Today I'm tipping my hat to John Horgan, a blogger who writes for Scientific American, for his extraordinary article entitled Dear "Skeptics," Bash Homeopathy and Bigfoot Less, Mammograms and War More.
In his article, Horgan rightly points out that today's so-called "science skeptics" are little more than dogmatic tribal cultists (my words, not Horgan's) who celebrate "skeptical" thinking concerning their selected philosophical targets while vehemently denying anyone's right to question their own beliefs on things like breast cancer screening, vaccine safety, global warming and genetically engineered foods.
As Horgan eloquently explains in his piece, real skeptics are skeptical of everything, not just selected topics that are targeted by the madness of status quo science crowds (i.e. the "cult of scientism").
Real skepticism means questioning everything... especially the status quo
A real skeptic, in other words, would bring critical thinking to all of our science narratives and cultural beliefs, including those that cover the origin of the universe (cosmology), the origin of the human species, the nature of consciousness, the long history of indigenous botanical medicine, the cancer industry and mammography, homeopathy, antidepressant drugs, water filters, the existence of God and everything else imaginable. But far too many of today's infamous "skeptics" (such as Richard Dawkins) are really just cultists who labor under the false banner of "science." And they're offensive to real critical thinkers, it turns out.
"I don’t hang out with people who self-identify as capital-S Skeptics. Or Atheists. Or Rationalists," explains Horgan. "When people like this get together, they become tribal. They pat each other on the back and tell each other how smart they are compared to those outside the tribe. But belonging to a tribe often makes you dumber."
I've seen this myself, on both ends of the medicine spectrum. I've seen insanely stupid pharmacology experts swear that statin drugs are such miraculous chemicals that they should be dripped into the public water supply. But I've also seen "raw foodies" at festivals swearing that their "water vortexer machines" could levitate water in defiance of the laws of gravity.
In both cases, my critical thinking alarms go haywire, and I shake my head in disbelief that so many people are so gullible, regardless of their level of academic education or technical mastery of certain subjects. A highly trained doctor with an IQ of 200 can be just as functionally stupid as a high school dropout, I've observed. In fact, when it comes to medicine and health, many so-called "experts" are so ignorant of reality that they almost seem cognitively retarded.
http://www.naturalnews.com/054105_science_skeptics_Scientific_American_cult_of_scientism.html
Another layer to this cake is the strong likelihood that many of the leading 'Skeptics' are active (Government) disinformation propagandists, people like Michael Shermer, who ignore or obfuscate hard scientific evidence when it comes to high level corruption, such as with the September 11 attacks. Other issues related to science also come into play, such as hiding experimental evidence indicating the reality of ESP and the UFO phenomena.
I suspect that the leading proponents are recruited because they have corrupt, or intelligence-linked, backgrounds.
[Posted at the SpookyWeather blog, May 26th, 2016.]
In his article, Horgan rightly points out that today's so-called "science skeptics" are little more than dogmatic tribal cultists (my words, not Horgan's) who celebrate "skeptical" thinking concerning their selected philosophical targets while vehemently denying anyone's right to question their own beliefs on things like breast cancer screening, vaccine safety, global warming and genetically engineered foods.
As Horgan eloquently explains in his piece, real skeptics are skeptical of everything, not just selected topics that are targeted by the madness of status quo science crowds (i.e. the "cult of scientism").
Real skepticism means questioning everything... especially the status quo
A real skeptic, in other words, would bring critical thinking to all of our science narratives and cultural beliefs, including those that cover the origin of the universe (cosmology), the origin of the human species, the nature of consciousness, the long history of indigenous botanical medicine, the cancer industry and mammography, homeopathy, antidepressant drugs, water filters, the existence of God and everything else imaginable. But far too many of today's infamous "skeptics" (such as Richard Dawkins) are really just cultists who labor under the false banner of "science." And they're offensive to real critical thinkers, it turns out.
"I don’t hang out with people who self-identify as capital-S Skeptics. Or Atheists. Or Rationalists," explains Horgan. "When people like this get together, they become tribal. They pat each other on the back and tell each other how smart they are compared to those outside the tribe. But belonging to a tribe often makes you dumber."
I've seen this myself, on both ends of the medicine spectrum. I've seen insanely stupid pharmacology experts swear that statin drugs are such miraculous chemicals that they should be dripped into the public water supply. But I've also seen "raw foodies" at festivals swearing that their "water vortexer machines" could levitate water in defiance of the laws of gravity.
In both cases, my critical thinking alarms go haywire, and I shake my head in disbelief that so many people are so gullible, regardless of their level of academic education or technical mastery of certain subjects. A highly trained doctor with an IQ of 200 can be just as functionally stupid as a high school dropout, I've observed. In fact, when it comes to medicine and health, many so-called "experts" are so ignorant of reality that they almost seem cognitively retarded.
http://www.naturalnews.com/054105_science_skeptics_Scientific_American_cult_of_scientism.html
Another layer to this cake is the strong likelihood that many of the leading 'Skeptics' are active (Government) disinformation propagandists, people like Michael Shermer, who ignore or obfuscate hard scientific evidence when it comes to high level corruption, such as with the September 11 attacks. Other issues related to science also come into play, such as hiding experimental evidence indicating the reality of ESP and the UFO phenomena.
I suspect that the leading proponents are recruited because they have corrupt, or intelligence-linked, backgrounds.
[Posted at the SpookyWeather blog, May 26th, 2016.]
