The Problem with Political Skepticism
And why the way in which one communicates science matters
By MARTIN REZNY
Hello Will, I’m a bit surprised you reacted to my response, which is probably a good sign, but I’m still troubled by how you did that. Since the problem that I see here is emblematic of a larger problem in the global skeptical movement, I think an open letter treatment could be a good opportunity to illustrate why I think there is such a thing as a wrong way to communicate science. Let’s take it one statement at a time:
Hi Martin. I’m not a scientist, but I have been a research engineer for years.
Well, that’s a can of worms already. Much like in the example of the difference between “math” and “maths” in American versus British English, it’s important to understand that “science” as a singular concept only exists in a very general sense, but it really is many different things. There are many different mathematics, and there are many different sciences.
On one level, it’s the issue of qualification. I have degrees in political science and media and communication theory, so my expertise covers the science (and equally importantly, philosophy) of the communication of science, especially when the communication has political elements. Engineering education and experience doesn’t cover this topic, meaning there’s no reason to expect that it would prepare engineers to understand how it can go wrong.
However, I’m not saying that only experts like me can have founded opinions about how science should be communicated. I’m also not saying that only we can do it right. What I’m really saying is that every scientist is almost as unqualified as any lay person when it comes to analyzing or commenting on almost all scientific subjects. The only shared core of all science is the scientific method. It is objectively defined, but not trivial to understand.
I did go a little too far with that phrase. But I don’t believe it is biased because it is within the scientific method.
You see, your statement objectively isn’t within the confines of what the scientific method allows. The problem with your statement is that it is based on a subjective judgment. Scientists may want to “squash fanciful notions”, but the scientific method doesn’t even compute that statement.
Nothing is fanciful to science, meaning presupposed to be impossible with the implication to avoid pursuing it as an avenue of research. In science, all hypotheses are equal, until enough reliable data appears to tip the scales one way or the other. It is unscientific to let emotional bias of any kind interfere.
Ideally, every possible hypothesis should be thoroughly investigated and tested, with the expectation that until the data is in, you don’t know, and that even after the data is in, there could be something wrong with the data and you still might be wrong. Science is so powerful because it is self-correcting.
When scientists become self-assured, or any kind of fake-sure, they cease being self-correcting. There’s a term for that, epistemic arrogance, which was coined by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. What a scientist should aspire to develop is epistemic humility — simply put, accurately estimating how little you know.
Because the objective fact is, we know so incredibly little. I feel like a broken record, given how often I repeat this, but we don’t know, at all or almost at all, what dark matter is, what dark energy is, what consciousness is, whether there is any merit to string theory or how many dimensions there are, which interpretation of quantum mechanics is correct, and those are just the known unknowns. It’s a fact that we’re far from being able to to judge what’s possible.
Not wanting to accept this uncontroversial, objective, neutral scientific fact and act in accordance with it doesn’t appear to have any justifiable motivation. Epistemic arrogance either serves to stroke one’s ego, to project strength to hold onto political power, or to manipulate public opinion to fuel one’s ego or power, or it is a product of faulty reasoning. Am I wrong?
Skeptical movement in particular doing things out of egotism, for political power, or out of error is as close to a genuine scientific heresy as one can get. Ego, politics, and fallacies corrupt the science we have and prevent all kinds of science that we could have had. There’s only one simple rule to know if something is anti-science — if it leads to less research or worse research.
The rest of your response then illustrates various specific fallacies and failures to apply the scientific method correctly:
Which explanation is more likely? which hypothesis fits all the available data and fits in our current understanding of the laws of physics? The parallax and the interfered radar.
Firstly, why do you not include pilot testimonies into “available data”? As a social scientist, I can assure you that testimonies are data, especially from trained observers. This data directly counters your plausibly-sounding assertion. Why doesn’t it matter to you? Secondly, plausible doesn’t equal definitely true — there’s a term for this as well, it’s called plausibility fallacy.
Occam’s razor is a statistical, probabilistic tool, to be used when there is no data to analyze. It’s not supposed to be used to prove or disprove any single hypothesis for which you have data, and it is supposed to be used with the understanding that sometimes, just not very often, the weird explanation may be correct. You always need to do your best to check for that possibility.
