Among these insider debates, none is more persistent than that of “tone.” Hardly a week goes by that some tone-related tempest doesn’t spill out of its teacup and across the blogosphere. And yet, these issues matter to many (including me). When people devote enormous energy to skepticism, dedicate careers to skeptical outreach, or generously commit volunteer hours or donations to skeptical projects and organizations, it’s natural that abstract internal debates about the soul of skepticism are perceived to have powerful importance.

The passions of many have been swept up in the ongoing scrap about Phil Plait’s “Don’t Be a Dick” speech at the James Randi Educational Foundation’s “Amazing Meeting 8″ conference in Las Vegas. The skeptical blogosphere began buzzing even as Plait delivered the speech, and hasn’t yet stopped. The debate has reached a new level of feverishness in recent days, after Plait posted the entire video of the speech online. (If you haven’t seen it, it’s a powerful speech which is well worth your time.)

The flood of reactions — many hundreds of lengthy comments, dozens of blog posts and a teeming ecosystem of competing tweets — seem to have broken down along two main axes of debate. One axis defends (or challenges) Plait’s factual assertion that civility tends to help skeptical communication, while incivility tends to hinder it. The other axis concerns moral values.

Talking Past Each Other

The empirical dispute about the effectiveness of civility has sometimes devolved to a clash of straw men. As PZ Myers responded,

It’s a little annoying. Everybody seems to imagine that if Granny says “Bless you!” after I sneeze, I punch her in the nose, and they’re all busy dichotomizing the skeptical community into the nice, helpful, sweet people who don’t rock the boat and the awful, horrible, bastards in hobnailed boots who stomp on small children in Sunday school.

I can relate. I’m similarly exasperated when it is suggested that “nice” skeptics are trying to enforce uniformity; or it is imagined that Phil’s speech was secretly “yet another attempt to erect a skepticism-free barrier around theistic beliefs”; or it is supposed that anyone wants to take anger and passion out of the skeptics toolbox; or, even, argued that “nice” skeptics want to “go with the flow, to pretend that a thousand issues, whether it’s homeopathy or religion or transcendental meditation or an absence of critical thinking or a lack of concern about our health, are OK because they make people happy.” Where does this stuff even come from?

All this noise conceals a non-trivial amount of consensus. In general, everyone actually agrees that passion, anger, comedy, and ridicule can be useful in the right context, when used carefully and well. Everyone agrees that face to face conversations are best conducted with kindness and respect. Everyone (PZ included) agrees that fact-based, collegial discourse is often-but-not-always the best outreach strategy. (Consider PZ’s stated position: “I think the best ideas involve a combination of willingness to listen and politely engage, and a forthright core of assertiveness and confrontation — tactical dickishness, if you want to call it that.” To me, this sounds surprisingly similar to Plait’s “Don’t Be a Dick” argument: “Anger is a very potent weapon, and we need that weapon, but we need to be excruciatingly careful how we use it.”)

In other places, the effectiveness debate has bogged down in red herrings. For example, Richard Dawkins complained that

Plait naively presumed, throughout his lecture, that the person we are ridiculing is the one we are trying to convert. …when I employ ridicule against the arguments of a young earth creationist, I am almost never trying to convert the YEC himself. … I am trying to influence all the third parties listening in, or reading my books. I am amazed at Plait’s naivety in overlooking that and treating it as obvious that our goal is to convert the target of our ridicule.

This is a serious misreading of Plait’s intent, and I think rather baffling. Phil Plait is an experienced public figure, a career science communicator. Of course he knows (as I know, and as Dawkins knows) that our largest and best opportunity for outreach is often the wider audience of third-party onlookers.

Indeed, the audience of onlookers are exactly where the empirical question matters most.

Effectiveness

How do audiences react when they see communicators speak aggressively or employ ridicule? Dawkins’ feeling about ridicule is that “I suspect that it is very effective,” but we needn’t rely on suspicion. Nor must we settle for intuitions, anecdotes (“just look at South Park”) or arguments from internal dialogue. This question has been tested.

The scientific evidence cited so far in this debate clearly favors the “don’t be a dick” argument. For example, it turns out that audiences to substantial issues debates think less of debaters who insult their opponents, engage in ad hominems, or attack the other’s competence or character.

The distinction the literature makes is between argumentativeness (the making of firm substantial points, which witnesses respect) and aggressiveness (cheap shots, basically, or ad hominems: character attacks, competence attacks, background attacks, ridicule, and so on) — which witnesses penalize. For example, the 1992 study “Initiating and Reciprocating Verbal Aggression: Effects on Credibility and Credited Verbal Arguments” found that onlookers to a debate are more impressed with arguments like these when the insults (in parentheses) are not included:

CON: [I can't believe you actually like that Canadian system! The idea's stupid!] Matt, the basic fallacy is the Canadian system puts government into the health care business. The surest way for failure is to let government do it. Haven’t we learned our lesson about central planning? Isn’t the Soviet Union having a bit of trouble with the concept?

PRO: [You Reagan conservatives sound like a broken record. You have the same objection for everything.] Government isn’t always bad, Steve. The government should be involved in some things. Would you like our national defense to be run by the private sector…

Moreover, the greater the number of verbally aggressive statements a debater makes in an exchange, the less receptive audiences are to that aggressor. Audiences find debaters who initiate verbal attacks less competent and of poorer character than their opponents — and find the attacker’s arguments less persuasive. (Audiences expect targets of verbal aggression to stand up for themselves, but nonetheless penalize targets who retaliate by matching the initiator’s level of aggressiveness.) To underline a key point: stooping to incivility has an own-goal cost despite the aggressive debater’s substantive points. Similarly, research indicates that college students find instructors less credible when they engage in insult and verbal abuse. In short, incivility makes it harder to teach people — just as Phil Plait has argued. (For an even-handed, quickie introduction to these issues, see Mike McRae’s recent “A Ridiculous Essay on Rational Outreach.”)

The finding that people don’t like bullies is perhaps unsurprising. I’ll leave it there (I am, after all, not a psychologist) and turn to an argument I’m more qualified to make: the argument from my own subjective moral values.

Morality

I have long argued that skepticism should not wade into non-empirical debates about faith, metaphysics, political ideology, or personal moral values. It is not the business of science to endorse unprovable statements of personal belief. After all, there’s a word for the attempt to attach scientific authority to whatever subjective beeswax we happen to like: pseudoscience.

And yet, it is no surprise that there is a moral dimension to debates about tone. The central question in tone debates is often said to be effectiveness, but the fierceness of the debate underlines a more visceral disagreement on a more human question: How ought people to treat each other?

Science can’t tell us the answer. Scientific skepticism can’t tell us what’s morally right — but the moral values we bring with us from outside of science can motivate us to do the hard work of science and skepticism. Trying to do what’s right is the reason I got involved in skepticism in the first place. As a humanist, as a person of conscience, I am motivated to promote rigorous scientific skepticism because nonsense hurts people. I’ve argued that

Skeptics have the privilege and burden of knowing that wrongs are going unchallenged, wrongs no one else cares about (or even recognizes). That knowledge places on us an ethical responsibility to do whatever we can.

