Science and Skepticism

Josh Landy
Why does so many people believe in conspiracy theories?

Ray Briggs
Do we need to evaluate the evidence for ourselves?

Josh Landy
Or should we just trust the experts?

Ray Briggs
Welcome to Philosophy Talk, the program that questions everything…

Josh Landy
…except your intelligence. I’m Josh Landy.

Ray Briggs
And I’m Ray Briggs. We’re coming to you via the studios of KALW San Francisco

Josh Landy
Continuing conversations that begin at Philosophers Corner on the Stanford campus. where Ray teaches philosophy, and I direct the Philosophy and Literature Initiative.

Ray Briggs
Today, we’re thinking about Science and Skepticism.

Josh Landy
You know, I think people are too skeptical about science: they don’t believe in climate change, they refuse to wear a mask in the supermarket, and when you show them evidence they’re wrong, they don’t believe you.

Ray Briggs
I don’t think that they’re skeptical enough. A lot of them believe that there’s a global conspiracy of people lying about that stuff in order to get research money. I mean, if they’re so skeptical, why do they believe their own conspiracy theories? They should learn more science and think for themselves.

Josh Landy
That’s really a great point about people not being skeptical of their own skepticism. But still, Ray, is science actually gonna solve that? I mean, sometimes teaching people facts just makes them even more committed to conspiracy theories.

Ray Briggs
Well yeah, but the science isn’t just about reciting facts. It’s about thinking critically. It’s about evaluating the evidence for yourself.

Josh Landy
But how is a layperson supposed to evaluate the evidence for something as complicated as climate change? I mean, it would take me years to become a climate expert. Don’t I have to trust the scientists?

Ray Briggs
Okay, maybe lay people can’t do original research, but they can still read scientific articles and think for themselves.

Josh Landy
Well, you can’t always get those things for free. And even if you do, how do you know your understanding that?

Ray Briggs
Okay, fine. But a layperson can still read science news articles, ones that are written for a general audience.

Josh Landy
Oh, those general news audience Articles? You got to admit some of those are biased and sensational, or just plain confused.

Ray Briggs
Well, yeah, an educated person should be able to spot the bias by reading carefully—and by asking the right questions.

Josh Landy
Right, an educated person. But to get an education, you have to trust the experts. You rely on your science teacher, your science teacher relies on a textbook, and a textbook relies on original research published by scientists. I don’t think any one of us can do that independently.

Ray Briggs
Okay, you’re right that people can’t learn science alone. But we still need to be critical thinkers, because sometimes scientists make mistakes. Sometimes they even lie. Like, how about Andrew Wakefield and how he made up a bunch of stuff about vaccines causing autism?

Josh Landy
Man, yeah that guy has a lot to answer for.

Ray Briggs
Yup. So that’s why we need to keep our wits about us, even when we’re reading articles in science journals. Skepticism is how scientists keep themselves honest.

Josh Landy
You know what, that’s a really good point. I’m gonna grant you that skepticism is really good for scientists. But not everyone’s a scientist.

Ray Briggs
Well, ordinary people can be scientists too. And they should be. Just think about all those citizen science websites, where ordinary people pool their information about bird populations, or classify galaxies based on telescope images and sky surveys.

Josh Landy
Oh, I love those websites. But still, I don’t know. I mean, anyone can gather data, sure. But that’s not the same as deciding which questions to study in the first place, or making a real life decision based on scientific results. I still think some things are best left to the experts.

Ray Briggs
Yeah, yeah. But even if you can point to the experts, how are you going to get people to believe them?

Josh Landy
Well, what if you could use faith to fight skepticism about things like social distancing and wearing masks? We sent our roving philosophical reporter Holly J. McDade, to meet one pastor who’s trying to do just that. She files this report,

Holly McDede
It can be difficult to argue with people skeptical of mainstream science. They often use personal experience and “logic” to reach questionable or flat out untrue conclusions. Like in this clip from the 1939 version of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.”

Hunchback 1
The Earh isn’t round—it’s flat!

Hunchback 2
How do you know?

Unknown Speaker
I’ve observed it in all my travels over Europe. It’s flat, everywhere is flat!

Hunchback 2
Oh, let’s listen to the play.

Holly McDede
Flat Earthers are less of a public health concern than people skeptical about the risks of COVID-19. During a Senate hearing on reopening the economy, Senator Rand Paul passed along some feedback to Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Rand Paul
All I hear, Dr. Fauci, is we can’t do this, we can’t do that, we can’t play baseball. Well even that’s not based on the science. We need to not be so presumptuous that we know everything.

Holly McDede
And at the core of a lot of this lockdown skepticism is a deep distrust of institutions. We’re told to trust the science. But throughout history, the medical field has exploited marginalized communities.

Terris King
They rightly are skeptical.

Holly McDede
Terris King is a pastor at Liberty Grace Church of God in Baltimore.

Terris King
undefined skeptical because of the continuous unequal treatment that they’ve received—not through stories just of Tuskegee in the past.

Holly McDede
He’s referring to the 40 year research study known as a Tuskegee experiment. In that study, black men infected with syphilis were deliberately left untreated,so federal officials could study the disease.

