So, whilst all the rah-rah rubbish about the ‘women to men’ ratio of The Amazing Meeting turned out to be a complete and utter non-issue (hey, just like I’ve said all along! What a surprise!!) – one of the female presenters did have something to say about the show. In particular, what she noticed about Penn and Teller. Some interesting reading here, from Newsweek’s Lab Notes – Sharon Begley on ‘Penn & Teller And Believing In Dumb Things’:
My small contribution was a talk arguing that skeptics should not count on the press to enlist in their debunking crusade, something that also extends to the fight between evolution and creationism. So as not to bore you with the whole 30-minute speech, let me just say that my basic argument was that people believe weird things because of emotion, something no number of magazine and newspaper stories on the solidity of the science behind evolution (or the lack of evidence for homeopathy, psychic phenomena et al, as I also discussed in a column last year), is going to change. Add to that the public’s antipathy toward the press, and there’s no way the press can help the skeptics’ cause.
Now, I disagree with this to some extent. Because of the network that was created through Translucent Science (and the bloggers / writers of Bad Science, Gimpy’s Blog, BrainDuck and Holford Watch – check those entries I’ve linked to! – and myself), we were able to create and distribute press-releases and develop media contacts that were quite frankly, rather successful in getting the message out about the collapse of Dore and questions regarding their business practices… well before the press itself was keeping track of what was going on. I must see how Ben Goldacre felt about Begley’s speech, considering how proactive he is!
At the Wagga Wagga Aust Skeptics convention and at the 2006 Melbourne Convention, there were several journalists (including Dr Paul Willis of ABC’s Catalyst (who is a particular hero of mine for with his suggestions for Translucent Science) and Australian Newspaper’s Leigh Dayton) who were encouraging building up contacts. I certainly know it’s a job that Dr Karen Stollznow will be working on in her new role!
I know that I’ve been rather lax in keeping track of ‘what is Dore up to now’, but once some of the research and studies calm down, I’ll be back into it again. As always, visit the sites above for great examples of proactive stakeholders who aren’t afraid to bring the message to the media for everyone’s benefit.
I’ll write more about the meeting eventually, but for now I can’t get something out of my mind. Penn and Teller did a Q & A with the audience the day before Teller alone spilled the beans on spoon bending, and one question yielded a surprising answer. Someone asked Penn whether he still believed that man-made climate change is bunk, as he has said more than once. Penn’s basic answer was: I loathe everything about Al Gore, so since Gore has been crusading against climate change it must be garbage.
Now, Penn & Teller’s terrific “Bull****,” now beginning its sixth season on Showtime, has debunked psychics such as John Edward, feng shui, acupuncture and other forms of pseudoscience and the paranormal. But here was Penn, a great friend to the skeptic community, basically saying, don’t bother me with scientific evidence, I’m going to make up my mind about global warming based on my disdain for Al Gore. (Both Penn and Teller are well-known libertarians and supporters of the libertarian Cato Institute, which has been one of the leaders in spreading doubt about global warming.) Which just goes to show, not even the most hard-nosed empiricists and skeptics are immune from the power of emotion to make us believe stupid things.
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Self described “anarcho-capitalists” like Penn also believe that completely unregulated economies are best, even though no such economies have ever existed. Even the most most free capitalistic economies have governmental laws and regulations so their claims are conjectures. Novelists like Ayn Rand have to construct fictional worlds to illustrate how their ideas work.
In addition, there are rarely any half measures with these people. Society must embrace anarchic capitalism to reap the benefits they promise. Any government regulation to them is equivalent to submitting to slavery at the point of a gun. Any dilution of their ideal is anathema. Demand for perfection based on an ideal is one indicator of fundamentalist thinking.
Ah yes, there was some comments about Ayn Rand material at TAM6 too? One of the Australians mentioned it to me. At any rate, I finally got a bit of time to respond to the element about ‘the media is unhelpful’, because my own (sure, limited) experience has shown me that there is a way to lend a hand to the media regarding stories that don’t necessarily tend towards getting bitten in return.
It’s great how Penn, who is a big guy who cheerleads for science, can’t stand Al Gore, who is also a big guy who goes “Rah! Rah! Science!” in front of an audience. Whether Al Gore is personally intolerable has jack to do with the validity of climate science, just like the validity of evolution has nothing to do with Penn’s hairstyle. It’s the ice cores, stupid.
But that’s not the best part.
What I found absolutely hi-larious was how Penn could say that we should abolish the public school system — YA, RLY: somebody asked him how to fix the schools and his answer was to privatize the whole schmeer — moments before he complained about how Hearst ruined the press through commercialization.
In the Venn diagram whose circles are skepticism and libertarianism, there exists a strange, lens-shaped region of overlap which focuses irony to a sharp point of flame.
To his credit, Penn also said (I paraphrase), “I have a lot of smart friends who are into climate science and who say that global warming is real.” His final stance was rather neutral, I’d say, and he did admit that he could have blind spots on political issues — an idea Michael Shermer would do well to consider, if I might be so bold to suggest it.
Oh &*@#, you’re kidding.
I have been told by one friend who works for a skeptic group, that there is a trend towards ‘public schools bad’… but that was his openly voiced opinion?
It’s this Venn diagram that is increasingly… well, it’s pissing me off. The belief that ‘skepticism = atheism’. The belief that ‘skepticism = particular political view’. It’s just garbage. When it starts encroaching on schools, prepare to create elitism and division due to an ‘…ism’ – something that people say is so antithetical to education all along!
By the way, my experience – public school educated as a child; went private for my university and have taught in private schools since… but there is NO way in hell that I think that education is for one ‘group’ only. It could have very well been me as a child, having Penn claim that I deserve to miss out.
Will say this – very interested in getting the DVD for a few things that were shown. And *ahem*, yes, it’s kind of from the ‘Shermer camp’ who told me about prevailing attitudes towards ‘private schools’…
I only watched the post Season 1 eps of Bullshit sporadically because the political content just made it dull. Even if I shared the political outlook, that style of rhetorical blitzkrieg just doesn’t work with social issues. And when they got shills like Michael Fumento on, my Penn and Teller loving heart broke a little bit.
Yeah, know what you mean. By the way, hello! Read your blog via Skepbitch!
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