1023: suffering from the Dawkins effect?
by endlesspsych
Richard Dawkins is a man who, at the least it would be fair to say, divides opinion. For some he is an evangelical atheist with a deep hatred and mistrust of religion and yet others find him tiresome still because of his criticisms of religion and the religious. Now I’m not going to blog too much about Richard Dawkins – though no doubt that could start some reasonably active and impassioned debate…
What I want to blog about is something I’m going to call the “Dawkins effect” this is where what someone says – the content and logic of their arguments seem to be treated as secondary to what people think their motivations and intent is.
Or rather that peoples preconceptions and stereotypes about a person or group of people overrides what they actually say and encourages attribution of motives that may or may not be there to the person/group.
In the case of Dawkins it’s that he hates religion and is wedded to some form of extreme militant evangelical atheism – now I don’t think Dawkins particularly likes religion but “hate” might be a little too strong. Also accusations of evangelical atheism seem a little unfounded to me – I’d be more than willing to see evidence supporting these assertions however.
Thus what Dawkins actually says, his carefully constructed philosophical and logical arguments count for naught as people already think he is a god hating dick. Someone who has made up their mind and it’s now closed to all other options. (I hasten to add that I don’t though and the public reaction to Dawkins frequently suprises me!)
In the case of 1023 the campaign runs the risk of looking like a bunch of bully’s running around telling people what they should think. This is emphatically not the case of course but there seems to be a number of people who hold that position. The more this happens, the more neutral people who are turned off by the debates on the #ten23 hashtag the worse it is for the campaigns aims of public engagement.
There appears to be an odd view of scientists/science and skepticism as part of the establishment – either at the extremes of being in the pay of big pharma ( a homeopathic fantasy) or know it all arrogant gods of certainty dictated to other people what they should or shouldn’t believe. This is not one of the aims of the campaign and is perhaps a problem with conducting a debate or campaign based on scientific evidence rather then polemic and political concerns. For one thing it perhaps associates evidence with opinion and then we all end up looking like dicks going “no your wrong and here’s why…” it doesn’t matter that we are producing evidence. It doesn’t matter that we are right.
People without any knowledge or appreciation of science aren’t going to care. They will give almost equal weight to homeopathic evidence as they do scientific. Thus we run the risk of looking as bad as each other…
We can bleat on and on about how our position is based up science, reason and evidence and that the homeopaths position is based upon anecdote or hearsay. But unless our audience knows something of the philosophy, logic and rationale underpinning the scientific method… Well it just looks like we are trying to claim some sort of special status for our opinions and testimony. (I advance this view a little better in this previous blog.)
It probably makes us look a little bit like a group of sneering elites coming down from our ivory towers to dispel the foolish notions of the ignorant proles.
This is not true, but perhaps we should all work a little harder to stop people coming to that conclusion?
We perhaps need to be a little more proficient in the dark art of image management…
Maybe tone down the self-righteousness and accept the frustration that comes from having our requests for evidence and the like ignored by the homeopaths in favour of yet more of the same linkspam. We shouldn’t be matching the homeopaths bile with bile of our own. It’s hard when we are being accussed of being in the pocket of big pharma of being bigoted and of somehow threatening freedom of speech or choice… But we really should cool off a little and perhaps take the moral high ground here.
Otherwise the net result of 1023 will be turning Joe Public off of not just homeopathy and alternative medicine but also science and evidence.
Play nice guys.
Cheers
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by endless_psych: 1023: suffering from the Dawkins effect?: Could we do with cooling down the #ten23 debate a little? http://bit.ly/7lXvVS…
I think to a degree people already hold the view that anything said by scientists is us “desending from our ivory towers” that’s why natural medicine et al are listened to at all because they’re not related to science
Yes, I think it’s an interesting issue in general.
Is science is incompatable with the social norms of debate and discussion? Because it actually does back up it’s position with evidence and the like but in debate and discussion the social norm for information is that of opinion.
For people seeking a consensus or middle ground science causes some issues because (for instance) there isn’t a middle ground between homeopathy being shown to work and not working. It has been shown not to work. The closest science and skepticism gets is that “sure if it could be shown to work we would have to accept it does, but it doesn’t so we don’t”.
Unsure how to deal with this though. Other then offering caveats like “well yes but were you aware that this study contradicts that…” and the like or various convoluted and tortourous attempts at being politely dismissive.
Without perhaps running the risk that people get the impression that science IS a matter of opinon :S
An excellent post as ever.