Terris King
That’s always the story. That’s what up. But today there’s unequal treatment in hospital system. They have seen heard and witnessed on equal treatment in the healthcare system.

Holly McDede
King is a pastor in a part of Baltimore hit hard by COVID-19. And he often turns to Scripture to combat skepticism about science.

Terris King
There is a connection between Jerusalem and Athens. Intellectualism, as in Athens, is not at odds with the faith of Jerusalem.

Holly McDede
One example is the story of Noah’s Ark.

Noah
Father Enoch told me one day, if man continued in his way, that the Creator would annihilate this world. So what I saw was true. All life blotted out because of what man has done.

Terris King
A leader took an approach to save himself and his family following the instructions of God.

Holly McDede
King says it’s a story of solid data gathering. While on the ark, Noah sends out a raven to get a sense of whether Earth is habitable. The Raven doesn’t return and then he sends out a dove. The dove returns with nothing, then an olive branch, and eventually doesn’t return at all—which signals to Noah that Earth is ready for him.

Terris King
But he still waited to hear the voice of God before he opened that ark.

Holly McDede
Another example: specifically, Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. He’s there with his disciples, Peter, James and John. Here’s that passage put to song in the musical “Jesus Christ Superstar.”

Jesus Christ, Superstar
Take this cup away from me, for I don’t want to taste its poison.

Holly McDede
In this text, Jesus needs to distance from them—to pray to God to remove the cup of death.

Terris King
There was something that he was required to do, that compelled—that pulled him away from them, to be at distance, because he had a mandatory requirement to gain strength.

Holly McDede
The connection for Terris King is that we all need to stay physically distant if we want to stay healthy. The church service is still remote, and his congregation understands why. The sermons help but he wants others to reach out to the community. King preaches a lot about the importance of getting a flu shot. But he’s skeptical about the Trump administration’s rush to get a COVID-19 vaccine out by the end of the year.

Terris King
I haven’t made any attempt to convince people that they should be more immediately confident in the COVID vaccine.

Holly McDede
He says skepticism, at least in this case, may not be a bad thing. For Philosophy Talk, I’m Holly J. McDede.

Josh Landy
Thanks so much for that inspiring report. Holly. I’m Josh Landy. With me is my Stanford colleague Ray Briggs, and today we’re thinking about science and skepticism.

Ray Briggs
We’re joined now by Michael Shermer, founding publisher of Skeptic magazine, and a prolific author, most recently of “Giving the Devil His Due: Reflections of Scientific Humanist.” Michael, welcome back to Philosophy Talk.

Michael Shermer
Oh, it’s nice to be back.

Josh Landy
So Michael, you put a lot of efforts into debunking pseudoscience and thank you very much for doing that. Is that purely intellectual? Or do you have a relative who’s really into conspiracy theories like I do?

Michael Shermer
Oh, no, it’s it’s quite personal for me. And my profession, really, I’ve been interested in all these topics, the supernatural, the paranormal science and religion, God freewill, conspiracy theories, aliens and so on since I was in college and in college, I learned how to think like a scientist and that made me more skeptical naturally, because the evidence for most of these things is not very good. So when I started Skeptic magazine, I realized there was a niche for specializing in particular claims that most scientists are not trained to evaluate like firewalking or extraterrestrials or Bigfoot or whatever, because they’re busy with their own field. So, skeptic in a way is kind of a niche magazine for paranormal claims, supernatural claims extraordinary claims of any kind, certainly of which conspiracy theories would fit. And really it also touches on a really super important philosophy of science issue, which is, how do you know what’s true? What where’s the line of demarcation between science and pseudoscience say are between science and non science are nonsense. And really all the examples I delve into are examples of that demarcation problem.

Josh Landy
That makes sense. I’m wondering if there might be another part of your origin story that you and I have in common you, you and I, I hope you don’t mind me saying. We both used to be on the inside of a belief system built on faith and aren’t any longer. Do you think that that’s helped you sort of understand the way that these systems are constructed?

Michael Shermer
Oh, for sure. Because I was once a born-again Christian, I understand, you know, theological arguments, because I used to make them. So you know, the proofs of God’s existence. You know, like Thomas Aquinas is five proofs, you know, I used to make those arguments. And, you know, of course, they were countered in my philosophy classes. And so I learned the counter arguments. And so when I debate theists Yeah, I know exactly where they’re coming from. And and I also know what it feels like to believe, you know, when you really have faith in something when, when you believe something for which the evidence really doesn’t support it, but you believe in anyway, I know what that feels like. So I’m sympathetic to most people that believe things that I don’t believe I think most people are not faking or pretending to believe for some ulterior motive. I think most people have, the beliefs they they proclaim, they hold they really do hold them, they really do believe it.

Ray Briggs
So what do you think motivates people to have those beliefs, especially when they contravene a clear scientific consensus, like climate change or social distancing?

Michael Shermer
Yeah, those things are very politically affiliated. So when, when liberals accuse conservatives of being, you know, the party of stupid, and the science deniers, and, and so on, that they’re not science deniers across most fields, they accept most science, they happily fly on airplanes, 30,000 feet in the air, because they completely trust engineering and math and physics and so on. Or, you know, they accept the plate tectonics theory of geology and earthquakes and so on. It’s when a particular area of science a branch is affiliated with the other political party. So for example, Al Gore’s film and inconvenient truth that put climate change on the map, you know, for which he was duly awarded lots of prizes, also made climate science now a liberal field and therefore, a liberal belief, let’s call it and therefore conservatives naturally feel they have to reject it, because you know, Gore was the vice president of the Democratic Party. So you know, that that’s unfortunately—

Josh Landy
You don’t think that film that film, that division?