I know I’m not alone in seeing rigorous skepticism as something that matters — as a means of helping people. Decades of skeptics have been motivated by the knowledge that people get hurt when pseudoscientific belief burns out of control. As JREF President DJ Grothe argued in his NECSS 2010 keynote address “Skepticism is a Humanism,” skepticism is “more than just a club for our little cognitive minority…to get together and congratulate each other on how smart we are.” When skeptics come together for mutual bellyaching, or self-identify as part of a movement, or take action, or speak out against false beliefs,

We’re responding to an ethical imperative that most of us feel. It’s something we express when we rage against a huckster or a charlatan. … It’s obvious that skepticism is not just about what’s true and what’s false, but what’s right and what’s wrong. … When we get riled up because a huckster is peddling quack medicine, it’s because quack medicine harms people, and we know that it’s wrong to harm people.

The Moral Argument for Not Being a Dick

I could almost save myself a couple thousand words in this essay by just writing “mean people suck” — or (as one person quoted to me on Twitter) “be excellent to each other.” I find myself astonished that it’s necessary to make this case at all.

Nonetheless, it is argued on humanist principle that “Every person needs to be accorded a modicum of respect and dignity” — even online. If I may side with the quaint schoolmarmish view, I agree: it is a moral wrong to intentionally elect to treat people badly.

There’s really no way around this: it may sometimes be necessary to say things people don’t want to hear, but, in itself, cruelty is morally bad. This is such a fundamental, self-evident moral truth that I’m really lost as soon as anyone disputes it.

Phil wisely left his argument general, inviting us to confront our own conscience. But he is right that it is trivially easy to find examples — not only of self-described skeptics being unkind, but also those who argue that it is good to be mean. For example, one blogger followed up her criticism of Plait’s speech (“Pissed me off something hardcore having to sit through him lecturing me about being too mean to people”) with the forthright assertion,

I like vitriol and venom. I like it, I enjoy it, I think it’s fun and I enjoy reading it and listening to it. A witty verbal riposte is like sex to me. … I like hate, I think it’s fucking sweet, particularly when applied by someone with great acumen and a large vocabulary.

I don’t really have a reply for that.

Some accept the basic moral argument for kindness and respect, but counter that they carry a moral obligation to aggressively speak the truth — even when doing so requires fierce confrontation. I’m sympathetic to that sentiment (I’m in the business of exposing nonsense, after all), and indeed, so is Phil Plait.

Luckily, we rarely need to choose between passion and kindness, or between honesty and respect. Here we come again to the distinction the scientific literature makes on this topic, between argumentativeness (presenting the actual case) and aggressiveness (personal attack in addition to— or instead of — valid argument).

It has been complained that the “don’t be a dick” position offers no program or solutions. I think it does. It’s an obvious solution, and the science backs it up:

Skeptics should passionately argue the merits of their case, and we should leave the ad hominems and snarling and hyperbole to the bad guys.

Ethics

Even if you don’t buy the moral argument, the ethics of scientific discourse imply that ad hominem attacks are inappropriate. I submit that science-minded people should either care about ethical conduct or give up on the conceit that we are science-minded.

The ethical norms of the scientific enterprise ask us to be honest, to assume good faith, to give heterodox ideas a chance, engage in collegial exchanges of opposing opinion, publish under our own names, make data available to our critics, and so on. None of that is based upon moral goodness, but on the pragmatic recognition that science functions best when the greatest number of practitioners adopt a shared code of conduct (and a shared rejection of scientific misconduct). Most skeptics are not scientists, but we are well-advised to think of science as an ethos that fosters truth-seeking. (Similar norms apply to journalism, and presumably to those bloggers who take on a journalistic role.)

And so, I will close with two questions. Weren’t we the ones who said we were after the actual truth? And — weren’t we the good guys?

While immersing himself in the museum’s pitch, Ruse wrote,

Just for one moment about half way through the exhibit…I got that Kuhnian flash that it could all be true — it was only a flash (rather like thinking that Freudianism is true or that the Republicans are right on anything whatsoever) but it was interesting nevertheless to get a sense of how much sense this whole display and paradigm can make to people.

This comment was severely criticized, but it’s profoundly relevant to skepticism. Continuing from the theme of my previous post (on “The Reasonableness of Weird Things”) I’d like to argue that the experience Ruse describes — the fleeting sense of “Could it be true?” vertigo — is one of the most important experiences skeptics can have.

Ruse

Michael Ruse’s disappearing-down-the-rabbit-hole feeling may seem surprising. After all, he’s been down in the trenches fighting Answers in Genesis-style Young Earth creationism for a very long time. For example, Ruse was a key witness in the pivotal 1981 case of McLean v. Arkansas. Nicknamed “Scopes II,” McLean v. Arkansas challenged and overturned an Arkansas law that required “balanced treatment for creation science and evolution science.” Judge Overton’s ruling effectively crippled the legal strategy of demanding “equal time” for so-called “scientific creationism.” (The final blow came in 1987, when the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Edwards v. Aguillard that it is unconstitutional to teach creationism in public schools.)

But Ruse’s moment of vertigo is not as surprising as it may appear. Indeed, he put effort into achieving this immersion: “I am atypical, I took about three hours to go through [the creation museum] but judging from my students most people don’t read the material as obsessively as I and take about an hour.” Why make this meticulous effort, when he could have dismissed creationism’s well-known scientific problems from the parking lot, or from his easy chair at home?

According to Ruse, the vertiginous “what if?” feeling has a practical value. After all, it’s easy to find problems with a pseudoscientific belief; what’s harder is understanding how and why other people believe. “It is silly just to dismiss this stuff as false,” Ruse argues (although it is false, and although Ruse has fought against “this stuff” for decades). “A lot of people believe Creationism so we on the other side need to get a feeling not just for the ideas but for the psychology too.”

The Goblin Universe

I agree with this sentiment, and I would take it a step further. Ruse is describing an access point, a matter of practical utility: when we can put ourselves in another person’s shoes, we are better able to find ways to communicate. This is no doubt true, but the feeling of vertigo also tells us some important things about ourselves.

The Junior Skeptic format (each issue being a detailed primer on a single topic) calls for the sort of intense, full-immersion research that can lead to this off-balance feeling. A given topic may require me to read a dozen or more pro-paranormal books, one after another — each of them designed to persuade readers that a mysterious phenomenon is real. Sometimes, this immersion triggers a hall-of-mirrors feeling, a feeling of double-exposure, and I find myself standing (ever so briefly) in what John Napier called “the Goblin Universe.”

In his classic book Bigfoot: The Yeti and Sasquatch in Myth and Reality, Napier (then Director of Primate Biology at the Smithsonian) wrote that the sheer myth-laden wooliness of paranormal topics make it

intellectually necessary from time to time to abandon the real world and, like Persephone, enter the dark regions of another world which I like to call the Goblin Universe. It is simple enough to apply reason to what is reasonable, but it is much more difficult to argue logically about the illogical. …  If you see me disappearing down a mental rabbit hole from time to time you will know where I am headed. I will be traveling unwillingly into the Goblin Universe.

