premise is invalid, and he probably knows it too. |
Well, in his thread on the topic, someone brought up TAM and he mentioned Penn and Teller. His meaning was obvious. He was saying that people actually come to skeptical conclusions using Penn and Teller as their source and not digging deeper. Penn and Teller are strongly influenced by their politics, as you know. Their past take and partial retraction on AGW is a good example of that. The point is, if a skeptic is doing that, it's darned close to the kind of faith that you are upset about. Again, since he is really talking about sourcing, I don't think his premise is invalid and I doubt that he would have mentioned Penn and Teller if he thought so. I would suggest to you Dude that you don't measure what all skeptics do by what you or I do.
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I don't see where his premise is limited to people using bad sources.
From his blog entry:
| The point is: Knowing what is a valid argument for or against something, for the average person who wants to be a skeptic, is not easy. One must find sources one trusts and rely in part on those sources. And then, one must ask oneself, is "trust" just another five letter word. Like "faith"? |
That says that trusting any source (other than yourself) for info is a derogatory type of faith.
If he wanted to make it about finding reliable sources, instead of using Pen and Teller as your esperts, why would he have phrased it like that?
To be clear, I am fully on the side of the argument that says you have to spend a little time digging, find reliable data from actual expert sources, and be able to cite those sources when asked.
I reject the premise that trusting legitimate experts is the negative type of faith Laden implies.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 11/30/2010 : 10:26:28 [Permalink]
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Dude:
I reject the premise that trusting legitimate experts is the negative type of faith Laden implies. |
We are reading what he is saying differently. Honest. He goes through an exercise in how mistakes can be made in sourcing. And since he isn't an expert on everything, he has to be including himself in the his premise, and I'm sure he knows that.
He isn't saying that trusting legitimate experts is a negative type of faith. What he is saying is that it is faith, a word that atheists and skeptics generally destain, whether we like that word or not.
But whatever... Just do proper sourcing wherever you can is the real takeaway from the article that I read. Many skeptics don't. It really doesn't matter much if you think his premise was something else as long as you do proper sourcing as best you can, 'cause we aren't going to agree on what his main point was I guess...
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9687 Posts |
Posted - 11/30/2010 : 12:05:11 [Permalink]
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Just like Dude, I didn't agree with what I perceived as Laden's conflation of religious faith with the Skeptic's trust in his sources (like peer-review publications). 
Taking Penn & Teller's words as gospel in anything is (kindly stated) a rookie mistake,  since they aren't experts in anything else than stage magic and being hilariously funny. Why would anyone turn to them for an expert opinion on Anthropogenic Global Warming? 
Edited to add smiley. |
Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
| Edited by - Dr. Mabuse on 11/30/2010 12:07:21 |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 11/30/2010 : 15:55:15 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
Dude:
I reject the premise that trusting legitimate experts is the negative type of faith Laden implies. |
We are reading what he is saying differently. Honest. He goes through an exercise in how mistakes can be made in sourcing. And since he isn't an expert on everything, he has to be including himself in the his premise, and I'm sure he knows that.
He isn't saying that trusting legitimate experts is a negative type of faith. What he is saying is that it is faith, a word that atheists and skeptics generally destain, whether we like that word or not.
But whatever... Just do proper sourcing wherever you can is the real takeaway from the article that I read. Many skeptics don't. It really doesn't matter much if you think his premise was something else as long as you do proper sourcing as best you can, 'cause we aren't going to agree on what his main point was I guess...
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His main point, using good sources, is nothing I have a problem with. We do agree on that.
Where the disagreement comes in is over his use of the word faith. While you could, technically, say that using experts as a source of data is "faith" (of the trust variety), I still have to reject the use of the word.
I do not consider my trust of expert sources any type of "faith".