Michael Shermer
Well, it did, it did somewhat, but that highly politicized it, that’s what kind of put it on the map, a lot of conspiracy theories about the left and what they were trying to do against free markets and capitalism and that sort of thing that really launched it. There was some there was some climate denial I recall in the 90s, even the late 80s, but it was more underground and it wasn’t quite as politicized.

Josh Landy
You’re listening to Philosophy Talk. Today we’re thinking about science and skepticism, with Michael Shermer, author of “Giving the Devil His Due: Reflections of Scientific Humanist.”

Ray Briggs
Why do so many people believe in conspiracy theories? How can we explain science to the public when science is constantly evolving? How can we as a society nurture scientific curiosity?

Josh Landy
Reason, revision and responsibility—when Philosophy Talk continues.

They Might Be Giants
Science is real!

Josh Landy
Science is real—but how do we convince people to believe it? I’m Josh Landy. And this is Philosophy Talk, the program that questions everything…

Ray Briggs
…except your intelligence. I’m Ray Briggs, and we’re thinking about science and skepticism with professional skeptic Michael Shermer, author of giving the devil is do reflections of a scientific humanist

Josh Landy
COVID is also real and it’s still keeping us away from the studio. So we’re pre-recording this episode from our respective homes and we can’t take your phone calls. But you can always email us at comments@philosophytalk.org, or you can comment on our website where you can become a subscriber getting access to our library of more than 500 episodes.

Ray Briggs
So earlier we were talking about why people don’t always trust science. So Michael, do you think that lack of trust in a scientific consensus is an issue The visual problem or do you think that society is designed in a way that makes that problem worse?

Michael Shermer
Oh, well, it’s both for sure. And again, it depends on which particular claim we’re talking about that you mentioned COVID, and social isolation and masks and so on there, again, you know, most of us don’t understand the technical aspects of epidemiology, and how that science is derived. Did Oh, climate science, it’s a technical science, who really understands it. So when people speak out publicly, really what they’re doing is they’re signaling say, if they believe the science, that they accept science as a viable method of gaining reliable knowledge. And, and therefore they trust that it’s not faith, really, it’s more confidence or trust from the experience of scientists being right, the self correcting mechanisms of science and so on. When conservatives say they’re skeptical that, again, they don’t understand the science either. Neither side understands the science very well. They’re signaling publicly, more of their political commitment. So we know, for example, research on on many of these fields that, that scientific knowledge of a particular area is not a predictor of who accepts it. And as I said, most people don’t understand climate science. And when I say I accept climate science, except global warming, and so forth, but really what I’m saying is I accept that science works. And most of the time that consensus is right. So I’m acknowledging that system. And somebody who says I doubt it, that they’re saying the opposite, at least for that area, because of politics.

Ray Briggs
So as an ordinary person who doesn’t understand the ins and outs of climate science, how should somebody decide who to trust?

Michael Shermer
Yeah, so there we have the problem of which sources and because in the modern age, we have so many, essentially, almost infinite number of sources online, you have to do some filtering. And therefore the idea of the scientific consensus, I think needs to be more properly understood. It’s not a democracy, we’re not basing this argument on authority. We’re acknowledging that the that the claims have already been vetted. That is, that is what popper described as conjecture and refutation is the scientific method. These conjectures have already been refuted or attempted to be refuted by professionals in the field. And by the time we consume it, say in the New York Times, Tuesday, science section, it’s already been filtered. And I can read with great confidence that, you know, the claims that are being made are probably true, not based on faith or authority, but because I know that the people that are making those claims have already been tested and debated and disputed and refute, attempted to be refuted, and so on. And that system works, I think we need to pound that more of how the how the system of science works, which to me is more important, really than the facts themselves. That is we should have confidence in it, because the scientists themselves are trying to debunk each other.

Josh Landy
I like the I love the way you’re describing science here. Because when we say trust the experts, we’re not talking about reliance on authority. We’re talking about a reliance on the system, the method of science, just as you say it’s a it’s a kind of ecosystem where where planes get tested, and results are replicated. And so we can actually trust it’s not just trusting individuals. But the worry then is what do we all do? In a world where that very system that very, that very method is having doubt cost on it, right? Because so the philosopher TM makes this nice distinction between the epistemic bubble in the echo chamber. So we’re all in a little bit of a filter bubble will receive things that match our views. And that’s a problem. But the bigger problem is the echo chamber where even if you see a different claim, you immediately reject it. Because it comes from the fake news. Or it comes really elites, or there’s some one of the scientists know, I feel it in my gut, you know, I’ve got a snowball in my hand that dispersion, what can we do, right? I mean, I love the way you’re just I think you’re 100%, right about how science is this wonderful self regulating system? Even if, of course, it’s not always right. You have a better chance with it than anything else. But But how do we convince other people of that?