Napier got lost in his Goblin Universe, concluding on poor evidence that sasquatches are real. But he was right to stress the value of trying to see these myths from the inside. Riffing on Napier’s notion, anthropologist Margerie Halpin wrote,

Most of us, however, have not personally experienced Sasquatch, the Loch Ness monster, U.F.O. beings, God, or the Devil, and we accept reigning social consensus that they do not exist…. How different are we, we wonder, from most of the other human beings on the planet, whom we have reason to believe still accept the Goblin Universe as real?

Why This Matters

The skeptic’s task is not to score rhetorical points, but to seek genuine understanding of fringe claims. We want to learn what is true, what is fake, what the difference between these may be — and (if I may borrow a phrase) learn why people believe weird things.

Late at night, hands cramping from note-taking, eyes bleary with research, I can sometimes catch a glimpse of the Goblin Universe: ”Holy shit, what if there really is a Bigfoot? What if ghosts actually do exist? What if 9/11 was an inside job? What if….”

Sometimes this feeling is uncomfortable, sometimes it is thrilling — but always it comes to me as something of a relief. Here’s why:

1. If it doesn’t even occur to us that the claim we’re examining could just possibly be true, we’re not honest investigators;
2. If we can’t feel the persuasiveness of a claim, we don’t really understand it.

To my mind, this is where the rubber meets the road: are we really willing to look fairly at weird claims? And, is understanding something we’re psychologically capable of achieving?

Prior Plausibility

Now, I hasten to clarify what I’m not saying. I’m not suggesting that all claims have an equal chance of being true (they don’t) or that we can’t find out which claims are true and which aren’t (usually we can, and with great confidence). Science-based thinking gives considerable weight to the prior plausibility of claims, which is the basis of the maxim that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” As Steven Novella has observed, “The principle is based upon two premises: that we know stuff and that not all evidence is created equal.”

Evolution by natural selection, for example, is both intrinsically logical and confirmed in practice by 150 years of scientific research. The “who knows what’s true, let’s teach the controversy” posturing by Intelligent Design proponents is pure sleight of hand. (“Presto! The burden of proof has vanished!”) In fact, creationists would have to offer stupendous amounts of jaw-droppingly extraordinary evidence to even begin to balance the mass and power of the evidence for evolution — which they don’t have. I know that (I wrote a book about evolution), and veteran evolution defender Michael Ruse was an expert back when I was flipping hockey cards against the back wall of my elementary school.

What if…?

What I’m talking about is an internal exercise, a way of testing our own understanding and fairness. This is the exercise of asking ourselves, “Seriously — what if they’re on to something? Do I really know that they’re not?”

In some cases it’s not too difficult to see a paranormal belief from the inside. I can say with informed confidence that the case for Bigfoot is horrible, but the universe wouldn’t have to be altered very much for the Bigfoot hypothesis to be true — and, like Fox Mulder, I want to believe. I find it relatively easy to watch the Patterson-Gimlin film and see some part of what Bigfoot proponents see.

Other chasms are harder to cross. I was a theist in my early life, so I find it natural enough to imagine myself in theistic shoes. And yet, not even as a Christian did Young Earth creationism seem remotely plausible to me. It’s just too at odds with the natural world we see every day. I don’t know how to go down that rabbit hole, but I admire Michael Ruse for finding a way — if only for an instant.

A lot happened. For a detailed discussion of TAM8, check out my roundtable chat with Tim Farley (What’s the Harm?), Blake Smith (MonsterTalk), and Derek & Swoopy on Skepticality. There’s been a lot to talk about.

Most especially, people have been talking about Phil Plait’s powerful talk, now known to the blogosphere as the “Don’t be a dick” speech (after Wheaton’s Law, an internet maxim that provided the theme of Phil’s presentation). In his talk, Phil argued that skeptics who have outreach goals should get serious about communication:

In times of war, we need warriors. But this isn’t a war. You might try to say it is, but it’s not a war. We aren’t trying to kill an enemy. We’re trying to persuade other humans. And at times like that, we don’t need warriors. What we need are diplomats.

Phil Plait argues passionately at TAM8. Photo by Marc-Julien Objois

You may not be surprised to hear that I loved this speech. I think it was an important moment in recent skeptical history, and it meant a lot to me personally. “Be nice to people” is a drum I’ve been beating for a long time. I was moved more than I could express to hear someone of Phil’s stature make that case so forcefully from the big stage at skepticism’s big event.

No matter how you look at it, he is of course right: there many excellent reasons to tend toward treating people with respect and courtesy. It’s morally bad to be cruel (and usually unnecessary); it’s contrary to scientific and journalistic ethics (and the search for truth) to shout down legitimate alternate views; it blinds us to flaws in our own reasoning if we fail to seriously consider viewpoints we don’t like. Most importantly (this was the theme of Phil’s talk) science communication is more effective when it starts with warmth and respect.

Those are all excellent topics for further exploration, but my aim today is smaller. I’d like to add one more footnote to the other arguments for civility, which is this:

Many people have quite good reasons for believing in the paranormal.

Lines Through The World

Individual skeptics sometimes form an impression that paranormal beliefs are held by strange people for inexplicable reasons — but not by our kind of people. Speaking personally, I’ll confess that I’m sometimes taken off guard when someone I know turns out to believe some bizarre paranormal thing, even though I know by now to expect it.

But a simple survey of our friends, family and co-workers will often put paid to the notion that paranormal belief is uncommon or unusual. Try it. Gently ask around. If you’re like me, it’s likely that most of the people you know accept some paranormal claim: perhaps alien visitation, or ghosts, or dowsing, or psychic powers, or some form of alternative medicine. The paranormal is everywhere: in labs, in schools, in hospitals, and at your Christmas dinner table.

Faced with the ubiquitousness of such beliefs, a few skeptics are tempted to think there must be something special about those who don’t believe. That conceit hardly seems worthy of dwelling upon, and yet people have actually tried to convince me on this basis that it’s not worth teaching critical thinking. “The smart people already get it,” I’ve been told, “and the stupid people never will. Don’t waste your time.”

I suppose it’s human to want to draw these lines through the world: on this side, the good smart people; on the other side, the bad dumb people. But the world is not nearly so simple.

Raising My Hand

One of the interesting things Phil Plait did during his challenging TAM8 speech was to ask the 1300 skeptics in the room this question:

How many of you here today used to believe in something — used to, past tense — whether it was flying saucers, psychic powers, religion, anything like that? You can raise your hand if you want to.

I was one of the majority of people who raised their hands. If I could have, I would have raised my hand dozens of times for all the dozens of paranormal claims I used to accept.

Does this mean that most of the people at TAM are stupid? Of course not, and I don’t think anyone would make that argument. And yet, I quite often hear skeptics talk about “the woos” as though “they” (in practice, our own friends and neighbors) belong to some alien species.

The Reasonableness of Weird Things

But here’s the thing: most pseudoscientific beliefs are not stupid. They’re just wrong.

Consider two people, Ada and Bee. Both consider themselves critical thinkers. Both walk into a pharmacy looking for headache medication. Ada buys Tylenol, because it has been recommended by people she trusts, because she knows from experience that it works for her, and because she thinks most of alternative medicine is hogwash. By contrast, Bee buys a homeopathic remedy — because it has been recommended by people she trusts, because she knows from experience that it works for her, and because she thinks most of mainstream medicine is hogwash.

