The Process Of Skeptical Blogging – The Bridge

“Now we can go straight / into the middle eight / a bridge that is too far for me”

There’s been a few comments and links popping up over the past two days that I thought I’d collate here – mostly to add to the discussion of skeptical blogging that I started earlier with The Process of Skeptical Blogging – Part One, but also to help myself when looking back over ideas and inspirations to know ‘this is who said it and where I found it’.

That in itself is another aspect of blogging that people don’t often talk about – it’s a useful repository of ideas and concepts that you can revisit again.

Plus, you can indulge in your rather daggy fondness for lolcats after all these years.

Daniel Loxton, firstly, has been putting in some time on the Daniel_Loxton Twitter with some excellent snippets of advice that are well worth checking out – so, I guess he’s really the main author of this blogpost today. There you go, guest-writers aren’t so bad after all…

Skeptics: don’t opine outside expertise! @NewHumanist editor on how he stumbled badly on AIDS denialism.

Skeptical Fail#1: supposing your personal incredulity trumps expert consensus (on climate, fluoridation, vaccines, 9/11 etc)… Skeptical Fail#2: thinking science and skepticism objectively confirm our own pre-existing moral or political preferences. Skeptical Fail#3: giving cover to denialists *because* they adopt the “skeptic” label. Skeptical Fail#4: thinking a year listening to podcasts gives you better knowledge of paranormal minutia than proponents. Skeptic Fail#5: Using ad hominems. Ad hominems are as ugly and offputting coming from us as from anyone else.

As a whole culture of newbie skeptics grows up online, knowing our stuff is more essential than ever. (in response to Karen Stollznow – discussion of such can be seen in Live Blogging At The ‘Where Do We Go From Here’ Panel At Dragon*Con and in the video Day Four – The Final Footage of Skeptics At Dragon*Con).

There’s much more in his Twitter stream to read, but that’s a sample. Notice that there is also a strong suggestion to familiarise oneself with earlier histories of skepticism (one great free pdf can be found thanks to Skeptic.com at ‘PDF Junior Skeptic sample issue: “Great American Skeptics’).

Loxton concludes with: “This now-classic SI article should be mandatory for all skeptics” – it is a link to  Bridging the Chasm between Two Cultures by Karla McLaren and illustrates quite well a concern that I’ve had about the more aggressive attitudes towards the not-so-skeptical:

I couldn’t identify my work or myself with the scam-based work or the unstable personalities so roundly trashed by the skeptical culture, because I was never in the field to scam anyone—and neither were any of my friends or colleagues. I worked in the field because I have a deep and abiding concern for people, and an honest wish to be helpful in my own culture. Access to clearheaded and carefully presented skeptical material would have helped me (and others like me) at every step of the way—but I couldn’t access any of that information because I simply couldn’t identify with it. Until now.

…I see your faith in human intelligence, your anger about swindlers and charlatans, your open-minded ability to question authority and accepted wisdom, and your willingness to fight to further a cause close to your heart. My favourite people in the New Age culture share these same qualities. I feel that people in your culture are capable of reaching out to my culture in sensitive ways that will have a chance of being heard—because it’s vital that you are heard.

This, as I’ve pointed out earlier, should be a factor kept in mind as a skeptical blogger. An awareness that your audience may not hold the same beliefs as you but is seeking information and would be willing to identify and learn, if they felt they could.

Secondly – a question raised by one of my readers, Sean the Blogonaut (that has already been somewhat addressed above!):

What’s your thoughts on writing skeptically in reference to qualifications, more specifically, what qualifications do you see as necessary to write skeptically/about skepticism?

If you have read the dressing down of fellow skeptical blogger Theo from Hunting Humbug in the Skeptic Magazine I would appreciate your thoughts on that as well?

I’ll have to go home and look over the comments about Theo before I can talk about that – sorry, I thought I brought my copy of the Skeptic in with me today. But I can do that in the comments of this post later.

In general, I don’t see what particular qualifications are particularly needed to write about skepticism, as long as you make an effort to write well, reference, research, reflect and continually challenge yourself to keep an open mind.

(I just noticed then that Daniel Loxton snapped out “SkepticFail 6: Repeating a standard “skeptical explanation” without finding out if it’s true—or if there’s any “mystery” to explain” and “SkepticFail 7: Thinking we are inherently smarter than paranormal or pseudoscientific believers.” More good points…)

For example, there’s quite a few Humanities-trained writers who are science and skeptically-minded writers (interview with Jennifer Ouellette in episode #35; Dr Karen Stollznow in episode #17 of Skeptic Zone podcast) – James Randi naturally springs to mind. I would also question whether ‘writing skeptically well‘ also means a skeptical-cartoon blog or a photography blog or a ’sing-along’ blog? There’s more than one medium you can use!

What I really find unacceptable? When people are standing on a stage saying (and I quote): ‘this is my job’ in terms of representing skeptics – and doing it poorly or actively alienating their stakeholders due to their ego. Things like talking about ‘Getting more into critical thinking’ without defining it; failing to research the history of skeptical activists or activism; and not defining themselves as a ‘feminist’ or even ‘a skeptic’ consistently. If you’re going to say you represent a group, at least demonstrate some humility in regards to improving for both your sake and others by doing the research – and acknowledging there’s a spectrum that you’re apparently the ’spokesperson’ for. Matter of ‘heat/kitchen’.

I always think that we never stop learning, not even in our last moments. Sometimes that seems to be overlooked for the sake of popularity amongst, what is after all, a veritible gold-fish bowl of skeptically-minded people in an ocean of difference. One of the reasons I continue my education, in several different ways.

Thirdly (yes, there is a ‘thirdly; after all of that) – there’s a rather enjoyable discussion (debate?) between Greta Christina and Victor Stenger in the comments about online atheism on the blog of The Friendly Atheist (a review of the book ‘The New Atheism’). Naturally, a discussion of online atheism, including the contributing factors (or purported lack thereof) of blogs in comparison to books, ensues.

One of the last commentators, Hank of Dangerous Intersection, sums up:

The point is that blogs and books complement each other and neither should ever be overlooked in favour of the other or underestimated. Books can and do cover things to a depth that blogs by their necessarily brief nature may not be able to; blogs are able to rapidly respond to new and changing situations and raise discussion and debate about them almost instantly (PZ Myers comes to mind with his swarming of ridiculous polls!).

Blogs are also, as it happens, one of the best tools to raise awareness about pertinent books…For those of us fighting on the same side, it’s time to recognise where our strengths are and where each approach can strengthen the other.

So, I would certainly draw upon both resources (with the usual modicum of skepticism, as raised by Daniel Loxton previously) when composing either a blog-post or another written piece of work.

I taught during an era when drawing upon print and non-print for a written or oral response to a task didn’t primarily stem from online sources – yet even then we’d instruct students to read widely and question what assumptions and arguments were put forward by a text. Find alternative accounts and weigh up the arguments. Develop your own ideas and put them to the test. Nothing has changed in that regard.

That’s enough for today. Thanks for reading.

Tagged as: All About Me, blog, blogging, Education, how to write, podblack, process, Science Blogging, skeptical blogging, structure, writing