Michael Shermer
Yeah, for a while I was discouraged about that, particularly, for my job as a science educator and publisher of of a scientific magazine, because of the backfoot. So called backfire effect, that is people that believe something and you show them contradictory data, not only do they not change their minds, they double down on their beliefs and hold it even stronger. But those early studies that was called the backfire effect, those early studies were not replicated a new study since then show that you can get people to change their minds, especially if it’s presented in a way to two factors here. First, if you present evidence visually, because we’re a visual primate species, and so, you know, graphs and charts are super easy to read something that would be the equivalent of a USA Today level, graph or chart that anybody can glance at and get it right away. Secondly, removing the political or religious or ideological component of the belief. So, for example, just analogously I debated creationist you know, for my whole career and you know, if you give a conservative Christian the choice between Darwin and Jesus, they’re not picking Darwin, okay, the arguments over before you even open your mouth. So you have to take Jesus off the table. You can accept Darwinian evolution without having to give up Christianity without giving up your central core belief that you define yourself as because no one’s going to do that. And if you do that, then usually the denial of the science or the the blinders fall off, and people can look at it and accept it because they don’t have to give up something that’s core to their beliefs. Same thing with climate change, when I talk to conservatives about it that are expressing doubt. You know, I try to convince them that that really a lot of free market, conservative capitalists accept climate change. And in fact, they’re capitalizing, if you will, on green technology and solar panels and electric cars. And Elon, I call it the Elon Musk argument. You know, that, look, you can be the next Elon Musk and make a billion dollars selling green technology. You know that and that lots of people on their team accept the science and that makes it okay. It’s kind of a social acceptance, or social signaling process.

Josh Landy
You’re listening to Philosophy Talk. Today we’re thinking about science and skepticism with Michael Shermer, founding publisher of Skeptic magazine, and we have an email from Emiliano in Berkeley. Emiliano says this. Skepticism is built into the scientific method and a critical part of the process of vetting methods, analyses and discoveries, wholesales skepticism of science as an approach to human knowledge, however, feels extreme, harmful and destructive. It to phrase collective human trust borrows important progress. No other model affords as much consensus or collaborative opportunities, science imperfect as it is, rather than claiming that science itself is wrong. Skeptics have a science back claim should ask the question, or seek evidence to justify whatever alternative stance they have. This is encouraged and in many ways, the very point of science, which is meant to build on and revise itself over time, as we often say, when alternative explanations come up, that’s an empirical question, how could we test it? So what do you think about that? Michael?

Michael Shermer
Yes, well, that’s that is the key empirical testing. So really, what we’re after here is a deeper question. How do you know what’s true? You know, so people make this distinction, say, between science and faith or, or science and religion or like, or you hear this on the other side of say, post modernism, that there, there are many other ways of knowing? Well, okay, that’s kind of true, in a sense that they’re different cultures are elements of culture that make up in science is only part of that sciences and everything. But on the other hand, knowledge is knowledge. If you claim to believe in something, you know, it has some basis, in fact, or does it. Now, given that none of us are omniscient, and we’re not deities? No one knows for sure. So pretty much every decision we make about what to believe or not, is made under uncertainty. And then you’re into the realm of well, this is what science does, that is everything scientists do is made under uncertainty. So, you know, signal detection theory and statistical detection theory is all grounded on this idea of probabilistic truth, you know, truth with a small t, you know, apportioning your beliefs to the evidence or, as Carl Sagan like to say, you know, the agree principle, Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. And, you know, so everything we believe should be along those lines, not just things facts, claims about nature, but about economics and politics and religion. I mean, these are all knowledge claims. I have no barriers there. There’s no uh, epistemological walls for me, you know, you know, if you want to make a claim about progressive tax or regressive tax or, or some economic policy or some political you know, capital punishment or abortion or whatever, it’s not that science can determine the final truth about these hotbed subjects but it can at least inform them with knowledge and and so I think I’m kind of a epistemological Universalist, you know, just apply science to everything, and see how far we can go. And now it doesn’t mean for sure we can, we can know everything, but at least we can know something with some probability of confidence.

Ray Briggs
So one thing that I keep coming back to in your answers is this issue of trust. You’ve pointed out that I don’t know all of the details of how like the scientific community around me has verified a claim or tested a claim or compiled evidence for and against I have to, I have to sort of believe that they’ve not let me down. And most of the time, on average, that seems like a good belief, but like we’ve seen it fail in specific cases. So I’m actually I was thinking about like the the science of persuading people across political disagreements and the the name, Michael, the core came came into my mind. So so this, this was the graduate student who sort of had this very high profile case of like, persuasion on politically loaded topics such as gay marriage, where he claimed to have done a bunch of survey experiments where the surveyor belong to a group that was affected by a political decision, and it turned out that he just fabricated it just made up his have you done a study at all? Right? You don’t have people running around doing that, like, how do you account for this, like possibility that the scientific community might just let you down sometimes?