In this case, neither the “skeptical” Ada nor the “credulous” Bee has any medical training. Neither has direct knowledge of the primary medical literature about acetaminophen, nor of the primary skeptical literature on homeopathy. I submit that neither Ada nor Bee should be much applauded or scorned for their beliefs. They’re both just regular folks making regular decisions based on the best information they have.

In my experience, the top reasons people believe weird things are not only understandable, but identical to the reasons most skeptics believe things: they are persuaded by personal experiences (or by the experiences of a loved one); or, they are persuaded by the sources they have consulted.

For example, I know several people who believe in ghosts for the perfectly straightforward reason that they personally saw a ghost. They’re willing to consider alternate explanations, but c’mon: of course their personal ghost encounter leans heavily on the scales of evidence. Science may say it’s wise for Ebenezer Scrooge to suppose Marley’s specter “may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard,” but Christmas Carol audiences understand that ghost belief would be pretty reasonable under the circumstances. (And, when ghost witnesses are critical-minded enough to dig into some books or online research, the sources they find authoritatively argue that ghosts are probably real.)

This pattern comes up again and again, from the woman who shyly speaks about her alien abduction experience, to the friends who enthuse about dowsing rods, to the family members who swear by alternative medicine: “My personal experience confirms that this is true.”

Yes, reasoning from visceral experience is a recipe for false belief. Obscure research tells me that my friend is extremely unlikely to have been abducted by aliens. But she was there, and I wasn’t. I don’t know what she saw, not for sure — and I can’t deny that her experience of seeing it could make a pretty compelling basis for personal belief.

Now, I want to be clear here: I’m not suggesting that personal experience is an adequate basis for accepting paranormal claims (it isn’t) or that these claims are true (so far as science can tell, they’re not). I’m saying that, given their information and tools, many paranormalists have understandable reasons for belief.

The Difference Between Believers and Skeptics?

However we label ourselves or others, we come up against the fact that people are complicated. Generalizations are doomed to inadequacy. But, I will suggest that the differences between skeptics and paranormal believers have less to do with innate credulity, and more to do with training and resources.

When I was a scruffy young boy, I found a Bigfoot footprint in the wilderness of British Columbia. Devouring every sasquatch book I could find (there were several in my elementary school library), I learned the persuasive facts that many, many people had found footprints or reported encounters with Bigfoot, and that sasquatch photographs had even been taken. Therefore, I believed in Bigfoot.

What I did not have was any understanding of how those many witnesses could all be wrong (myself included), or how on Earth hoaxing could account for most prints. I didn’t have any access to the skeptical books or magazines (still rare today, but then vanishingly so) that could have explained it to me. And, most importantly, I did not know what I did not know. I had to be taught to ask counter-intuitive questions, and I had to be taught how to find the best answers.

I wasn’t born knowing that stuff. Nobody is. As Phil Plait’s speech put it, “Skepticism is hard.” It’s hard, and it has to be taught. And that is how it can be that several hundred thoughtful skeptics at the The Amazing Meeting 8 used to believe in magic.

Images from "Mecanisme de la Physionomie Humaine," which Charles Darwin used as a source for his research into human expression and emotion

Alongside the moral and ethical arguments about “tone,” skeptical debate about the effectiveness of various communication strategies goes ’round and ’round perpetually.

But why is the effectiveness question so often treated as a debate between competing intuitions? In a recent comment, Steven Novella suggested to me that skeptics should “be tolerant of each other’s different approaches to the public, since no one has the final answer. As the psychological literature progresses, however, we may have better informed opinions.”

But is the psychological jury still out? Science has been looking at people, our interactions, and the ways in which we learn and communicate for quite a while. (Did you know there’s a substantial body of scientific research on just the topic of smiling?)

Therefore, as a skeptic, I want to know: what has science learned about communication?

Bring On the Science

And so, I throw open this thread for discussion of the data. I invite psychologists, marketers, educators, lay skeptics, and the world at large to share specific citations of specific scientific research bearing on the issue of tone. Let’s leave aside instincts, opinions, ethics, and morality, and just look at the empirical question:

What has science discovered about the roles of likability, empathy, aggression, and ridicule in communication, marketing, and education? Nominate (and describe) relevant research papers in the comments field below.

I’ll open with this paper from 1978 — not because it settles the question, but because it’s funny:

Tidd, Kathi L. and Joan S. Lockard. “Monetary significance of the affiliative smile: A case for reciprocal altruism.” Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society Vol. 11, No. 6, 344-346. 1978.

Finding: In this study, cocktail waitresses received dramatically larger tips (from both male and female customers) when greeting customers with a big toothy smile rather than a “minimal smile (mouth corners noticeably turned up but no teeth showing).”

Science says a smile goes a long way!

This does not seem surprising to me. Human interactions involve more than just an exchange of information or services. We tend to be more receptive to people who signal friendliness. Is this finding generalizable to skeptical communication? I suspect it is. (That is why I put so much effort into preparing huge photos of smiling skeptics for use in outreach material.)

(For more on the impact that strategies for increasing likability have upon tipping, see for example Lynn, Michael. “Seven Ways to Increase Servers’ Tips.” Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly, Vol. 37, No. 3, 24-29. 1996)

And now it’s your turn. Accommodationists and confrontationists, “asshole skeptics” and nice guy skeptics, firebrands and cuddly bunnies: can you support your intuitions with data? Ante up.

How important is scholarship for skeptics? Should skeptics know a lot about the paranormal literature (or, rather, the many niche literatures for the many niche paranormal topics)? And, does it matter whether we know much about the literature of skepticism?

When I’ve asked these questions in the past, I’ve received mixed responses. Some skeptics argue that vast encyclopedic knowledge is essential. Others claim that traditional skeptical expertise is more or less irrelevant to modern skeptical activism.

That wide range of opinion arises from the many kinds of skeptics pursuing their many kinds of projects. Some, like Ben Radford, are serious primary researchers, dedicated science communicators, or both. They wish to solve mysteries and inform the public, and they necessarily care about refining the best practices for achieving those goals. Of course, not all skeptics share those interests or responsibilities. Some are satisfied to indulge their own curiosity, or to hone their own critical thinking skills. Others view skepticism as a social scene rather than a research project — a way to find friends who accept their science-informed worldview.

Finding Stuff Out

Still, I’d suggest this as a general principle: the more willing we are to express opinions on skeptical topics, the more seriously we should pursue skeptical scholarship. When we take on a public role (even if only a Twitter stream or blog) we take on an ethical responsibility to strive for accuracy.

Even simpler, the ethos of skepticism calls for active rigorous investigation. I usually let Mark Twain’s “old and wise and stern maxim” say it for me: “Supposing is good, but finding out is better.”

In an important sense, the whole of the skeptical project over the past 35 years can be boiled down to that one single piece of advice. There’s no getting around it: finding out is better. I can’t think of any area of domain expertise where less knowledge is as good as more.

