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As a skeptic, I am faced with what I will call the “Debunker’s Dilemma.” Because there is such an incredible amount of misinformation, pseudoscience, and straight-up bunk out there, it appears that a skeptic’s stance on many beliefs is constantly “negative.” Not negative in the way of cynicism, but negative in the way that we are consistently reciting the phrase “You know that’s just a myth…” or something similar. Surf any skeptical forum like the skeptic subreddit and you will find many threads lamenting over ignorance with “myth this” and “nonsense that.” Again, this is the dirty work that must be done. However, when this bleeds over into the public sphere we get the (undeserved) “cynic” moniker. This is the dilemma we face: in order to counter nonsense, we are doomed to be ever seen as dismissive critics of people’s beliefs.
In this view, to me it is not a coincidence that people have this conception of us. Because there is orders of magnitude more pseudoscience than science out there, we are always too busy shooting down the junk to do much else. It is imperative that we continue to do this, but if we want people to understand the full range of skepticism we have to also stress the affirmatives. We need to live up to the charge of promoting science and critical thinking. In my observations, this is accomplished primarily within the skeptical community, and any outside exposure that we choose to endorse or create is mainly “debunking.” Don’t misunderstand me, debunking is a worthy cause and someone has to do it, but I want this movement to be positive. We need to be actually thought of as positive by the public, no matter what we may tell ourselves.
This is my call to the skeptical community: we need to get into the habit of promoting good science, critical thinking skills, and good causes in equal amounts with debunking (or at least more than we do now). I am not saying that the skeptical community has never done this, campaigns like “Hug Me I’m Vaccinated” are wonderful promotions of good science and a good cause with a skeptical bent, but I think we can do more. As hard as we try now, we are still faced with the dilemma: to the public a skeptic equals a cynic.
With the same zeal that we handle ESP, homeopathy, and creationists, we can more actively promote a positive skepticism. This aspect of the skeptical movement would probably resemble a general science education program, which many skeptics are trying to branch out into (like Michael Shermer’s new Skepticism 101 program and the JREF’s educational modules), but it is critically lacking in my view. We lament the poor state of education in critical thinking, so why not devote at least a few more resources into addressing that problem? My fellow JREF colleague Dr. Steve Novella has just produced a new lecture series aiming to deal with this very issue, but he is in the minority. We have the brainpower and the technical skills to equate in people’s mind science and reason with skepticism. I want a skeptic to be seen as anyone who uses reason to move accurately through the world, and not just someone who doesn’t believe in certain things like Bigfoot or angels.
The skeptical community routinely supports educational organizations like the National Center for Science Education, but perhaps we farm out too much of the responsibility they bear. I am happy to see many skeptic conferences now offering things like museum tours and the like, as it is the love of and interest in science that presumably lead most of us to skepticism. I for one was a science geek all my life and the skeptical movement just happened to fit that upbringing. But I do not see many avenues in the modern skeptical movement that could provide this kind of ground-up education. Compounding the deficiency, the largest skeptical organizations are stretched pretty thin as it is, so it is hard for them to branch out into advocacy.
I know that we are a positive bunch. We love science, we love rationality, and we love the community we are in. I want the public to see us that way. So bring attention to worthy causes, support pro-science organizations (not just the ones we are familiar with) and movements, tweet, blog, or talk about the things we can do to advance skepticism in a positive way. Specifically this could be getting involved with your local school board to give your two cents about the science curriculum. It could be going to a college’s biology colloquium and writing or talking about it with friends. It could be starting a local effort to get your neighborhood vaccinated. Or it could be as simple as taking your kids to a museum instead of the movie theater. Again, these sound less like skeptical goals and more like general science education goals, but to me it is clear that a strong scientific background flows much more easily into skepticism than the other way around (even more obvious if you look at the backgrounds of our best advocates like Neil deGrasse Tyson, Richard Dawkins, Bill Nye, or Phil Plait).
A well-rounded skeptic knows how to sort the science from the pseudoscience, but also does the opposite of debunking by engendering positive skeptical values that inoculate against nonsense. We do not have to be a reactionary movement that has to scramble when the newest irrationality comes out. We can’t be effective as the pseudoscience TSA. By additionally promoting scientific inquiry and critical thinking skills, separate from any notions of debunking, we can go on the offensive.