Michael Shermer
Well, they will that does happen. I mean, fraud is pretty rare, you know, blatant, I made up the data, some guy sitting there, you know, typing in numbers in his spreadsheet and presented as if he collected data. That does happen, but not very often. More importantly, how are those discovered? Well, it’s by other scientists, or in this case, you know, graduate students or colleagues in the department, you know, whistleblowers essentially, which is why we need to have whistleblower laws to protect whistleblowers, because that’s how we find out someone gracious, for example, point out mistakes that scientists made in the past about some fossil and therefore we can’t trust them. Well, first of all, none of the creation has discovered those errors. It was other scientists. So this test to the self correcting nature of science, and, and, but more importantly, the replication, so called replication crisis, which appears to have happened mostly in the social sciences, in the medical sciences, in part is due to the fact that a lot of these are really complicated experiments, they’re difficult to replicate. And journals don’t want replicated studies, they want original studies, and publish or perish culture that we’ve created, you know, and this temptation there to, therefore, to push the envelope a little bit and the file drawer problem where, you know, the non significant studies just get filed away. And we never hear about them, although those are important, and so forth. But all of that, that I just described, that’s all been described by scientists and philosophers of science and people that are in the scientific community. So it all in an attempt to improve the gathering of reliable knowledge through science. So to those that doubt it Okay, fine. But but but what’s the solution? It’s better science. It’s not, let’s abandon science. The mechanisms for correcting those errors are all in place. We just have to be a little more vigilant.

Josh Landy
We’ve got another email. It’s from David in Portola Valley. And David says, Since you got Michael Shermer signed up for this one, kudos on that. So you have a fan amongst our listeners.

Michael Shermer
Oh, he’s the one!

Josh Landy
The one right, exactly. I’d like to hear some discussion of conspiracy theories versus science. Conspiracy Theory is a special case of skepticism and one of extreme current interest. So Michael, what’s the difference between a conspiracy theory or a form of pseudoscience and just bad science or just ordinary sloppy thinking?

Michael Shermer
Yeah, so first, let’s make a distinction conspiracy theories and conspiracy. So conspiracy is two or more people plotting in secret to gain an advantage, morally or legally or whatever, over a third party without their knowledge. So by that definition, there’s lots of conspiracies you know, most insider trading is a conspiracy government agencies that do things without the approval of Congress or whatever, that are illegal. That’s a conspiracy. The Watergate was a conspiracy. Iran Contra was a conspiracy. That so there’s reasons people believe in conspiracies, because there there’s a lot of them that are true, you know, Volkswagen conspiring to cheat the emission standards. That’s a conspiracy, right? So people have a right to be a little paranoid about powerful organizations, be they private corporations or government agencies, because we know this stuff happens. So the problem there now from there is that does that mean every you know, conspiracy that someone like Alex Jones perpetrates, which is pretty much everything is true? No, no, we have to be able to distinguish between true and false conspiracy theory. So I have a whole conspiracy theory detection kit that I put together. They’re just questions to ask when you hear, like how many people would have to be involved to pull this off, because you know, people can’t keep their mouth shut. They’re incompetent. You know how many elements have to come together for this conspiracy to work the more elements and people the less likely it is to be true? What’s the scope of the conspiracy theory is it you know, most real conspiracies are very narrow in scope, you know, Volkswagen cheating the emission standards to make a profit, you know, there’s nothing, nothing surprising about that. But you know, people believe these things a because there’s enough true conspiracies and also the fear of you know, power differentials you know, we know that people in power, do cheat systems and that’s not right. So we’re extra paranoid about that for good reason. But that doesn’t mean everything is true about them.

Ray Briggs
I really like the idea of considering what would have to be true in order for your alternative to recognize consensus to hold. And then judging whether that’s more or less likely than the recognized consensus. That sounds like maybe applicable to not just conspiracy theories, but any disagreement with the received view? Do you think that it’s just sort of generally applicable?

Michael Shermer
Yeah, that’s right. That’s a great skeptical principle. If x is true, what else would have to be true? You need to just kind of carry it out as a thought experiment of sorts to see, you know, so for example, if you know the claim that someone saw Bigfoot, in the hinterlands of Canada, Malia’s or Washington State or whatever, well, if that was true, what else would have to be true? Well, first of all, you’d have to have a large breeding population, you know, having one or two for for the last two centuries that people been talking about this that can’t be that have to be a couple 1000 At least and if that were true, then there’d have to be some road kills some actual dead Bigfoot that somebody stumbles across on a hike, you know, something like that, we would by now have a dead body and, and so on and so forth. So therefore, that claim is likely to be not true.

Josh Landy
I have amazing answers to this—no, I don’t. You’re listening to Philosophy Talk. Today we’re thinking about science and skepticism with Michael Shermer, author of “Giving the Devil His Due: Reflections of Scientific Humanist.”

Ray Briggs
Should scientists being doing more to talk to the public? Can science education be reformed? How do you talk to your COVID denying relatives?

Josh Landy
Opening minds and un-washing brains, when Philosophy Talk continues.

Laurie Anderson
Every man for himself…

Josh Landy
Is it everyone for themselves or is big science something we have to do together? I’m Josh Landy. And this is Philosophy Talk the program that questions everything…

Ray Briggs
…except your intelligence. I’m Ray Briggs, and our guest is Michael Shermer, founding publisher of Skeptic magazine. We’re thinking about science and skepticism.

Josh Landy
So Michael, I’m sure we all have relatives who like to spout conspiracy theories, maybe Bigfoot theories at the dinner table. So So what can we do about that both as individuals and as a society?

