Bunk Science: debunking the debunkers!!

[jakesteele]

Hello, everyone. I am new to this forum and I am really glad I discovered it. It's like a breath of fresh air. Kind of a middle ground between two extremes; psuedo-skeptic sites and the Alex Jones type sites.

I have been doing battle on the JREF site lately and I am amazed at how closed minded, arrogant and insulting they can be when they attack 'woo' like a school of piranahs. One of the things I have been doing is compiling a list of their common tactics and another list of the major psychological traits. I have found that they hate it when you tackle an issue and bore in on the emotionality that drives them.

I would welcome and be very appreciative if people could post some of the traits/characteristics that they have noticed and some of the experiences they have had. I would also like to have the administrator maybe start a new topic forum that would be sort of a grab bag of tactics, etc. I guess we could call it the "War Room" or something like that.

If anyone is interested in doing this, please feel free to drop me a post.

Jake Steele

[Scepcop]

[jakesteele]

Actually, you're right. I wasn't paying attention. The 'debating skeptics' forum will do just fine. I just want one place to compile traits, characteristics, tactics and war stories so we have a deep pool of resources.

However, I would like to see a forum about psychology in general. The strongest weapon I have found to screw up their chi is dealing with the emotionality/psychology that actually drives them much more than their intellectual mind. As an example, I will give a short excerpt from Straight Dope pertaining to the Jenny McCarthy 'Body Count' website. My last post seems to have shut them down. I can tell because I wasn't rat packed. Here it is the title of the thread: Jenny McCarthy gets a talk show (and the antivax movement)


They always use this website as their 'Popular Mechanics' type of an ultimate, final and impeccable source to justify their attack on Jenny Woo.

http://www.jennymccarthybodycount.com/J ... /Home.html



Here is my last post that they are ignoring as though it wasn't there to show you what I mean by emotionally/psychology driven:

Old Yesterday, 08:22 AM
jakesteele jakesteele is online now
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Join Date: Jun 2007
The site says: "Jenny Mc. Body Count". Body count means the amount of dead people. When a person creates a body count it is either accidental, negligent or intentionally. Body count as in war.

The guy starts out with an incriminating and provocative title that makes one think she is directly responsible for negligent homicide and then the guy covers his ass at the end of the page with a chicken shit, cop out disclaimer to distance himself from the original message...oops!

The trouble is with some people is that they have a deep seated emotional need for targets to vent on. This guy served it up on a platter for you and spoon fed it to your psychological reality map that then selectively edited out that which did not conform to its architecture.

I suggest you read this book to see what you fell for and how you fell for it.

http://www.amazon.com/Father-Spin-Ed.../dp/0805067892

[Scepcop]

Hi Jake,
Interesting. I didn't know about the Jenny McCarthy case and haven't looked into it before. She was a beautiful queen back in the 90's, from what I remember. But since I'm not knowledgeable about medical stuff, it's hard to know which side to take because it's one side's word against another. You know what I mean? And in health issues, it's sometimes better not to take risks. I know people who have passed away because they stopped taking their meds and thought that herbs would heal them instead.

I mean, herbs do help and do work. But in a life or death situation, I would err on the safe side just in case.

In the case of vaccinations, either way the chances of illness from not being vaccinated and the chance of getting autism from one, are statistically small.

What is your position on flouride, aspartme, mercury in dental fillings, power lines, and the safety of microwaving your food? Would doctors and scientists knowingly lie? Most people have a conscience don't they?

I just finished putting together a list of pseudo-skeptical characteristics last night. Here it is.

http://debunkingskeptics.com/characteristics.php

Let me know what you think.

[jakesteele]

Just to fill you in on the Jenny McCarthy reference I made, she has a son who has autism and she felt that it was caused by toxic agents found in vaccinations; thimersol(sp) etc. As a result, she started a 'Green Vaccination' movement that advocates two things: 1. eliminate all possible unnecessary toxins from vacs and 2. stop giving them to young children so many at a time and in bunches like they do now.

What the CSIOPtics did was to immediately come out with this website that says in big, bold letters: Jenny M. Body Count. There is a list of numbers that show how many deaths have allegedly been caused from not getting vacced and the same for 'unnecessary' diseases that have been eradicated. They keep saying she has an anti-vac stance and is evil and irresponsible for promoting negligent advice. I jumped their shit about it. I pointed out that she was not anti-vac, but pro green vac. and not giving so many at once. They, of course, try to keep the argument framed the way they want and the last post -- the one I linked above -- shut them up because that pulls them out of their comfort zone and that's something they won't tolerate it. If you can't smash it, pretend it's not there, I guess.

I read your stuff on the traits on psuedos and I loved it and also the New Zealand lawyer article. In just a couple of days on this site and I have collected more good stuff that I could have in a year of cyberwars with the, what I call, CSIOPtics. This is good stuff, and if we all pitch in and keep bringing stuff in from all over we will have a formidable arsenal.

As far as this goes:

"What is your position on flouride, aspartme, mercury in dental fillings, power lines, and the safety of microwaving your food? Would doctors and scientists knowingly lie? Most people have a conscience don't they?"


I don't really know a lot about this stuff until I dig into it more, but I have been into herbs, and avoiding any product that has chemicals in it like underarm deodorants, etc. Aspartme I don't trust at all. It was 'fast tracked' by the FDA and hit the market like a tornado without people having a clue about it other than it was the 'new sugar' only better. I am having my mercury fillings replaced and I filter my water. I know that stuff wasn't designed by nature so I am always leary of them.

Now, as far as power lines, oh, baby, baby, they've got some really bad ju ju. I used to run long distance everyday and I was in a area that had several different routes available. One took you directly under those huge, big assed towers that you can hear buzzing from a distance. The first time I ran that route I got to withing about 25 yrds. and all of a sudden I was weak and drained of all my energy and almost had to stop and walk. When I came out the other side and got about 25 yrds. away from them, all my energy came back. That freaked me out so I tested it out by walking back towards the towers and marked where I started feeling drained. Then I did the same for the other side. It was 25 yrds., also. I tested this out about 20 times over the next month because I had to take into account that sometimes when I ran I was just run out of energy naturally. EVERY TIME, without fail, I got the same results. I have done similar tests with CRT monitors and tube tvs. Same thing. Needless to say, I have flat screen tv and monitor.