Here is how Merriam-Webster defines "faith":
1 a : the act or state of wholeheartedly and steadfastly believing in the existence, power, and benevolence of a supreme being, of having confidence in his providential care, and of being loyal to his will as revealed or believed in : belief and trust in and loyalty to God <people earnestly prayed in the ages of faith ... to be delivered from sudden death -- J.A.Pike> <lost his faith at an early age> b
(1) : an act or attitude of intellectual assent to the traditional doctrines of one's religion : orthodox religious belief
(2) : a decision of an individual entrusting his life to God's transforming care in response to an experience of God's mercy c among Roman Catholic theologians : a supernatural virtue by which one believes on the authority of God himself all that God has revealed or proposes through the Church for belief
2 a (1) : firm or unquestioning belief in something for which there is no proof <for the scientist faith can be no virtue, because it is inconsistent with the resolution to accept the fact as supreme -- P.W.Bridgman> <clinging to the faith that her missing son would one day return>
(2) : uncritical grounds for belief -- used chiefly in the phrase on faith <you will have to accept my statements on faith> b : CONFIDENCE; especially : firm or unquestioning trust or confidence in the value, power, or efficacy of something <have faith in prayer> <faith in his medical skill> <the faith on which science rests, the faith in the value of truth seeking -- H.T.Muller>
3 a : an assurance, promise, or pledge of fidelity, loyalty, or performance <gave his faith that he would come on the appointed day> -- often used in the phrases to keep faith or to break faith <to have hitchhiked would have been breaking faith, for all who use the country's youth hostels are honor bound to reach them under their own power -- H.V.Morton>
b : fidelity to one's promises
: allegiance to a duty or a person
: sincerity or honesty of intentions
: LOYALTY -- often used with the qualifiers good or bad to specify a state of mind of one trying to be honest and faithful <observed perfect good faith and strictly fulfilled their engagements -- Marjory S. Douglas> or of one trying to deceive, mislead, or defraud <accused him of bad faith>
4 obsolete : AUTHORITY, CREDIT, CREDIBILITY
5 : something that is believed or adhered to especially with strong conviction
: as a (1) : a system of religious beliefs
: RELIGION <an individual of the Jewish faith>
(2) : the body of believers
: an organized church or denomination <a movement supported by all the great faiths>
b : the cherished values, ideals, or beliefs of an individual or people : WELTANSCHAUUNG, CREED, CREDO <a free world which is strong in its faith and in its material progress -- Dean Acheson>
c : the fundamental tenets, views, or beliefs of an individual or group on a particular subject or in a particular field <a profession of literary faith> <I state my own faith at once ... organic union under the Crown is vital -- R.G.Menzies> <she visits the prisoners of her own political faith -- Katharine A. Porter>
6 often capitalized : the true religion from the point of view of the speaker -- usually used with the <the king, temporal head of the faith>
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That is the full entry from their unabridged dictionary, I added a few line breaks to make it readable from the copy/paste.
I acknowledge that the word is also often used to mean trust, but when you substitute "faith" for "trust" it seems to imply something beyond a rational and justified trust. The type of trust we place in experts and the institutions that produce them is rational, earned, justified, and provisional. None of those qualifiers make sense if you say it with "faith" instead of "trust".
It's also a bad idea to use "faith" just due to the semantics games of religion, new age, and other purveyors of woo. They will whip that into a huge strawman (some of them already do, Ken Ham is often quoted saying stupid shit like it takes more faith to believe in evolution that the bible) and burn your house down with it.
And yeah, I really just don't like the word. It is ambiguous, is predominantly used to describe unquestioning belief, and is inappropriate in any discussion about the trust of sources because it clouds the arguments rather than clarifies them.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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podcat
Skeptic Friend
435 Posts |
Posted - 11/30/2010 : 20:09:43 [Permalink]
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Actually, filthy, Ronald Reagan used a translated version of an old Russian maxim: "trust, but verify".
Republicans love to reapeat that phrase, but when it comes to putting it in practice...Rachel Maddow used that phrase to illustrate the results of Republicans dragging their feet on the new START treaty.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show/#40245119 |
“In a modern...society, everybody has the absolute right to believe whatever they damn well please, but they don't have the same right to be taken seriously”.
-Barry Williams, co-founder, Australian Skeptics |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 11/30/2010 : 20:41:11 [Permalink]
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Okay guys. But he is using faith to mean faith and confidence and trust. Not just trust and confidence. If you go with the skeptic party line, as he points out, and don't do any investigating of your own, yeah, I think he is throwing stones at those people who do that and call themselves skeptics. It may bug you that he is using that word, but he chose it for a reason. Basically he is using all forms of the word. And basically we all put a certain amount of faith in our sources. (Call it what you will.)