Michael Shermer
Right, it depends on the claim. Of course, as I said, you know, not all extraordinary claims are automatically faults, some might be true. So I mean, just think of the the story of Einstein and the resistance he met because of the kind of dogmatic nature of Prussian science at the time and the acceptance of Newtonian mechanics and whatnot, it took really about 15 years for his, you know, special and general theory of relativity to be accepted. So we can expect that kind of slowness in science, science is conservative for a good reason, because most theories that people come up with, including scientists are not right, they’re incorrect, or they’re wrong in some capacity, so that when you encounter a claim at the dinner table, say, you know, it’s best not to just say that, you know, that’s stupid, or it’s a bunch of baloney, and be insulting you everyone wants to be respected and listened to just think of yourself. So it’s best to start off by just kind of asking questions I think of it is, is kind of a Socratic method or I sometimes I call it the Colombo method after that, the television popular television show Colombo, where he always asked, like, just just one jacket, this is this one more thing, you know, he’s kind of dragging it out of him until he finally confessed to the crime. And that really, it works because it gets people to think about how reliable their knowledge is, how did they arrive at that, you know, they were, what was the source of that? Where’d you hear that? You know, and so if you do it in a way that’s respectful, you make it possible and acceptable for them to change their mind. You’re not condemning them for believing it at the moment. Also, it’s unlikely anyone’s gonna change their mind right there at the dinner table, like, oh my god, I never thought of that. I think I’ll believe something else. Now. It rarely happens. Usually, they go home and think about it for a while, maybe a few days later, a few weeks later, sometimes even years later, they go you know what? I read, I read your book or whatever, you know, 20 years ago, and I got to thinking and now I am a skeptic whenever I get these letters all the time, so it’s does happen then again back to cognitive research on this. People do change their minds. There’s this, this meme floating about that really started with Kahneman and Tversky. And their research on cognitive biases, which is all super interesting and important. But on the other hand, other scientists like GERD Gigerenzer and Hugo mercy a, his recent book is not born yesterday, shows that, in fact, people do not just automatically default to truths and just automatically believe everything that they hear. They don’t we’re, we’re pretty good skeptics, if it’s presented in such a way that it’s, again, not challenging, it’s not insulting. And you know, you make it okay to change your mind without having to give up, you know, central core beliefs and, and that sort of thing. So there are good strategies there.

Ray Briggs
So we’ve got an email from Bob in Menlo Park, who says skepticisms seems to me the very essence of scientific thought. But one of the things I learned during that education, from going into proofs and evidence and being convinced was to be skeptical of my own skepticism, to at least attempt to examine my own doubts with as much rigor as I read the latest partial results reported by people, anointed experts by journalists, I learned along the way that my doubts and experts are at least as unreliable as the account side question.

Michael Shermer
Right? Well, good, that’s fine. But of course, you know, you can’t take this to the extreme where you believe nothing, you know, you’d never even get out of bed. You we all believe lots of things and things that we you know, have not investigated ourselves. I mean, you know, I accept quantum physics. But you know, I don’t know anything about it other than the, you know, the popular versions, I read in books or see documentaries on TV shows. But you know, the math, forget it, you know, I’m basing it on competence that these people that work in this field, have tried to debunk each other, and the stuff I consume has been filtered. Now, that doesn’t guarantee it, it’s true. I mentioned Einstein, you know, that, you know, when he came along, it was pretty well accepted that, you know, 99.9% of the universe was totally explained by Newtonian mechanics, we’re just kind of rounding out the six decimal place after the sixth place after the decimal point. No, that turned out to be wrong. So occasionally, that does happen. But that doesn’t mean everyone’s pet theory is the new paradigm shift that’s going to happen. You know, people that are on the outside of science don’t really understand this, they send me these long packages, big packages of long manuscripts, and they’ll they’ll they promise to share the Nobel Prize with me if I help with the math. And it’s usually usually related to physics. And cosmology. You know, a Newton was wrong. Einstein was wrong. Stephen Hawking was wrong. Fineman was wrong in a particular pick. But they’ve worked it out in the garage here, you know, and I asked him, Have you run it past like the local high school physics teacher? Just somebody that you know that that’s in the fall? No, they would never accept it. Because it’s too radical. It’s too revolutionary. And, you know, scientists are all closed minded. And so I’m no, they’re not, I mean, scientific revolutions do happen. It’s just that they’re conservative, because most ideas are wrong.

Ray Briggs
So this actually brings me to another question that I have, which is about understanding science. So so I might accept that probably the best thing to do in most cases, is to defer to the scientific experts if I’ve got a question that they address, but in order to defer to them, I need to understand what they say. And this seems like especially hard in areas like physics. I’m just now also reminded of the crank who used to offer to pay people a million dollars, if they would refute his theory that nature was God’s four sided time cube. So one of the reasons that like you couldn’t refute that guy was because I don’t think you could understand your refutation. So how do I avoid being in that position?

