Summary of
PseudoSkeptic Fallacies
(Click below for examples)
- Characteristics and Behaviors
- New! Hijacking Skepticism to mean its opposite
- Selective Skepticism / Establishment Defenders
- Perpetual Denial of Evidence
- Double Standards, Contradictions and Lies
- Dismissing Anecdotal Evidence as Invalid
- Overgeneralizations and Distortions
- Cherry Picking of Evidence
- Straw Man Arguments
- Forcing Explanations That Don't Fit The Data
- Invisible Pink Unicorn / Santa Claus Gambit
- Occam's Razor
- Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence
- Fallacies of UFO Debunkers
Overgeneralizations and Distortions
SCEPCOP member and Afterlife researcher Dr. Victor Zammit hit it right on the head in this entry on his Survival Science website:
- "Skeptics can be seen to overgeneralize saying for instance that because some mediums are fraudulent therefore all mediums are fraudulent.
- Further, skeptics distort information saying that because it may be possible to reproduce certain phenomena by fraud - even at odds of one billion to one - that they have proven that fraud took place. In this sense, the skeptics find it impossible to transcend their 'metaprogram' (their overriding world view of reality) of materialistic beliefs."
Anyone with experience with pseudoskeptics have seen such tactics time and time again. They are quick and eager to find any little thing to prove their argument, and will use any little thing to invalidate something they refuse to accept. Of course, nothing and no one can be perfect, so pseudoskeptics attempt to capitalize on that, using whatever minor imperfection they can find to try to explain away and dismiss any claim they don't like that threatens their dogma, even the most improbable thing. And if it's not there, then they will make it up or hallucinate it.
Common sense and psychology will tell you that overgeneralizing and distorting facts is an obvious tell-tale sign of bias and/or fanatical beliefs, and not the behavior of an open objective mind.
As further evidence of their ulterior motives, Randi told me once that he only goes after famous psychics and mediums, because he seeks to achieve notoriety by taking them down. To him, going after Uri Geller was like hunting down a big elephant. There was glory in it. And that's what their funders want them to do, as these pseudoskeptic groups tend to be funded by pro-establishment interests.
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