If we’re committed to finding out, then literacy in our field becomes very important indeed. It helps us to ask the right questions, and to avoid the wrong conclusions. As Radford explains,

Skepticism, like science or any other body of knowledge, works on precedent. Scientific paranormal investigators need not — indeed should not — approach a case without background information and having researched previous investigations. While the specific circumstances of a mystery may be unique in each case, the type of mystery is not. Any investigation, from aliens to zombies, monsters to mediums to miracles, has many earlier solved cases as precedents. … Researching and knowing the history of skeptical investigations into paranormal claims is not simply a matter of paying your dues; it is essential to conducting an informed investigation.

He’s right. When we consider pseudoscientific topics, it pays to know where they come from. The more we know about the roots of a mystery, its history and proponents and scandals and related claims and so on, the better (and more fair) our assessment is liable to be — and the better able we are to communicate responsibly about that topic. Moreover, the wider and deeper our general knowledge of pseudoscience, the better prepared we are to respond quickly to mutations of old ideas. (Bomb-detecting dowsing rods are a stark reminder that even the most harmless and hokey old chestnuts can reemerge in lethal new variants — which, thankfully, the James Randi Educational Foundation had the background to challenge.)

Some of the Loch Ness monster resources I've been digging into

Making Connections

At the moment, I’m busily digging into the Loch Ness monster literature for a book chapter. The challenge is that the literature on Nessie is so enormous (dare I say, “monster-sized”?) that even the most extensive reading must necessarily be incomplete. It’s daunting to realize the key information could always be one resource away. That’s the way it goes: each discovery spawns new questions, leading us deeper, giving us new perspectives on the vastness of our own ignorance. The more we learn, the less we know.

At the same time, the more we learn, the more connections we can make. Different threads of investigation have a way of leaping together and informing each other. (When this happens, I’m always reminded of science historian James Burke’s wonderful Connections series of documentaries and Scientific American columns.)

Finding connections is fun. Although I’ve researched Nessie before (it’s a lifelong interest), I’m happy to say that I’m digging out all sorts of neat stuff. You’ll have to wait for the book for most of that, but here’s a fun tidbit I just learned: it seems that Philip Henry Gosse (whose 1857 book Omphalos: An Attempt to Untie the Geological Knot underlies so much of modern creationist argument) was the guy who first proposed that sea serpent sightings might be explained by surviving populations of plesiosaurs (in his book The Romance of Natural History). Gosse influenced Rupert Gould, who wrote the first and most influential book on the Loch Ness monster. The links between creationism and cryptozoology are many, but I hadn’t realized that the Omphalos guy laid the groundwork for Nessie! That’s hardly smoking gun stuff (Gould discussed Gosse in the 30′s) but I didn’t know it before. Now I do.

Along the way, there are frequently unexpected chance discoveries on other topics altogether. Digging through newspaper archives over the past weeks (several academic portals, and several pay services), I incidentally happened across a wide swath of primary documents on crystal skulls, the Mokele-mbembe, Ogopogo, and other odd mysteries besides. Did you know about this satirical 1827 attempt (PDF) to prove that Napoleon Bonaparte was “nothing more than an allegorical personage”? Neither did I. (I’ll return to the topic of newspaper archives in a future post.)

Large or small, brand new to the literature or news only to us, discovery is a tremendously rewarding feeling. Radford urges us avoid “approaching research as necessary drudgery,” and instead to take pride, even joy, in the process of investigation. And then, every once in a while, the effort pays off big:

Sometimes you’ll find a “smoking gun” fact or document or photograph that proves that everyone is wrong about the topic. I’ve spent many sleepless nights while in the throes of an exciting investigation, my mind racing with the implications of the information I’ve discovered.

I’ve been there. Let me tell you, it’s quite the feeling when pieces of an unsolved mystery (no matter how small) suddenly click into place. For those who care about finding out, there’s a unique joy in finding out first.

Not every kid my age had that fear, but many did — I think probably millions. Perhaps you were one of the kids who felt yawning horror at each unexpected flash on the horizon, or relief at the sound of ordinary thunder?

I was recently reminded of those feelings when I received a kind letter from a man named Jason Guay. A child mental health therapist with Niagara Child and Youth Services, Jason wrote to share one of the most encouraging things I’ve heard during my tenure at Junior Skeptic:

Many of the children I serve suffer from mental illness and I think they deserve only the best science has to offer if they are to have a chance. Your issues of Junior Skeptic are read to my children in my social skill class and compliment cognitive-behavioural therapy nicely! They often come in with irrational beliefs (phobias/generalized anxiety) and by reading Junior Skeptic they are able find courage to challenge many of these irrational beliefs and start to think like a scientist, resulting in reduced anxiety. …

I often use the Scooby Doo issue to help ease children’s anxiety of ghosts and the unknown and it is very effective. Good job!

I have a young son of my own, so you can imagine what a letter like that feels like.

But Jason went on to say something more, something I thought I should share with you.

Lately, I have had a lot of kids who come very concerned about the end of the world in 2012. … These poor children often tell me that have had countless sleepless nights,  and have lower grades as a result of their worry.

I think you may be able to imagine how I — as a father — feel about that, too.

I’ve long suspected that we skeptics may underestimate the amount of distress the 2012 idea is causing. Skeptics know that the end of the world has come and gone hundreds of times, and so we feel in our hearts that this 2012 business must be a trivial issue. It’s easy to feel cavalier about fears we don’t share. It’s easy to forget what those night terrors feel like — especially for children.

Of course kids are worried about 2012. Hype about the coming end of the world is everywhere. Nor is it only kids who are concerned. In my immediate circle, I know at least three adults who are deeply worried, and others who have at least occasional moments of “what if?” unease. At a picnic yesterday, sitting there in the evening sun, a friend with a hard science degree asked, “Doesn’t it seem like there’s something weird going on with the Earth? All these earthquakes, volcanoes…?”

That’s not a dumb question. It does seem that way. I know I’m thinking a lot more about earthquakes after Haiti. But seeming doesn’t make it so, and thankfully there are ways to find out. “Well, you have an iPhone in your hand,” I said. “Why don’t you Google it right now?”

Google autofill reveals concern about "rising" number of earthquakes

And that’s what she did, right there on the beach. Of course, my friend has the research habits to have done that without my suggestion. She also has the scientific background to feel satisfied with the answers from the US Geological Survey or this short, simple New York Times article from British Geological Survey seismologist Roger Musson. (Incidentally, the answer is “No.” Recent earthquake activity has been especially tragic, but not unusually powerful or frequent.)

But not everyone has those skills (or, for that matter, confidence in science). I don’t mean a word of judgment when I say that. When grandmothers hear from their friends or grocers or televisions that the hundreds of thousands of 2010 earthquake victims are just the beginning, why shouldn’t that give them pause? When children hear the same thing, why shouldn’t they be afraid?

As I type this, some of those children are lying awake with the terrified belief that the world will end in two years. Their nightmares are like my own childhood nuclear horror, but different in one critically important respect: 2012 fears are not based on an actual danger. What’s the harm of 2012 scaremongering? Children suffering for no reason.

What do we, as skeptics, do about that? Step one is simply to internalize the same truth again and again and again: when paranormal beliefs burn out of control, people get hurt. Ordinary, smart, good people — people like your loved ones, and mine.

