Objectivity test for Skeptics here - Should it be required?

[Scepcop]

Hi all,
Most of you have probably noticed that I am not a control freak, like most forum owners/moderators are. And that I am far more open, objective and rational than most people are. That's why I open issues up for discussion (for Christ's sake, at least give me credit for that, most people are not that open and objective!)

Nevertheless, as I said in the beginning of this site, I would like this forum to be a community of objective people rather than one of faith based belief or faith based denial.

Now that skeptics are pouring in, I propose this objectivity test for them. Let me know what you think.

On my mailing list, there is this skeptic I know who is very smart, well read and knowledgeable on a variety of topics. He is one of those rare people you meet in life who know a lot about any topic, compared to average people at least. He also argues without ridiculing and attackers others. However, I have caught him lying red handed once about his Ebay user name profile. The whole thing was proven and detailed here. You will see that he was caught lying red handed and has no explanation to offer for giving false info.

http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/Page5.htm#Ebay

Now here's the test to skeptics here.

What do you think of this? Are you willing to admit that a fellow skeptic is wrong for lying and deliberately giving false data about his Ebay username? Or will you religiously deny it, cover up for him, and try to pin the blame on me, like a religious cultist/dogmatist would?

I think this would be a good test, because an honest, objective truth seeker not blinded by dogma will admit that lying is wrong, even when it's by someone on their side. Don't you think? Most truth seekers will admit this of those on their own side, while on the other hand, people who are purely subjective will cover for their side and for their hero/icon even if they are wrong or lying. So the question is, will skeptics here do the same?

The rationale behind this objectivity test is this:

"If someone cannot even admit that one of their own is wrong for lying, even though they were caught red handed, then what good is it to spend time discussing or debating with them? What good could come out of it, when their objectivity and honesty are obviously shot? What hope is there of reasoning with them?"

Do you see my point?

I'm thinking of this objectivity test as a requirement for skeptics to remain here. What do you think? Good idea? Or flawed? Why or why not?

[General Zod]

If I were to be objective about your story, I'd have to hear both sides before determining who is right and wrong. But for the purpose of your question, I'll assume for the moment that everything you said is 100% true.

This person lied to you about his EBay credentials. So what? I'd have doubts about this person's personal integrity, especially if he was unable to come clean (I have my doubts about your sanity if you would send sensitive, personal information to this person, but that's another matter). It doesn't mean that he's incapable of making well reasoned arguments based on facts, and that anything he says should be dismissed. I wouldn't accept any arguments based solely on his authority- but the same goes if I thought he was the most honest person in the world.

As for whether or not people should be allowed to post here- as the site's administrator, I suggest you come up with a membership agreement for your users, with guidelines such as "Be civil and polite", "Attack the argument, not the arguer", etc.

[Franc28]

Your whole process of evaluation seems to assume that your moral premise "lying is wrong" is a valid principle. I'm not saying it necessarily isn't, but there are clear cases where lying is good (such as misdirecting a murderer so he doesn't kill children), so the principle is clearly not universal. All moral premises must be validated, and if you're asking us to operate on that basis, you need to validate or modulate it first.

[Purple Scissor]

It's really not a bad test. I would question whether it would do you any good, but in dealing with skeptics I definitely note they will seldom, if ever, admit when someone on their side is wrong. Even in the most obvious cases. Even in the cases when they are in the process of castigating you for the same thing. In this case, however, they might not care enough (as with others, I assume it is a cut-and-dried case like you say). But if it is a case where a skeptic got it wrong, and that skeptic has a lot of emotional appeal, I think it is a rather good test. The principle is good, I do not know about the case.

You should probably have a case where a skeptic got it wrong. I think there was a case with a Russian girl where they said it was a "scientific test" when it was obviously not up to any standard of science, and the data were biased in an arbitrary way. That could be used as a test: "were they upholding the standards of science?"

[Scepcop]

[Scepcop]

[Scepcop]

[Franc28]

I don't know why the person lied, but I see no reason for that person to lie, apart from not wanting to lose the argument. So yea, I would prudently say that it seems pretty irrational for that person to lie about such a thing.

