NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/sci/skeptic/21851

Text File | 1992-12-30 | 3.7 KB | 82 lines

Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Path: sparky!uunet!wupost!cs.uiuc.edu!mcgrath
From: [e-mail] (Robert McGrath)
Subject: Re: Repost of Truzzi Lecture:  How to Hand
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail]
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Organization: University of Illinois, Dept of Computer Science
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 16:52:45 GMT
Lines: 69

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Dave Breeding, xt-dGR,) writes in part:
|> >I leave a cataloging of the flaws in this kind of argument as an
|> >exercise for undergraduate rhetoric students.
|> >
|>
|> Hi Robert:
|>
|> Unfortunately, I'm not an undergraduate rhetoric student, so please
|> help me with this.  My understanding of the Truzzi article was that he
|> was simply enumerating three ways that people commonly approach these
|> anomalies, and that he was arguing that the third way was the most
|> appropriate for the scientific community.  He seems to me to be saying
|> that the first two ways are not science, which is what you seem to be
|> saying also.  And yet you seem to be disagreeing with him.  ???

One problem with this approach is found in your phrase "people commonly".
There are at least three things wrong with this simple phrase:

  1.  It presumes to generalize about all people.
  2.  It presumes to label a given person as uniformly behaving in
      one way.
  3.  It artificially creates three categories out of what is probably
      a multi-dimensonal spectrum of belief and action.

Thus, the entire argument is based on two fallacious presumptions
and a fallacious trichotomy.

To give you a flavor of what is wrong with these three items:

   Number 1.  There are lots of people on this planet.  The
   vast majority are not Forteans, CSICOPIANs, Truzzians, nor
   even, amazing as it might seem, scientists.  To make a valid
   statement about what "groups of people" believe, think, or
   do "in general" requires a lot of work:  you have to define
   the group(s) in some sensible fashion, you have to show
   evidence of the proposed behavioral consistency, and so on.

   Number 2.  Everyone believes some things for which there is
   no proof.  Noone believes everything.  A person's belief in
   claims of anomalies might very well varies with the particular
   claim.  Not very many people believe everything they read
   in either the Fortean Times or the Skeptical Inquirer.  Just
   which and how many anomalies do I have to "take seriously" to
   qualify as a "Zetetic"?

   Number 3.  It should be clear from my other comments that
   people's ideas and actions do not fall into three neat categories.
   As you note, I am both diagreeing and agreeing with Truzzi.
   So which category does that put me in?  This is the fallacy:
   these categories exist only as rhetorical devices to establish
   Truzzi's position in the center of the broad middle ground.
   In reality there are no such categories and few, if any, such
   extremists, and his argument does violence to actual human
   behavior and the facts of the case.

This entire argument about "anomalistics" has very little to do with
science.  One can do perfectly good science without ever paying
any attention to Fortean style anomalies.  One can also study
those things Truzzi would call "anomalies" in valid, scientific,
and exciting ways without ever hearing the word "anomaly" or "zetetic".
Arguing about who is "really" a scientist, or the "right" way for
scientists to behave is the philosophy and sociology of science, which,
mercifully, has little impact on scientific behavior or anything
else.  Pay it no attention, it is not important.

--
  Robert E. McGrath
  Urbana Illinois
  [e-mail]