Free online: Skeptic magazine's recent cover story "A NASA Scientist Answers the Top 20 Questions About 2012"

And then, we need to roll up our sleeves. With that in mind, I’d like to ask you to do something this week, something small: try to make someone feel better about 2012. Talk to a friend. Tweet a resource. Share a link.

Here’s mine: Skeptic magazine has made available our recent “A NASA Scientist Answers the Top 20 Questions About 2012″ cover story (by Dr. David Morrison, Director of the NASA Lunar Science Institute and Senior Scientist in the NASA Astrobiology Institute). It’s free in both English and Spanish translation.

Martin Gardner portrait by Konrad Jacobs. Courtesy Oberwolfach Photo Collection

By now you will most likely have heard the sad news of the death of Martin Gardner — the father of modern skepticism — at age 95. He was, as his friend James Randi wrote, “a very bright spot in my firmament.”

Many people feel the same way, and for good reason. Gardner’s impact cannot be overstated. It is fair to argue that Martin Gardner created the modern skeptical literature from whole cloth. His 1952 book In the Name of Science (retitled Fads & Fallacies in the Name of Science for the second and subsequent editions; hereafter referred to as Fads & Fallacies) set the standard that later led to the creation of CSICOP — and to all that has followed since. Through his books and his “Notes of a Fringe-Watcher” column in the Skeptical Inquirer, Martin Gardner was a meticulous skeptical scholar for six decades. (Amazingly, his most recent Skeptical Inquirer articles appeared earlier this year.)

I’m writing this essay about this “good old man” in long-hand, sitting at the side of a neighbourhood swimming pool. I’m watching my own young son laughing and splashing, and thinking about life: its brevity, its preciousness, its cycles of wisdom and forgetfulness and rediscovery. How fleeting it can be — not only life, but memory and understanding as well. What will my son remember of the lessons I try to teach him? What will I remember of the things my own father taught me?

I wrote recently about the dawn of the organized skeptical movement with the formation of CSICOP in 1976. Today I’m looking back further — a whopping 24 years before the founding of CSICOP or any other skeptical organization. Gardner stepped onto the stage with Fads & Fallacies the year after Carl Sagan graduated high school. James Randi was, at age 24, making a name for himself as a bright young magician. It was the year that Paul Kurtz, a U.S. Army veteran of the liberation of Dachau, finished his PhD in philosophy. Legendary investigator Joe Nickell, whose historical overview essay style follows the Gardner model, was an eight-year old boy. Many of our most respected science advocates, like Michael Shermer and Steven Novella, had not yet even been born.

For my part, my own father was three years old when Gardner invented the modern skeptical literature — with the book I dug into again this morning.

A True Classic

I never met Martin Gardner, and it’s been years since I last re-read his books. Still, returning to Fads & Fallacies is like speaking to a close old friend I haven’t seen in years. (When we were shepherds, my brother Jason and I used to carry battered copies of skeptical masterpieces in our backpacks. Sagan’s Demon-Haunted World, Randi’s Flim-Flam! and Gardner’s Fads & Fallacies were among the most important of them.)

If you haven’t read Fads & Fallacies, you should. (I mean, really, head down to your local library today. What better way to honor Gardner’s life in skepticism?) Fads & Fallacies is a revered classic, of course, and yet completely modern in style as well as substance. Its crisp chapters each review the history and arguments of a specific pseudoscientific topic (such as creationist flood geology, Atlantis, or “orgone” energy), placing the development of that topic in context with its closest pseudoscientific relatives, and contrasting it with the relevant science. Gardner’s model is followed today by Joe Nickell, by Brian Dunning’s Skeptoid podcast, and of course by my own Junior Skeptic articles.

The scholarship of these articles is extremely impressive, and very certainly worth our effort to study. For years I’ve aggressively pursued primary sources for skeptical research, building a very respectable library on these obscure topics; and yet, a few minutes flipping through Fads & Fallacies just now informed me about a half dozen obviously important volumes I didn’t know anything about. And I should know about those books. Skeptics should know as much as we can of what Martin Gardner knew, because we’re the only people who can continue and build on his research.

One of the great lessons of skepticism is that weird ideas never go away. One of the functions of skeptics is the study of the history of claims and hoaxes, so that experts are available when those claims inevitably mutate or resurge. Readers of Fads & Fallacies will learn, for example, not only what is wrong with the concept of dowsing (relevant all over again, and lethal, in the wake of the Iraq bomb-detector scandal); about the key volumes and thinkers to develop the dowsing idea through the early 20th century (and before); and also about the related idea of radiesthesia (pendulum divining, which incidentally gave birth to pyramid power).

Gardner’s Blueprint

Among its many virtues, Fads & Fallacies stands out for its clarity as a blueprint for later skeptical research, organization, and activism. I’m somewhat known for a manifesto-type essay advocating for traditional skepticism. I could have saved myself 5000 words if I’d just written, “What Martin Gardner said.”

From the first page, Fads & Fallacies is explicit about the problem it wants to address: the influence and dangers of pseudoscience. Gardner was concerned about

the rise of the promoter of new and strange “scientific” theories. He is riding into prominence, so to speak, on the coat-tails of reputable investigators. The scientists themselves, of course, pay very little attention to him. They are too busy with more important matters. But the less informed general public, hungry for sensational discoveries and quick panaceas, often provides him with a noisy and enthusiastic following.

Gardner saw this volatile combination — poor public science literacy; the existence of cranks and con men; and, the fact that pseudoscientific claims are typically left unexamined by serious scientists — as a call to action. It is a call others took up in the decades that followed. Today we call that project “scientific skepticism.”

But why should anyone care about pseudoscience? Why is pseudoscience worth fighting? In every generation, skeptics ask themselves this question — a question Gardner anticipated.

Perhaps we are making a mountain out of a molehill. It is all very amusing, one might say, to titillate public fancy with books about bee people from Mars. The scientists are not fooled, nor are readers who are scientifically informed. If the public wants to shell out cash for such flummery, what difference does it make?

Gardner offered several answers to this question. To begin with, he noted, there is a human cost “when people are misled by scientific claptrap.” He offered the sad example of mentally ill people “desperately in need of trained psychiatric care” whose treatment is delayed by “dalliance in crank cults.” (Lest you doubt Gardner’s relevance today, he was talking about Dianetics, the basis of Scientology. Fads & Fallacies includes an in-depth chapter about Scientology’s history and claims.)

I think that rock bottom truth — people get hurt — is ample reason for people of conscience to care about pseudoscience (especially medical pseudoscience). Nonetheless, Gardner provided other answers as well. One is that unchallenged pseudoscientific beliefs (even when apparently harmless) can reenforce other (perhaps more dangerous) unfounded beliefs.

What about the long-run effects of non-medical books like Velikovsky’s, and the treatises on flying saucers? It is hard to see how the effects can be anything but harmful. Who can say how many orthodox Christians and Jews read Worlds in Collision and drifted back into a cruder Biblicism because they were told that science had reaffirmed the Old Testament miracles?

(To appreciate the prescience of this comment, consider that Answers In Genesis still finds it necessary to include on its list of “Arguments That Should Never Be Used” the Velikovskian notion that the Earth stopped rotating for a day during the life of the Old Testament figure Joshua. Check out their surprisingly good debunking article on the topic of Joshua’s missing day.)