Why is it that you, Dude and you, Mab can't see that he isn't necessarily saying that it is you guys who aren't doing the work it takes to be a skeptic? I can't tell you how many times I have jumped into a thread on facebook after someone used Bill Maher as an example of a great skeptical thinker. Sheesh!!!
"Faithaphobia." That's my new word for your reaction to Laden's article...
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 11/30/2010 : 21:07:51 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
Okay guys. But he is using faith to mean faith and confidence and trust. Not just trust and confidence. If you go with the skeptic party line, as he points out, and don't do any investigating of your own, yeah, I think he is throwing stones at those people who do that and call themselves skeptics. It may bug you that he is using that word, but he chose it for a reason. Basically he is using all forms of the word. And basically we all put a certain amount of faith in our sources. (Call it what you will.)
Why is it that you, Dude and you, Mab can't see that he isn't necessarily saying that it is you guys who aren't doing the work it takes to be a skeptic? I can't tell you how many times I have jumped into a thread on facebook after someone used Bill Maher as an example of a great skeptical thinker. Sheesh!!!
"Faithaphobia." That's my new word for your reaction to Laden's article...
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If he had made the distinction you are making I might agree with his usage. But... I am not sure the problem is the problem he is talking about. Sloppy sourcing is a problem for most people who don't have some experience (like a little bit of college) in recognizing reliable sources from bad sources. It is a learned skill, as is the general process of skepticism. A person can make an honest mistake about the reliability of a source and I would not call that "faith".
Only if they are shown that their source is unreliable and then continue to use that source can you call it anything like faith. I'd describe it as willful ignorance at that point, and faith is an exercise i willful ignorance, so I guess I agree if we are limiting the conversation to the sub set of self described skeptics who refuse to recognize a bad source of info.
| I can't tell you how many times I have jumped into a thread on facebook after someone used Bill Maher as an example of a great skeptical thinker. |
And if they continue to think he is a reliable source after you explain it to them, then you have a point. In my experience that is generally not the case. Once you show people Maher's stance on medicine, food, animals, and vaccinations they realize why he is not all that reliable as a rational thinker.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 11/30/2010 : 21:17:58 [Permalink]
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Dude:
And if they continue to think he is a reliable source after you explain it to them, then you have a point. In my experience that is generally not the case. Once you show people Maher's stance on medicine, food, animals, and vaccinations they realize why he is not all that reliable as a rational thinker. |
I shouldn't need to tell them that he's not a reliable source. And once I have told them, if they don't do some research to see if I'm correct, if they take me at my word, nothing changes for them. Then they get to be right for the wrong reason. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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podcat
Skeptic Friend
435 Posts |
Posted - 11/30/2010 : 21:44:41 [Permalink]
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| I consider Bill Maher to know quite a bit more about some subjects than others. But you do have to work to find that out. You shouldn't just take a person's word for it. |
“In a modern...society, everybody has the absolute right to believe whatever they damn well please, but they don't have the same right to be taken seriously”.
-Barry Williams, co-founder, Australian Skeptics |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 12/01/2010 : 08:16:59 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by podcat
Actually, filthy, Ronald Reagan used a translated version of an old Russian maxim: "trust, but verify".
Republicans love to reapeat that phrase, but when it comes to putting it in practice...Rachel Maddow used that phrase to illustrate the results of Republicans dragging their feet on the new START treaty.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show/#40245119
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I thought I might have paraphrased that from Reagan but wasn't sure. Really, it's one of the few things he ever said unscripted that was good advice. And he stole it from the Ruskies, eh? 
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9687 Posts |
Posted - 12/01/2010 : 13:21:43 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
Why is it that you, Dude and you, Mab can't see that he isn't necessarily saying that it is you guys who aren't doing the work it takes to be a skeptic? I can't tell you how many times I have jumped into a thread on facebook after someone used Bill Maher as an example of a great skeptical thinker. Sheesh!!!