Michael Shermer
Yeah, usually I I, again, suggest they check with the local physics teachers. I mean, they could point out the problem. It usually it’s hard to find the problem because they’re so far outside the kind of realm of, say, physics that they’re working in that it’s hard to point out. So I’ll ask something like, Well, how would you test that like, or what would it take to falsify your theory? And I pointed out the importance of falsification and pop Aryan science of conjecture and refutation. And now that’s how it works. So you know, let’s think of a way to test your theory. Because most of these, what I call theories of everything, they’re not testable, that they’re just assertions and here sometimes I invoke Christopher Hitchens principle, I call it Hitchens dictum, that is, that which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. And this is sometimes called the burden of proof argument that is, you know, the burden is not on me, the skeptic scientist to debunk your alternative theory of whatever it’s on you to prove it to us because you know, there’s a million alternative theories have something out there, they’re floating around all over. And you know, we don’t have time to test them all. You have to convince us and, you know, well, I got this grainy photo, well, sorry, grainy Photos. Though constitute evidence, you know, and blurry videos now sorry, you know, you got to have something a little more concrete like a body. You know, that’s what they say that to the Bigfoot people to show me the body and I’ll believe, you know, well they you know they used to doubt the existence of gorillas until the you know, mountain gorilla was discovered in 1903. You know, that’s just barely a century ago. Yeah, but they found it, there’s a body, right. So that that kind of, I think, you know, kind of epistemic confidence in a claim based on something concrete is a good place to start.

Josh Landy
I still worry sometimes that we’re in a kind of an asymmetric battle where we’re so massively out and we little hobbits, you know, faced with the massive if Sal Ron, because you know that already the 90s the fossil fuel industry was spending millions of dollars costing doubt on science, we prefer that it was tobacco. Now, it’s folks in various areas of the media casting doubt on things like climate change, or COVID. We have this massive propaganda apparatus. And we’re these little hobbits, so is just asking these questions gonna work is even, you know, we want to train people in critical thinking, but as you pointed out, smart people can believe dumb things. Yeah. You know, I mean, a lot of my colleagues believe that people only desire things because other people desire them first. So what do we do? I mean, should we use creative solutions? Like in the 19th century, magicians would debunk pseudoscience through magic shows, and, you know, other creative things? Could we have a meta conspiracy theory have a conspiracy theory about conspiracy theories? What should we do? Since we’re up again? Yeah.

Michael Shermer
Yeah. Well, magicians are still doing that. I mean, you know, courses Houdini and then the amazing Randy and I meet a lot of young magicians today who were interested in skepticism, and they, they can see that their skills are effective at showing people how easy it is to be fooled. Yes, I was recalled being on a Scientific American cruise where I was one of the guest lectures. And one of the dinners that guy was telling me Well, I’m a skeptic, you know, I love your stuff. And, you know, but I saw this guy bend the spoon, and he went into the whole thing. I knew where this was going. So as he’s talking, I take the spoon off the table, and I put it below my below the tablecloth, and I bend it in the way he’s describing that could not have possibly been done by mechanical means. And I said, You mean something like this? And he’s like, Oh, crap. And so yes, that that that’s very effective. Now, obviously, that doesn’t apply to everything, like climate change, or whatever. But for the most part, I’m reasonably confident that even so called science deniers are not denying all of science. You got to drill down and find what is it that they’re after? Even something like mentioned conspiracy theories, like what like the 911? Truth is, what do they really after? I mean, they can’t possibly really believe that explosive devices were planted in the buildings and the planes are flowing into the buildings with remote control device and so on. It goes on and on. Well, really there. If you drill down and you talk to him, you know, they’re really skeptical of big government agencies and big corporations and, you know, big pharma and big, you know, whatnot with the vaccines, you meant to vaccine Big Pharma. You know, so let’s, okay, let’s talk about that. And then you can kind of skirt around the specifics, that they’re hanging their general belief on and try to find out what what they’re really concerned about. It’s not perfect, we’re always going to have these kinds of things going on. There’s nothing new about that, you know, we’re not really living in a post truth world. It seems worse because the internet but really, that, you know, people have dissembled and been confused and denied elements of science, you know, since it science began, so that that’s not new. And politicians have always lied, and corporations and CEOs, they do cheat the system and so on that, that’s all been there for a long time. We have the tools to combat it. We just have to keep doing it.

Josh Landy
Well, Michael Shermer, I’m a skeptic about a lot of things but not about your brilliance. So thank you so much for joining.

Michael Shermer
Oh, well, gosh, I don’t know, I might be a little skeptical. I appreciate it.

Josh Landy
Thanks. Thanks again. Our guest has been Michael Shermer, founding publisher of Skeptic magazine, and a prolific author whose most recent book is “Giving the Devil His Due: Reflections of Scientific Humanist.” So Ray, what’re you thinking now?

Ray Briggs
So I think I share some of your like worries and in temptation toward despair about like the sorry state of science communication in our world but I really like the sort of suggestions and strategies that Michael has given us like I don’t see the point in not trying them we should do everything we can to get people to sort of believe had their have the best possible shot at believing the truth.

Josh Landy
100% agree, I really like his thought about having the insider speak the truth right? If we’ve got a sometimes we’ve got people on so to speak the other side are willing to say things that are actually true. But this conversation continues at philosophers corner online community of thinkers were a monster with apologies to Descartes is Cognito Ergo Blago, I think therefore I blog You can become a partner in the community by visiting our website Philosophy Talk co rd.

