Should Skeptics Retire the Word ‘Woo’?
In the past if you’d asked me to define ‘woo’ I would have done so by example: ‘You know, stuff like homeopathy, astrology, ghost hunting…’ Then I’d probably throw in something controversial to end the list with a flourish: ‘… Christianity.’ The list is supposed to capture the essence of ‘woo’ to convey that the thing all these different ideas have in common — that’s woo. If you’d asked: ‘Well, what’s that? What do they have in common?’ I’d have probably replied: ‘Well, they are unscientific, irrational, superstitious…’ and then kind of trailed off. On reflection, maybe what I mean when I say ‘woo’ is: Things people like us think are nonsense.
Last month I gave a talk on communication, on how to talk about difficult ideas, how to successfully change people’s minds and perhaps maybe even your own. I was speaking to a skeptic group, to my home crowd, and although the tone of my talk verged on scolding at times- ‘Come on guys, don’t use insulting memes, let’s engage in productive dialogue even with anti-vaxxers.’- that sort of thing, I didn’t expect any opposition. I was there to give advice to skeptics about how to be better advocates, how to get this message we care so deeply about across more effectively. How to push back the rising tide of woo. So naturally I used the word, perhaps several times.
The next day I checked my email. Apparently not everyone at the previous night’s event was a skeptic. An audience member and passionate supporter of alternative medicine had written to me in what seemed like a fury to complain (amongst other things) about my use of the term ‘woo’. You’d think as a skeptical advocate I’d have a thick skin for these sorts of emails, but I really don’t. I work hard to make my talks as respectful and fair as I can, partly to avoid receiving emails like this one and partly because I used to believe in a lot of things I now consider woo. I know believers are not stupid, or lazy thinkers, they have a different perspective and many don’t have the critical thinking tools that I am still working on aquiring. So, I don’t get disgruntled emails very often and it genuinely disturbed me to hear I’d upset this woman. She told me I’d made her feel like part of an outgroup by using the word woo. Ironically the talk I gave was all about how to make people feel respected and heard, she felt neither.
That said, I didn’t really get her complaint. I have a podcast The Seeker and The Skeptic in which I chat to my woo-curious friend Cat about all sorts of topics from channeling extraterrestrials to psychedelics and she’s never complained about my use of the word woo being offensive or othering. In fact, I think she uses it sometimes to describe things that are a bit too ‘far out’ even for her. Which confirms my suspicion that at least to some extent the word has come to mean: Things people like us think are nonsense.
Before replying to the disgruntled email I checked the dictionary, and it’s right there in capital letters next to the word:
‘woo woo’ or ‘woo’ INFORMAL•DEROGATORY
Oh. I guess my email correspondent has a point, it’s not a neutral term. The definition reads: ‘Relating to or holding unconventional beliefs regarded as having little to no scientific basis, especially those relating to spirituality, mysticism or alternative medicine.’ It’s thought to have been coined in the 80’s in imitation of ghostly noises, or sci-fi movie sound effects, or the noise Mickey Mouse’s friend Pluto sometimes made. I hadn’t heard the word until I became a skeptic. I’d always assumed that one of the pantheon of elder American skeptics must have invented it, maybe James (The Amazing) Randi, it sounds so natural in that accent coming out of their mouths. But the origin is unknown.
I think in the US the word woo is in more common usage than elsewhere in the English speaking world. In the month since I received that email I’ve been listening out for non-skeptics using it and have recorded two instances, both American women one musician speaking casually on a podcast and one in a scripted Netflix drama. Here in the UK I’ve often had to explain what I mean to non-skeptics but once I have I’ve noticed how quickly the word catches on. The word woo fulfils a function that no other word in our language does, apart from maybe ‘harebrained’ or ‘crackpot’ both of which even I am aware are considered derogatory. To me it sounds inoffensive, almost affectionate. But naturally my email correspondent, who had never heard the word before googled it and saw: INFORMAL•DEROGATORY Which probably explains some of her ire.
It’s inevitable that any group of people will develop their own words to talk about their common interests and concerns. It makes communication quicker, easier and more accurate. Anyone reading academic literature from an unfamiliar field will know that there’s a language barrier to overcome before you can start understanding the concepts. There’s business-speak and therapist-jargon and probably hundreds of other situation-specific dialects we slip in and out of everyday without even noticing. These dialects form because they facilitate communication between group members, but they have a more sinister counter-effect: they exclude non-group-members. I’ve often given up trying to understand something because I don’t have the time or energy to overcome a language barrier. Or because I’m too intimidated to ask what something means because it seems everyone around me already knows. When researching a podcast I often find myself at a witches sabbat or in a post-trance sharing circle trying to guess what people mean by words like ‘energies’ or ‘spirit’. Instead of asking for clarification I resort to using context clues or try to dredge up my memories of new age vocabulary from way-back to avoid ‘outing’ myself as, well, part of their out-group.