"Faithaphobia." That's my new word for your reaction to Laden's article...
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Here's my counter:
Laden's article is an excercise in how to committ a Fallacy of Equivocation.
When I refer or defer to an expert in the field, I appeal to an authority. Is that appeal a logical fallacy? Why? Why not?
If I have faith in my expert, is that the same as having faith in God?
I don't have a problem in saying I have faith in my sources. But in no fucking way will I allow a religionist creationist theist an opportunity to conflate my faith with his faith.
If you want to call it Faithaphobia, then by all means do so.
But it is not an irrational fear to use the word 'faith'; it is a well reasoned and logically well supported position: fucktard theists will eventually misrepresent my use of the word 'faith' for their own dishonest reasons. And I will not abide by that.
And Greg Laden is gawking in full awe at the marvellous huge wooden horse which he laballed 'faith' outside his gate, and is reeling it in hook line and sinker.
Religionists will have a field day... |
Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 12/01/2010 : 13:52:22 [Permalink]
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Mab:
But it is not an irrational fear to use the word 'faith'; it is a well reasoned and logically well supported position: fucktard theists will eventually misrepresent my use of the word 'faith' for their own dishonest reasons. And I will not abide by that.
And Greg Laden is gawking in full awe at the marvellous huge wooden horse which he laballed 'faith' outside his gate, and is reeling it in hook line and sinker.
Religionists will have a field day... |
Naaa... This is a conversation for skeptics. Some religionists will think that we rely on the same kind of faith they have in matters of science no matter what kind of discussion we have. And I don't think we should allow a few "fucktard theists" to control what words we use or what we talk about among ourselves. I'm not prepared to cede to them that kind of power over us.
If you want the word "faith" to only be used when regarding people who believe in god, I suppose that's up to you. I'm under no obligation to restrict my use of a word as a matter of convenience or because it might be purposefully misunderstood, or not.
Why is the needle on my irony meter starting to move into the red zone? |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 12/01/2010 : 16:29:06 [Permalink]
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I've given you the reason why faith is a poor word choice, I'm not sure you read it though. Faith indicates an unjustified level of trust, and that is exactly how Laden is using the word. He says some skeptics take experts on their word, without going through the steps to justify it, and he calls it faith. In that context he is right, but...
My counter is that some skeptics have not developed the skill of skepticism. It's like me trying to hang drywall or paint, you'd laugh yourself silly (you being a contractor) at my half assed efforts. I've painted exactly 2 rooms in my life (not well either) and never attempted to hang drywall. I do have a grasp of the ideas involved though, but without some effort to learn proper technique I will never be considered minimally competent at those skills.
Now what if it was some slightly esoteric skill we were talking about, say skepticism, that is not widespread knowledge (it should be, but we have to face the fact it isn't). I sort of grasp the basics. I know that I need to cite an expert source to make an argument since I am not myself an expert in whatever it is I'm arguing about. If I screw that part up, pick a bad source, or even a good one for the wrong reasons, you can't really call that "faith" unless I refuse to correct myself when my mistakes are pointed out.
If I'm hanging drywall for you on some job site, you going to fire me for a mistake? Or are you more likely to fire me when I make the mistake again after you have corrected me?
I don't see a lot of sloppy skepticism out there, but my primary exposure is on forums populated by professionals, from material published by skeptic organizations, and video/podcasts of people who are genuinely good at rational thinking.
I'm not sure who Laden is targeting with that blog entry, maybe Bill Maher or Pen & Teller? Are there some faith using skeptics out there? I guess. I don't know any and the ones out there are probably just noobs who don't know any better yet. But why devote so much energy to berating people who are probably looking for info on the right way to do things? And if he was going after professionals, why not just name them? Despite my harsh criticism of Maher I still think he can be convinced of his error if an expert could actually get his attention long enough.
Maybe I am being too optimistic...
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 12/01/2010 : 16:37:48 [Permalink]
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Faith is not a word you use when you are citing trusted sources. Because your trust is justified (on the history of the expert and where they were trained) and provisional. Faith is unjustified trust.
That is why I dislike the word being used here.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Are you a real skeptic or just faithing it?