Originally published on the JREF’s Swift Blog
Science-Based Life 
Though I’m not unaware of the irony in responding to your call for promoting skeptcism as positive and affirming, not just critical and doubting, with—well, skepticism, I wonder if you don’t make the issue seem a bit more straightforward than it really is. No question, I believe teaching critical thinking, lauding the accomplishments of science and reason, and generally promoting the whole Enlightenment agenda is a good thing. Calls for this sort of positive marketing pop up from time to time. Randy Olsen’s Don’t Be Such a Scientist leaps to mind as the most recent book on the topic that got me all fired up to be more positive and affirming in my skeptical outreach.
But, isn’t there an extent to which science is an inherently critical enterprise? Generating and promoting hypotheses is the first step, and a vital one, but the separation of truth from error only happens because of the process of critique and testing that occurs not only because it’s built into the methods of science, but also because it harnesses the ego and personality politics and biases that individual scientists are no less prey to than anyone else. We assault new ideas intellectually out of a variety of motives, both noble and base, and the good ones survive while the bad ones fall under the assault. I can see promoting the astounding successes and benefits of the process, and sharing the sense of wonder at the truths we uncover, as Sagan did so poetically. But the core of the process is criticism, and even though that turns people off I’m not sure we can honestly deny it.
Also, it seems to me there is growing evidence that intelligence, education, and all the facts and tools of effective reasoning in the world seem to have little impact on people’s beliefs. Dr. Shermer, Steven Pinker, Chris Mooney, and many others have done a great job of illustrating how we come to our beliefs in a flash of intuition or emotion rather than through deliberation, and how we are driven by cognitive dissonance, confirmation bias, and all the other little heuristics and ticks in our mental apparatus to rationalize and defend those beliefs regardless of what any balanced, rational appraisal of the evidence should conclude. I argue with proponents of medical pseudoscience, and with the largely neutral and uninterested shruggie majority, about quackery all the time, and I find plenty of smart, educated, informed idividuals with excellent critical thinking skills who simply don’t apply them, or even misapply them, because belief precedes reason and thrives largely without or despite it. So will teaching critical thinking and scientific epistemology lead to different beliefs or undermine unscientific or pseudoscientific beliefs already widely held? Maybe sometimes, but again I am skeptical. I think the cultural heyday of science, and of Enlightenment values generally, came and is leaving for complex reasons which have little to do with deliberate attempts to teach or promote them.
So what would I suggest? Well, of course I think a variety of voices and approaches is always worthwhile. I would love it is Neil DeGrasse Tyson or another contemporary Sagan could capture the hearts and minds of the populace with the positive, affirming face of science and skepticism. And certainly all of us should try to reach people in the most effective way possible, which means speaking to their values and their feelings as much as, or more than, to their intellect. But I think the core of skepticism will always be the mantra “Show me the evidence!” And this will always be perceived as critical or arrogant or negative in proportion to how important the belief being questioned is to the believer. I think to a great extent we have to make our peace with the role of doubter and critic and the unfair and inaccurate perceptions of cynicism and closed-mindedness others will foist onto us because it’s the inevitable cost of doing the important work of challenging what others would rather be left to believe in peace.
I’ve always loved the psychology studies that looked at how people behave when asked to make simple judgements in the presence of a group of people who, as secret confederates of the investigators, all choose the wrong answer even though the right one is obvious. Generally, people go along with the crowd. But all it takes is one “dissenter” to make a different choice, and most people feel free to go against the crowd. We are often in the role of dissenter, challenging the perception that “everyone” goes along with nonsense just because no one wants to take the heat of voicing a minority opinion. It’s a role that serves an important purpose, even if it gets us painted with an unjust patina of cynicism.
Calling all scientists to review the new documentary 9/11:Experts Speak Out for critical review of the scientific evidence surrounding 9/11 Truth.
Can Americans Escape the Deception?
*Broken record*
How many scientists have been similarly dismissed through the ages? Yet important truth must spread and never dies.
That has no bearing on the discussion. Bringing up the done-to-death argument of the “Galileo was persecuted too” type ignores the weight of evidence. Scientists who have the evidence on their side are eventually vindicated (as was Galileo). The 9/11 Truth movement is chronically lacking plausible arguments and good evidence.