Believers believe

Jack of Kent this week poses an interesting question about scepticism. It boils down to whether sceptics have an image problem, whether it is enough to be right.

Now, while my general outlook might be clear enough from previous posts, I'll nail my colours to the mast here again for those who have just tuned in.

I don't believe in "woo". And for me woo includes not just alternative medicines proven to have no clinical value (homoeopathy for example) but also unsupported political assertions (what we are doing will prevent a future global crisis), unsupported linguistic assertions (never split an infinitive),  religions in general or unsupported assertions about anything.

Now how I react depends on which particular bit of woo I am dealing with.

In the case of religions, for example, I'm a live and let live kind of a guy. I don't try to convert people to atheism or even discuss it unless someone tries to convert me. I'm not as forgiving on everything though and, in light of Jack of Kent's question, I am wondering if I should be.

I am prepared to argue politics, to an extent, though in many ways it's every much a no-win battle as religion. You can't convince people with evidence when their whole belief system is defined by believing things without evidence.

I do argue, and at length, about language because I'm a language teacher and a linguistics enthusiast. It's my field and I find that my annoyance at unsupported, nit-picking, pedantry outweighs my reluctance to get involved in verbal battles that I know I can't win.

The main area of debate on Jack of Kent though is alternative medicine and here I have sometimes been a bit over-enthusiastic in arguing. I've had the idea in my head, possibly mistakenly, that if people only understood the facts they would stop believing in the nonsense.

My previous post shows that I am, perhaps, mellowing a bit. When my colleague suggested that I try TCM or homoeopathy to cure my gout, I bit my tongue and refused to be baited into an argument. I know she believes in these things and I know that arguing with her won't change her opinion of them, just of me.

This is the very heart of the image problem that scepticism has. I genuinely believe that voodoo or sacrificing a goat would have as much chance of curing my gout as TCM or homoeopathy. I prefer to take seriously the advice of my doctor who suggested none of those things. But, however much I believe that, I have absolutely no way to demolish the faith of someone who says "It worked for me." There is literally nothing I can say or do that will convince them that whatever cured them it wasn't a magic sugar pill.

The trouble is, as I've observed before, the evidence is largely irrelevant to a genuine true believer. The more evidence you amass, the more you insist on presenting it, the more strident you become...the more they cry conspiracy. As with my colleague, they don't look at the evidence and modify their opinion of whichever bit of woo that is under discussion, they look at it and modify their opinions of you. Remember that you are not simply undermining their opinion you are undermining their faith. The few who come round to the rationalist point of view would probably have done so eventually anyway. The rest will either ignore or vilify you anyway.

Does this mean we should all just shut up and let people believe whatever they want to believe? It is, after all, the approach I take to religion. I am in two minds about it but on the whole I think not. While a lot of alternative therapies are in themselves harmless they may be passively harmful in that they prevent people taking effective action. Some, of course, as with February's TCM poisoning case, can be actively harmful.

What it all comes down to is whether you think that you have a moral duty to attempt to stop people harming themselves. 

So, in short, yes, scepticism does have an image problem and no, it isn't enough to be right.

There is also sadly nothing much we can do about it. Believers believe and believing that they are right means believing that the sceptics are wrong. No matter how we present our case, the very fact that we present it at all is so opposed to their views that we will always have an image problem.