Ray Briggs
And if you had a question that wasn’t addressed in today’s show, we’d love to hear from you. Send it to us at comments @philosophytalk.org and we might feature it on the blog. Now, people say he talks fast but where’s the proof? It’s Ian Shoales, the sixty-Second Philosopher.

Ian Shoales
Ian Shoales… These days, skepticism itself is greeted with skepticism. I have seen with my own eyes words that say JFK Junior is still alive and may be Donald Trump’s vice president in his second term, or that Tom Hanks is part of a global child sex ring, because he was in a movie with red shoes, which is code for “Hey everybody I’m part of a global child sex ring.” If you doubt that, or ask for proof of some kind, you become part of the problem, a sinister cabal of deniers, right there in the hip pocket of George Soros or Hillary Clinton. Or, if you want to leap to the other side of those beliefs, the hip pocket of the Koch Brothers, Goodman Sachs, the deep state, the One World Conspiracy. Not even denial, mild uncertainty can mark you as complicit in crimes which do not even have a name yet. There are no skeptics just heroes and victims. I have seen both fears of and threats of armed revolt come election time, either from antifa or boogaloo boys depending on who wins, not even then. Everybody seems convinced some kind of civil war is imminent, the only uncertainty being where will it be fought exactly. Right now, it seems confined to a couple blocks in Portland and Seattle. Some have been trying to implant anarchy as a major national threat, but it’s not really playing out as it should. Efforts to turn Chicago, for example, and New York, into cesspools of violence run amok have been thwarted by statistics and even simply people reading the Sunday New York Times over coffee in Central Park. They are not skeptical. They are simple disbelievers. The evidence of their own eyes overwhelms them. Others, however, from the comfort of their faraway hovels totally believe that Joe Biden, for instance, is a pawn in the clever young hands of AOC, and others believe that Trump is either a pawn of Putin, a pawn of a vast centuries old conspiracy, or a player of 5d chess. Or is that 5G chess? 5G, chemtrails, and pandemic hoaxes being the latest focuses for our lost certainties. Are we blowhards and yahoos firing weapons into the air, or a gradually wakening woke country about to turn everybody else’s weapons into plowshares whether they like or not. The answer of course, is Yes. Rumors quickly become fact, unless forgotten, and it no longer matters. Each crime has a certainty, though the process of naming is subjective — murder one, murder two, manslaughter, assault with a deadly weapon. Innocence is something else. Thanks to Christianity you can be innocent even when guilty. Uneasy moral states are how churches boost attendance, and how capitalism gets your money. But that’s got nothing to do with doubt. We can be certain that there is a name for each folly we are accused of committing, and that name will be true, though we ourselves be not. Virtue, on the other hand, is slippery. If sometimes you need a priest or a lawyer or a mom to tell you the difference between right and wrong, sometimes a slippery slope is just a straight line gone wrong. On the other hand, if our certainty is mainly being fortified by uncertain premises, if we wield skepticism like a sword to reinforce what we choose to believe, throwing science, best practices, experience, terms of art out the window and onto a wall of our own devising, we can be certain that forensics will continue to stick. So long as we have fingerprints, blood, DNA, solid policework, entomology, anthropology, lawyers, and true crime fans we will work together to figure out who dunnit, until the day comes when you know who cares who dunnit really? Guilt and innocence are your red wagon. I just want this whole thing over so I can look for a job. In this vein I keep thinking about Trey Gowdy, who led something like 8 Benghazi hearings. No wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton was ever found. I had seen Trey Gowdy as a civilian prosecutor several times on tv’s FORENSIC FILES, where he seemed to have an amazing command of forensic tools ending in successful convictions. So either he was a lot less competent than we thought or Hillary’s more slippery than we thought, or both. Maybe it’s time for another hearing. Have one every year like the groundhog seeing his shadow. Alas, maybe the truth about Benghazi is like who was Jack the Ripper, what did Billy Joe throw off the Tallahatchie Bridge, and who put the Ram in the Ramma Lamma Ding Dong. Nobody will ever know. Put all your guesses as fact on the op ed page, why not, nobody will ever again ever ever know. I gotta go.

Josh Landy
Philosophy Talk is a presentation of KALW local public radio San Francisco and the trustees of Leland Stanford Junior University. Copyright 2020.

Ray Briggs
Our executive producer is Tina Pamintuan.

Josh Landy
The Senior Producer is Devon Strolovitch. Laura Maguire is our Director of Research. Cindy Prince Baum is our Director of Marketing.

Ray Briggs
Thanks also to Merle Kessler, Angela Johnston and Lauren Schecter.

Josh Landy
Support for Philosophy Talk comes from various groups at Stanford University and from the partners at our online Community of Thinkers.

Ray Briggs
The views expressed (or mis-expressed) on this program did not necessarily represent the opinions of Stanford University or of our other funders.

Josh Landy
Not even when they’re true and reasonable. The conversation continues on our website, philosophytalk.org, where you too, can become a partner in our community of thinkers. I’m Josh Landy.

Ray Briggs
And I’m Ray Briggs. Thank you for listening.

Josh Landy
And thank you for thinking.

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
These were all the smartest scientists on the planet. Only problem is they kept being wrong! Sometimes…