[General Zod]

[Purple Scissor]

"Drafting rules doesn't control behavior. "

True, but it covers your ass when you need to ban someone.

"Perhaps though, like you said, we should make the test about someone who has more emotional appeal to them (since these skeptics are more about emotion than any real logic), like Randi or Shermer."

Yes, any appealing skeptic should do. It is interesting that many of the skeptics actually make the case against pseudoskepticism while sometimes seeming to practice it. Hyman, as a major example. I think in the Natasha case Hyman -I read his paper on it once but hardly remember- but he handicapped her case, then said the stats were not significant. But to do that he had to assume her claim was unlikely. If no assumption was made that her claim was unlikely, she passed. But the main thing was just that there were so many loopholes and you should not debunk a person if you test them in such a sloppy way.

We will have to think more, we need a really obvious case.

Here is another kind of test. A real pseudoskeptic will make a really obvious pseudoskeptical mistake at some point, and in that instance you could use a list of pseudoskeptical mistakes like what I've been talking about to see if they admit it. Then you don't have to "swear them in."

[Scepcop]

There are some skeptics who will never admit that they are wrong though.

For example, the Dr H fellow in the Ebay feedback test, has said on numerous occasions on my mailing list that "God doesn't exist" and that "unicorns don't exist". Then later when I accuse him of trying to prove a negative, which is an impossibility, since no one can scan the whole universe and every dimension to make sure that they don't exist, he then denied ever making such a claim. Then when I pulled up past emails and posts from him where he said that, he just ignored them and refused to admit that he was wrong.

That's the kind of butthead behavior that they have, that even when caught red handed, will not acknowledge their error.

General Zod, what do you think of that kind of behavior by other skeptics?

BTW, that Dr H fellow is a lot like Cecil Adams of www.thestraightdope.com. Any of you ever heard of him? They have a ton of articles on all sorts of tidbit issues and questions, and provide a lot of fascinating info and content. Cecil Adams seems to be a human encyclopedia, a man who knows everything, almost that is. However, as soon as you bring up anything paranormal, his mind completely closes up and he immediately dismisses it as bunk, as though it were a Gospel law to do so, because anything paranormal must be false in his book. Dr H is the same way.

What I don't get though, is how someone with so much knowledge can also be so closed minded at the same time, and be so quick to deny anything that upsets their paradigm. That is odd.

Have any of you read the articles on Straight Dope? They are very pro-skeptic and anti-paranormal. Their forum is very active, but like a police state too. If you bring up points or evidence that they can't refute or questions that they can't answer, they automatically just ban you rather than deal with you. I guess some skeptic sites can't deal with truth.

[Franc28]

Actually Scepcop, it is far easier to prove a universal negative. Proving universal negatives (that is to say, falsification) is actually how science (real science, not consensus science) progresses. Likewise, it is very easy for me to prove that a god or a soul cannot exist, but it would be virtually impossible for anyone to prove that a god or a soul does exist (if only because of the impossibility of differentiating natural v hypothesized non-natural effects).

[Scepcop]

How would you prove that God doesn't exist? Do you have the ability to comb the whole universe and outside of it too??? You can't even get into space!!! Explain.

[Purple Scissor]

No, it is not really that he is trying to prove a negative so much. It is the lack of scholarship: he thinks that someone is saying that life after death is "non-natural." That is the third sign of pseudoskepticism

Anyway, I just listened to that video of the guy who questioned the challenge at the randi forum (I forget where it was posted). So for the record: the skeptics were right, I think: if Callahan wants to take the challenge he has to apply, it is not enough to post stuff on some web page. And the claim that they announced it wasn't going to happen at the beginning of the lecture is not verified because the video producer didn't show them saying it wasn't going to happen after all. If they didn't say that, then maybe they really never intended to have the challenge there. One has to be even handed, there is as much -well, more- bunk on the believer side as the skeptic side. It looks to me like propaganda against the challenge.

Randi said "contact the guy who didn't show up," saying that the speaker should contact the people who didn't show up to the challenge to see why they didn't: don't ask him to say why they often do not show.

I don't know where on this forum the vid was posted, but tell me and I will re-post. Did I miss something? Or did the people saying how lousy Randi looked?

[Franc28]