Worse, Gardner argued, pseudoscience erodes scientific literacy in general — a process as unpredictable as it is dangerous.

An even more regrettable effect produced by the publication of scientific rubbish is the confusion they sow in the minds of gullible readers about what is and what isn’t scientific knowledge. And the more the public is confused, the easier it falls prey to doctrines of pseudo-science which may at some future date receive the backing of politically powerful groups. As we shall see in later chapters, a renaissance of German quasi-science paralleled the rise of Hitler. If the German people had been better trained to distinguish good from bad science, would they have swallowed so easily the insane racial theories of the Nazi anthropologists?

Gardner’s Solution, and Legacy

What was Martin Gardner’s solution to the problem of pseudoscience? The first step is implicit in his decades of painstaking work: scholarship. To tackle pseudoscience knowledgeably, skeptics take on (to greater or lesser extents) the task of becoming scholars of pseudoscience.

This is a colossal project. Skepticism’s traditional subject matter includes hundreds of pseudoscientific and paranormal topics — each with its own literature, history of development, major figures and major works, and collection of critical responses. Sometimes, as with homeopathy or astrology or dowsing, the history of a single topic stretches back centuries. Martin Gardner researched that vast field for decades, acquiring a depth of knowledge and understanding that is unparalleled among living skeptics. It is left to each of us to fill some small, specialized part of the gap he has left.

In 1952, Gardner showed us what skeptical scholarship looks like, setting the standard that skeptical researchers follow today. At the same time, he called for the now-traditional other half of the skeptical coin: working to advance scientific literacy.

We need better science education in our schools. We need more and better popularizers of science. We need better channels of communication between working scientists and the public. And so on.

And so on. The road always continues — and eventually, the travelers do not. Martin Gardner lived to see his personal call to arms grow into a lively research field, an activism movement, and even (through skepticism’s digital renaissance) a flourishing global subculture. It’s a wonderful legacy. For a time, it is ours to preserve. And so, tonight I’ll be raising a glass to the memory of Martin Gardner — and thinking hard about the things he had to teach.

Today I’m writing about another Ode to Joy moment — one of the greatest of my career. It’s a moment I’ve long hoped for, and never expected to see: last week’s announcement that The Amazing Meeting 8 conference (July 8 – 11, 2010, in Las Vegas) will be co-sponsored by all three U.S. national skeptics organizations:

In keeping with recent trends for national US skeptical organizations to work more closely together to advance shared aims, the James Randi Educational Foundation is very pleased to announce that…both the Skeptics Society, as well as the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (formerly CSICOP), will officially be co-sponsors of the event, providing both financial and promotional support to the JREF for the meeting.

Long-time skeptics are aware that skepticism, like other intellectual movements, has seen its share of schisms and factions. This isn’t remotely unusual. Think of the many finely graded camps within, for example, atheism, feminism or animal welfare activism. Nor is it unusual for like-minded organizations to compete for resources or duplicate efforts.

Factionalism isn’t unique to skepticism, but it can be a bummer. When natural allies miss opportunities for mutual support, it reminds me of something a member of a colony-based anabaptist denomination once told me. I asked him to describe the key differences between his group and closely-related group they held very much at arm’s length. He told me, “Mostly the hats.”

Now, this is not to downplay the truth that skeptical groups do differ in emphasis and approach. Each of the big U.S. groups has its own strengths and specializations, as do national groups overseas and regional groups worldwide. It’s been argued that this vigorous variety is itself a strength, and I think this is often the case. A variety of groups and mandates covers more ground in more ways.

Still, skepticism and science advocacy are projects built on optimism — a “yes we can” sort of feeling. In skepticism as in other activist traditions, grassroots support lives and breathes on the hope that together we can make the world a bit better than it would have been. Optimism is a precious thing, and delicate. It flourishes best in an atmosphere of civility and cooperation.

A Long Hope

In the Spring of 2001, the Center For Inquiry’s then-Director of Education, Austin Dacey, asked me to write a proposal for a hypothetical print magazine to promote skepticism and humanism on college campuses. (That print project never went past the proposal stage, but the Center for Inquiry On Campus brought it to life as the online Campus Inquirer newsletter). Much of that proposal concerned production matters, but I also included some more general thoughts about promoting skepticism. In particular, I emphasized the practical and symbolic value (and public service benefit) of “close cooperative ties” between skeptical organizations.

I even went so far as to suggest a then-utopian example: why not “skeptical summits,” or skeptical conferences co-sponsored by like-minded national skeptics groups “under a joint banner”?

In the years since, I’ve often thought what a wonderful symbol that would be. And, in the skepticism 2.0 context, it began to seem possible. Buoyed by the enthusiasm of the new grassroots skepticism, fueled by the success of podcasting and online outreach, cooperation and collaboration between skeptical organizations has risen dramatically in recent years. I’ve been pleased to be a small part of that process, working with colleagues at many other groups, and helping to promote not only JREF projects (like TAM, which we have long supported through eSkeptic, Skeptic magazine, and Skepticality) but projects from CSI and other organizations as well. Cross-promotion and mutual assistance are emerging as the new normal for skeptical organizations. Early last year, D.J. Grothe and I even discussed the possibility of a hypothetical three-way conference — and reflected again how powerfully that would symbolize skepticism’s renaissance.

Ode to Joy All Over Again

I hasten to add that I had no part in arranging the three-way co-sponsorship of The Amazing Meeting 8. When the JREF’s announcement popped up on Twitter last week, I was as astonished as anyone else. But, I think you’d have to go a long way to find someone more pleased to hear the news than I.

Not that I needed any more reason to be excited. TAM is widely acknowledged as skepticism’s premier multi-day event — truly the summit meeting for North American skepticism. Every year, the contacts made there spin off into unexpected ideas and important new grassroots outreach projects. (For example, Canada’s influential Skeptic North blog site is a TAM7 spin-off. What a difference a year makes!)

Even before the co-sponsorship announcement, it was clear that TAM8 would be more representative of the wider skeptical landscape than any previous year. Never before have so many of skepticism’s pioneers been scheduled to participate in a single event: not only giants like James Randi, Michael Shermer, and Steven Novella, but also CSI legends Paul Kurtz, Ray Hyman, Joe Nickell, Kendrick Frazier, and Barry Karr. Even Martin Gardner is due to appear by video. Martin Gardner! (And that’s to say nothing of folks like Richard Dawkins and Adam Savage. Honestly, I’ve never seen a speaker list quite like this one.)

The Amazing Meeting 8 was already going to be something special. And then came the announcement of the co-sponsorship. The Skeptics Society, The James Randi Educational Foundation, and the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry — all working together.

I had nothing to do with it, and yet I feel personally involved. I don’t quite know how to describe my feelings about this watershed moment.

Skepticism is my life’s work. It matters to me. And this announcement changes skepticism. Changes it for the better.

That was almost exactly how I felt the first time I stepped into a university library. I mean, I actually made that comparison at the time, which isn’t entirely surprising; who at 18 does not believe they’re the central character of a Hollywood movie?

Stepping through those doors, I remember almost trembling with emotions as vast as they were pretentious. It’s a feeling I expect few young people in the developed world would have today—not because kids love knowledge (or pretension) any less, but because few in the internet era are so isolated from information.