Healthcare is such an emotive issue, and perhaps doubly so if you’re making a living out of an industry that skeptics appear to be able to ridicule so easily. This lack of communication in favour of name-calling and foot-stamping (on both sides) is frustrating to all, but maybe none more so than the general public stuck in the middle.
Some more effective means of communication would be greatly appreciated! Attempts to ask serious questions to homeopaths before I got involved in the skeptical community were never particularly successful, but equally skeptics can appear elitist or snobbish.
My personal opinion on the matter, however, is that when asked a direct question, it tends to be the skeptics who give a direct answer. As a “normal” person who happens to be skeptical in my approach to what goes into my body, I have to wonder why the homeopaths I’ve tried to engage with on a serious level have immediately cried “big pharma” or deleted comments left on their blogs?
Sorry for the long rant!
Cx
(I am an out and proud skeptic working a regular admin job, who cares about public health issues, as everyone should!)
I swither between being an out and out skeptic and a reluctant one. Reluctant because I am very much aware of how skeptics can appear to those outside the movement. As spoilsports as petulant naysayers. As you mentioned snobbish and elitist.
Although I don’t think the elitist thing nessecarily carries a lot of truth. As skeptics communicate these issues and start these debates presumably based on the fact that they give creedence to their sparring partners. IE. We believe that they have the ability to understand our arguments and the evidence we use to back them up. In this way skepticism isn’t elitist it’s actually attempting to be more inclusive isn’t it?
Rambling a bit there!
I have a few homeopaths answering questions on a previous post (they may have vacated the premise after checking on my skeptical credentials though…)
I think the “big pharma” cry happens because of cognitive dissonance. If someone provides evidence and rationale for why a dearly held position is wrong then your only recourse left is to question the source. Then its a small hop, skip and a jump to believe it’s some sort of nefarious conspiracty.
Indeed. I’ve got two a-levels and a BTEC in fine art to my name and have always been made to feel welcome at skeptical events. Conversely, the amount of distrust I’ve been met with by those who practice alternative medicine (some of my mum’s friends are classic examples) is somewhat unsettling, especially if they’re losing their rag over a simple question about vaccines – if you’re giving advice to people about health, it should be the norm to have researched both sides of an argument!
One little thing I did find amusing, was that there are levels of quackery. It’s quite alright for a homeopath, aromatherapist or a chiropractor to poke fun at reiki or faith healing, but quite another apparently for a GP or microbiologist to poke fun at them!
Cx
I don’t think the assumption you are making about the general public and their perception of skeptics is fair. For a start there is a good argument to be made that skeptic is not a term recognised by the general public. While scientist or doctor are clear terms in my experience skeptic is not. You only have to tell someone that you are going to Skeptics in the pub or listening to Skeptics Guide to the Universe to get the question ‘what exactly is a skeptic?’.
It is easy for us to become insular and make assumptions of the skeptical movements’ influence on the wider community and while I would conceed we are making ground there is still a general ignorance about what skeptics are. To say that skeptics are seen as spoilsports and naysayers is a little unfair.
I would say that an individual skeptic when in a debate either online or face to face can been seen as a spoilsport etc but this has a lot to do with the way in which that individual approaches the subject and the discussion. For years I would isolate myself due to my attack approach when debating astrology or acupuncture but I have learnt to soften my approach slightly and generally find that, aside from people that have a vested interest in their woo, they are willing to listen to reason and consider the posibility that they are wrong.
I always maintain that most people aren’t stupid and given the right information and the tools with which to judge things critically they will make the right choice.
I do think we run the risk of being seen as spoilsports and naysayers. However I didn’t state this was how the general public viewed us rather that we run the risk of being viewed in such a way.
I don’t hold that this is entirely down to some people having a more “forthright” debating style then others.
I think it’s a nit of a catch 22 – make science and evidence seem like a matter of opinion or be dismissed as negative or “closed minded” (using of course the definition of closed minded that seems to mean disagreeing with who you are debating…).
There is likely a continuum and your mileage will of course vary .
Sorry for the misunderstanding; I guess my point was though that when you get involved in these campaigns you are only exposed to the extreams of both sides of the debate and can fall into the trap of highlighting these views as the general consensus.
Perhaps there is a general antipathy to alternative medicine amoungst the general public, happy to go along for mild ailments but when it comes to getting protection for maleria 99% of people are going to go to their doctor.
I don’t want to sound like I am downplaying the importance of 10:23 or the problem, just trying to take a step back and think about the middle of the bell curve so to speak not just those compelled to fill #ten23 with crap on twitter.