When I used the word ‘woo’ in my talk I did so because it was apt, because I was confident the audience would understand it and because it’s part of my normal lexicon. But it’s possible I had another unacknowledged motivation, I wanted to signal to my audience of skeptics that I am ‘one of them’. Whatever my intent it had the effect of making at least one audience member feel alienated and confused. That’s one reason to consider being more careful when using this word. As an advocate for skepticism I’m undermining my own project if I use words that push people away.
Another reason I’ll be more cautious with this word in the future is because of something else my email correspondent pointed out: the word lumps together a lot of (in her view) very different ideas, practices and philosophies. She couldn’t see the commonalities in creationism, mediumship and chiropractic. To her these are completely different things some legitimate, some absurd. You can only see the common essence once you’ve adopted the skeptical worldview. Once you are assessing things based on reason and evidence you’ll notice a cluster of ideas that always fall short, that’s woo. Or is it? There are some things that even I, a card carrying skeptic (yes, I made the card myself, what of it?), enjoy that are not based in reason and evidence. Some of the things that are most important to me are not ‘backed by science’. Art, morality, personal relationships… there are a lot of things that I do which are certainly unconventional and if not irrational then a-rational, but I don’t think of them as woo. I guess that’s why the definition includes a list: ‘spiritual, supernatural, alternative medicine’ to make sure we know it’s not just unscientific or unconventional ideas that count as woo. It’s a particular type of unscientific or unconventional idea, you know, the ones people like us think are nonsense.
Of course we skeptics don’t dislike woo out of blind prejudice. We don’t like these ideas because they make claims about the world that can’t be supported and they encourage people to act on those claims in ways that could put them in harm’s way. I strongly (and irrationally) believe that green is the best colour, but I don’t insist my preference is an objective fact or that wearing a green shell suit will cure cancer. If I did, maybe it would be fair to call me a woo. We often use ‘woo’ to describe people who promote or believe in unscientific ideas as in the Wiktionary definition: ‘That reporter is a bit of a woo woo’. It’s used as a warning: don’t take them too seriously, you might embarrass yourself, or get hurt.
The problem with using the word that way is that it presumes what should be the conclusion of your argument. Instead of illustrating the dubious nature of the claims they make and pointing to the potential harm you dismiss them as you introduce them and often skip the hassle of critical analysis. It’s dismissive, and sure some ideas are so bad they should be dismissed, but not without exploration and explanation. For skeptics the urge to dismiss is understandable. We’ve heard people say they’ve invented perpetual motion machines in their garages one too many times so we dismiss a new instance of this claim as woo before we hear the wild-eyed inventor out. Then, because we are busy and constantly bombarded with suspect claims, it becomes tempting to dismiss every idea voiced by a sandal-wearing incense waver as woo. Which is doing the sandal-wearer and ourselves a huge disservice. Some of the greatest discoveries of our time were made under the influence of Nag Champa… probably.
Dismissing bad ideas without taking a proper look is bad enough, but dismissing people as woos, is rude and counterproductive, it is a subtle form of name calling and is very unlikely to convince anyone of the value of skepticism. People could respond to accusations of wooish behaviour with a shrug and said: ‘Well, you know me I like a bit of woo.’ If we never stop to unpack the term and explain why we don’t like woo this is a reasonable response. If we use woo to mean ‘Things people like us think are nonsense’ then people will respond: ‘yeah, well I’m not like you I’m a woo and people like me don’t think this stuff is nonsense.’ Touche. By labelling not just ideas, but people as woo we run the risk of creating or reinforcing a woo identity instead of dismantling dangerous pseudoscience. We grant people permission to indulge as long as they wear the appropriate name tag.
After chasing these thoughts around a sleepless night I replied to my email correspondent thanking her for her feedback and reassuring her that I would reconsider my use of the word woo. But although I’m grateful to her for making me think more carefully about the word I’m not sure I’ll be able to completely give it up entirely. I wish there was a neutral non-derogatory term for unscientific ideas that make claims about the world that may be harmful… but let’s face it any word fulfilling that function would assume negative connotations when used by skeptics. We don’t like that stuff, it would be dishonest to pretend we were impartial. But I am going to try and curb my usage, limiting it to referring to ideas rather than people and saving it for conversations with fellow skeptics and my long-suffering podcast co-host. I suggest other skeptics, especially non-Americans, do the same. Calling someone a woo is rude, calling an idea woo is not an adequate refutation and if our goal is to educate the public we’d be better off using words that they understand.