Bishop's University library, c. 1993

I arrived on campus an atheist and a fledgling skeptic, and dramatically under-read. This wasn’t for lack of trying. In those days, it was genuinely difficult to get your hands on skeptical material: there were no podcasts, no Google, no Amazon, no blogs, no skeptical magazines on newsstands. If you couldn’t find it in your local book store, it didn’t exist.

I had one small taste of the skeptical literature: my well-read copy of the BC Skeptics’ thin Rational Enquirer newsletter, which CSICOP Fellow Barry Beyerstein handed out after a panel at a sci-fi convention I attended in Junior High. That small outreach effort was enough to make me powerfully interested in skepticism. I wanted more.

Walking into the Bishop’s University library was an Ode to Joy moment, and it just kept getting better. I recall my astonishment when I realized there was an entire second story to the collection! I spent days there those first weeks. (I can still remember some of the books I discovered: Blackmore’s Dying to Live, Asimov’s Guide to the Bible, and George H. Smith ‘s Atheism: The Case Against God come to mind.)

But the true treasure, the lamp at the end of the cave, the thing that helped set the course of my life, was hidden away in the periodical collection: a complete set of the Skeptical Inquirer, going back to its launch in 1976. I couldn’t believe such a wealth of skeptical research existed! I worked my way through the stack systematically, hungrily.

And that was it. I was truly head over heels for skepticism.

Back to Basics

I’ve been thinking of that experience a lot recently. These last weeks have been a rough ride for many skeptics, as longstanding debates about the scope and tone of skepticism have collided with the decentralized, organic nature of skepticism 2.0. I care a lot about those issues, advocating often for a back to basics approach to skepticism—a traditional, science-based skepticism that solves mysteries and educates the public.

So, I thought: why not really go back to the beginning? Why not go back to my own roots as a skeptic, reading those old back issues—and back further, to the roots of the skeptical project? The Achilles heel of skepticism 2.0 may be that new skeptics are unfamiliar with the literature.

And so, these last few days I’ve been losing myself in Skeptical Inquirer issues from 1977 and 1978. I’m falling in love all over again. The directness of those early voices is inspiring: here were investigable mysteries, and by god, skeptics were going to solve them.

And they did.

I’m learning a great deal by looking back once again at how they worked, about how things have changed and about how they haven’t. In coming posts, I’m going to dip increasingly into lessons from the early literature of skepticism. We’ve come a long way since 1976—further since the days of Houdini—but we’ve got things to learn from those who set us on this path. Let’s have another look at what those things are.

Jolene leading 1500 sheep.

A very old friend of mine came into town over the Easter weekend. I went to elementary school with Jolene, and much later she was an apprentice shepherd on my crew. After a few seasons she became a Project Manager with a crew and flock of her own. My wife was a shepherd on Joe’s crew, as was our current upstairs neighbor Julie.

We only see Joe once a year or so now, so it’s always a bit of an occasion. We cracked a few beers that evening and it soon became a sheep camp reunion. And, that brought us to a small moment of skeptical reflection.

I’m going to ramble through sheep camp on my way there, though. You can skip to the end if you’re impatient.

Like other such small groups united by a hard-to-describe common experience, shepherds love to get together and tell old war stories. “Remember the time you charged those grizzly bears?” “Remember when whatsername took three hours to fail to make fire?” You know how it goes. Sheep herding was an odd sort of life: lonely yet close; boring yet stressful; peaceful yet dangerous. It sounds sort of dreamy and pastoral (and it could feel that way occasionally) but herding 1500 sheep on foot is hard work.

Most of all, it was exhausting. We worked seasons of about 90 days, plus six weeks of pre-season and a couple weeks of post-season. Work days ran 16 hours. (Easy to do, in one sense, up there along the Alaska Panhandle: in June, it didn’t really get dark till midnight.) One day off per week, if possible: the needs of the animals came first. (I recall I went five weeks one time.) Sleep deprivation was a serious issue. People can get into real trouble when they’re sleepy — particularly driving those active logging roads and lonely highways, as we had to do for supplies and equipment.

"Trailing" sheep on logging road. Daniel Loxton brings up the tail.

The great saving grace is that sheep rest partway through the day. They fill up all morning, and then sit down to ruminate for a while and take it easy. That’s when you get some sleep. You find a spot that’s somewhat sheltered from rain or sun (if you can) and then you just drop like a puppet with its strings cut. Sometimes you wake up in a puddle.

Today, at the ripe old age of 35, I’m retired from the sheep — but my little boy can’t get enough of those old stories. When I tuck him in at night, his “one more story” requests usually sound like this: “Dad, can you tell me the story about the one mean sheep? Please?”

Now, sheep are bright and interesting animals. Scoff if you like, but there it is. By and large they’re pleasant-tempered animals as well. But they display variations of personality, as do other complex mammals. In a flock of 1500, there are always a few bad apples. (At the beginning of every season we’d watch for those bad apples — the ones going right when everyone else is going left — and we’d put bells on them. Then, we’d know what mischief they were getting up to, even when we couldn’t see them.)

Early one season I met one of those bad apples in a most surprising way. I was asleep near the flock, nestled into a little hollow, when I suddenly woke with an agonized “Oooof!” I snapped upright, swearing, and saw a big brockle-faced (multi-colored) ewe standing near me. She stared at me, seemingly with deliberate, hostile disdain. Then, she tossed her head and strolled back into the flock.

“What the hell was that?” I asked. Not far off, Jolene was laughing in shocked disbelief. “She came right out of the flock,” Joe said, “walked right up to you, reared up, and nailed you with both front feet!”

I can tell you, that’s no joke. Big ewes run a couple hundred pounds, and they’re strong, too. This was an extremely memorable misadventure, and my son loves this story. I tell it often. (By way of epilogue, incidentally, we found that sheep and put a bell on her. We also gave her a name. Will you think less of me if I tell you she was named for the meanest girl in our Junior High school?)

Which brings us back to our shepherd’s get-together the other night. It happened that Jolene told that very same story. This was the first time we’d synchronized our memories of that event in a few years, and the outcome was inevitable: there was significant drift. The basic plot was the same — sheep comes out of flock, deliberately kicks me while I’m down — but the details were different. It was a different area, maybe a different year. In her version I was sleeping out on a skid road, not in a hollow. Little things, but big little things.

The other stories we told were the same way. Some diverged. Others just seemed a little too perfect. Did they really happen that way? Listening to the stories — telling the stories — we couldn’t be sure. Not really. Not any more.

Of course, none of this is surprising stuff for skeptics. We know memory is extremely unreliable, malleable stuff — less like a hard drive, and more like leaves floating on a pond. Whenever I hear a paranormal witness tell a tale set decades in the past, I think, “Man, I’m lucky if I can remember what happened on Tuesday.”

And yet, no matter how aware of it we think we are, we forget how much we forget.

For an interesting discussion of the unreliability of memories about memorable events, check out Daniel Greenberg’s Applied Cognitive Psychology article “President Bush’s False ‘Flashbulb’ Memory of 9/11/01″ (PDF) which was adapted for Skeptic Vol. 11, No. 3.