If you always default to Occam’s razor, then by its own rules, you are guaranteeing there will be some percentage of cases in which you will definitely arrive at a wrong conclusion. When the issue at hand is one with big stakes, like maybe aliens are here flying around, you shouldn’t risk it.
Thirdly, we know there’s even more data that wasn’t released. A reasonable scientific position would be to demand the release of all data, and reserving judgment until you have it.
EDIT: After watching the most recent interview with David Fravor, it appears there may not be more footage in this case after all, but he is adamant that the debunkers are misinterpreting it to appear more mundane out of ignorance of how the IR equipment works.
As for our current understanding of the laws of physics, how are you so sure that it is sufficiently complete?
Until more data can be shown to disprove the more simple explanation we shouldn’t jump to wild conclusions.
Here, “wild conclusions” are again a political, unscientific concept. To be clear, I’m not saying that what you should do is to put it differently. Using a euphemism that hides that this is what you think would be worse, actually insidious. As a scientist, one is not supposed to think in such terms.
Also, there is more data. Not just testimonies, either. This was not the first UFO incident involving professional observers. There are decades of them since WW2. Perhaps the biggest technical problem with your analysis is how selective it is. If you were writing a thesis about anything else, would you ignore the whole historical context of the phenomenon? That’s a science foul.
As Richard Dolan, the most respected UFO historian, puts it, there’s so much UFO-related evidence of all kinds that it is an embarrassment of riches. If you reject that, I really don’t know what to say — even Wikipedia agrees that there were many incidents, that there are official documents that discuss them, that there are credible witnesses, and that’s just the beginning. There were physical effects documented, material and organic samples tested, and yes, there are tons of footage, of variable levels of quality, admittedly.
There’s a difference between no conclusive evidence, and no evidence at all. Most research isn’t final until it’s final, but what matters is how the research is being conducted. Not in the pursuit of which hypothesis it was conducted, or what political implications it would have if it ended up supporting any particular conclusion. Engineering-wise, there almost certainly are real things zipping through the universe that no human would be able to fathom, let alone explain. That’s why humility, and open mind, are so important here.
I agree the phase was too strong but I wanted people to see that wild explanations sometimes lead us astray.
Using “wild” twice in subsequent sentences looks really bad. If I were judging this as a debate competition, a thing with which I have almost 18 years of experience now, I would have to tell you that language like that makes you sound not just unreasonable, but unhinged. I really don’t mean it as a personal insult, this is simply how communication of ideas works.
Beyond that, what is this “astray” you speak of? The only direction in science is more data and more research means good. What are you proposing? Are you saying that there are hypotheses that preventatively should not be tested? Because that’s an anti-scientific position if there ever was one. Are you saying that our current paradigm shouldn’t be questioned? Because that’s an anti-skeptical position if there ever was one. These are not minor issues.
In science, no possibility is ridiculous. Considering something ridiculous, wild or fanciful, that’s pure bias. Ridiculing or dismissing people who research fringe subjects, consider fringe hypotheses, or claim to have experienced something unexplainable, which skeptics often do, is a form of marginalization and abuse, even if the target person or group’s beliefs are demonstrably false. It’s also foolish from the scientific perspective.
It’s the same taboo/dogma “shun the unbeliever” nonsense that’s supposed to be the worst thing about religion. Where do your tinfoil hat wearing jokes come from, for example? How do you know which beliefs (and people who have them) are to be made fun of? These are not products of critical thinking one does for him- or herself, these come from peer pressure or indoctrination.
Am I making sense? This really isn’t an attack — if you believe that any of what I’m saying is wrong, please correct me. Is anything I claim to be a fact demonstrably not a fact? Are any of my arguments resting on logical fallacies? Is anything I describe as a problem not really a problem, or am I missing more important problems?
As a scientist, I’m sincerely concerned with how the skeptical movement conducts itself. As an expert on propaganda, I’m concerned with their propagandistic language. As an expert on conspiracy theory, I’m concerned with how they abuse the term to fit their narrative. As an expert on politics, I’m concerned with their internal politics and their politicization overall.
Being corrected would put me at ease, but based an all available data, I have to hope against Occam’s razor on this one.
