Activist 'skeptics', why do you do it?

[supercrayman]

I was hoping the 'skeptics' on this forum would comment on this one. I see a many people writing articals on why this and that and this is rubbish, hogwash or flawed... However in this writing the seems to be a huge focus on UFO's, God/religion based stuff and ESP. Oh I forgot bigfoot also Why is the no focus on examining the papers on child development that are written, or engine conversion products on the market which make bigger claims than they can really deliver in terms of emissions? Why do self proclaimed 'skeptics' usually choose the UFO/God/ESP route to there skeptical activities of debating? Just curious.

[ProfWag]

Why is the no focus on examining the papers on child development that are written, or engine conversion products on the market which make bigger claims than they can really deliver in terms of emissions? Why do self proclaimed 'skeptics' usually choose the UFO/God/ESP route to there skeptical activities of debating? Just curious.

This may be bait on a hook, but I'll bite...Could it be because in the definition of "skeptic" that you appear to be using when (UFO/God/ESP), there is nothing paranormal about child development and engine conversion products?

[Arouet]

Welcome!

The skeptic movement is pretty diverese, I think people are interested in all sorts of topics. Some topics are more popular than others. I'm not sure what an engine conversion product is or why skeptics should be interested in them: are they a scam? As for child development: think that's a general interest for psychologists already and there are plenty of books out there on the topic, and plenty of papers ("child development" gets over 40,000 hits on pubmed).

Do you think there is a need for the skeptical movement to be more involved in those topics? What is the prime issue there and what role do you skeptics playing there?

[Arouet]

Not sure if you were suggesting this, PW< probably not: but just to clarify, obviously the skeptic movement is interested in more than just the paranormal!

([hijack]by the way: I can't figure out for the life of my why anyone -let alone skeptics - are so interested in the bigfoot issue. I mean, it'd be cool to discover some other primte, but are we that excited to discover any other new species of animal? [/hijack])

[Craig Browning]

Not sure if you were suggesting this, PW< probably not: but just to clarify, obviously the skeptic movement is interested in more than just the paranormal!

Yea, you guys tend to bitch about most anything

[ProfWag]

Not sure if you were suggesting this, PW< probably not: but just to clarify, obviously the skeptic movement is interested in more than just the paranormal!

Yea, of course you're right. I wasn't thinking very clearly this morning considering what I was getting ready to do. I just saw that the poster wrote about the things paranormal so that's what was on my mind. So, what does the poster want to be skeptical about engine conversions...(?)

[Arouet]

So, what does the poster want to be skeptical about engine conversions...(?)

I'm wondering the same thing. Like Craig said, skeptics like to bitch about pretty well anything, so if there is a real concern there, I'm sure he could get some kind of interest.

I suspect, however, that his post was more of the lines of: if skeptics really cared about protecting the public or doing good things they would focus on my pet issue rather than on the issues that interest them.