Speaking of Dillahunty and dogmatism and the infallibility of personal beliefs…from last year:
Nearly headless nick is now brainless and heartless, as well. Sorry that you can't change and grow and learn…and be supportive of the people who are actually being threatened. https://t.co/eUk6ygQtWY
And how gratifying that Dillahunty actually bothered to provide the direct quotes which demonstrated that JK Rowling wasn’t simply mistaken on her facts, but filled with hatred and disgust and knowingly throwing out lies in order to cause harm. Usually, they don’t. Almost never.
Ok. Never.
That’s one thing that particularly astonishes me about people in the skeptical movement turned advocates for gender identity doctrine. I have been to literally dozens of lectures and many conventions dealing with bizarre beliefs and one of the overriding themes has been understanding and empathizing with believers, rather than scorning and mocking them. Science isn’t intuitive. Fallacies are easy to fall for. “They” are not so different than “us,” because it’s not intelligence, honesty, or a good heart that separates a skeptic from a believer: it’s training. And training doesn’t always stick, or transfer from one topic to another. “The trick is not to fool yourself — and we are the easiest people to fool.” I took that to heart.
And now so many people who promoted that sort of tolerance have just thrown it out the window. If you don’t draw the same conclusions they did regarding the cause and best treatment of trans people, it’s not because you made mistakes in reasoning. It’s because you’re filled with hatred. Just in this one area, you’re a raging bigot control-freak who enjoys causing pain to the most vulnerable among us.
“Can’t you just assume I’m being stupid here?” I’d sometimes ask.
Wow. I can almost hear him saying all that in a whiny voice and stomping his feet. Did he block Colin Wright after that exchange?
*checks* Huh. Matt Dilahunty appears to have blocked me, despite have issued almost no tweets and never having interacted with him. I must follow the wrong people or I must have liked the wrong tweets.
Sastra, what’s even worse is that they won’t even entertain the possibility that they might be wrong. That’s such a key point of skepticism, and they are failing. I am pretty sure I’m right about trans issues, but if they could bring out some solid, robust evidence to convince me, it is still possible to convince me I’m wrong, at least about the reality of changing sex. They’ve provided plenty of evidence to show that temperamentally they are men, and I am right for dismissing their claims on that front.
The whole thing about former skeptics being brainwormed by this one topic… It’s something I could talk about all day because I don’t think I’ll ever quite get to the bottom of it. We’ve examined lots of aspects of it here and while I think some of us have been right at least some of the time, we still haven’t managed to explain how widespread and… well…. binary it is.
It’s unsettling. One day I’ll try to tie together all the threads of this issue I have flapping in my head and post it here, but I don’t think it will fully answer the question.
One day I’ll try to tie together all the threads of this issue I have flapping in my head and post it here, but I don’t think it will fully answer the question.
I’m sure there several case studies, theses, and dissertations waiting to be unearthed in this subject. It’s such a glaring blind spot; and not just a quirky, individualized one. I think it is more generalized and widespread than individual quirkiness can account for. It’s become some kind of faux-progressive merit badge, an unexamined indicator of membership in the “Right Side of History Club” which will not age well. The uncritical reflexivity and Manicheanism of it is quite remarkable in a group that prides itself on its “skepticism.” I recall some skeptics who would deride the idea of Mensa membership being used by other skeptics as some sort of bona fide credential of reason and rationality. Being in Mensa, they rightly argued, guaranteed no such thing.
There was a very brief window, around the time of Elevatorgate, when it looked like taking feminist ideas seriously was going to become a dividing line within skepticism. Ironically, it would seem that trans “rights” took its place.
The important thing to remember is that gender criticals are the Last of the True Skeptics (with the exception of those who wander off in to discussions that masks are performative, vaccines are intrusive,,,)
All of which is a reminder that as humans we are all capable of being led off track by our personal biases, and if we go back to Psych 101 we can recall that our perceptions may be affected by our perspective. I recall my friend in Phoenix who considered himself a skeptic yet accepted without question the alkaline diet claim that acidic foods cause cancer and diabetes and that people who eat the wrong foods have a blood pH between 4 and 5. I recall another friend who considers herself a skeptic yet believes that Mercola is telling the truth about diet and medicine and that doctors don’t want to cure people. I recall another friends who considers himself a skeptic and he also insists that 9/11 was ordered by Dick Cheney so he could start the war in Iraq.
So, we get the picture that we can’t rely on our beliefs to guide us, and we always need to question what we believe, and try to determine whether a source of information is valid or not.
May of these skeptics who argue as Dillahunty does ignore the maxim that “The easiest person to fool is yourself.” It’s easy to make fun of Christians, easy to make fun of bigfoot hunters, and anti-vaxxers, but it’s difficult to go against your peer group of fellow skeptics. I’ve lost friends due to the fact that I don’t hate GMO’s, think that prostitution enables sex trafficking of minors even where it’s legal, and now because I don’t think that Transwomen are Women. While I’m skeptical, I will default to believe that women’s rights to privacy and safety shouldn’t be compromised based on self-perception that men want to be women.
Michael Haubrich, I got a thing in the mail yesterday to let me know that my insurance company is now paying for, and my employer promoting, the idea of a keto diet to cure diabetes. I do occasionally buy a keto cookbook because they have some good recipes, but I tear out the recipes I want and pitch the rest in the recycling bin.
I think it concept the keto diet is plausible not to cure, but to treat, aspects of Type 2 diabetes. I am aware of research for treating forms of cirrhosis and certain seizure disorders but no confirmation that it is an effective treatment for diabetes. But the whole moving away from glucose metabolism is not completely crazy. My thought is that one should very carefully consult with a qualified phyiscian and nutriitonist who has seen your lab workups before trying to switch. Our disaffected podcaster talked ad nauseum about how wonderful and clear he was on a keto diet, but then also admitted his cravings for carbs would sometimes cause him to fall. Perhaps the explanation for his recent views has to do with daily overdoses of spaghetti?
I think Dillahunty saw what happened to The Atheist Experience back in 2019 when it clashed with trans dogma and has carefully avoided having the same happen to him.
And how gratifying that Dillahunty actually bothered to provide the direct quotes which demonstrated that JK Rowling wasn’t simply mistaken on her facts, but filled with hatred and disgust and knowingly throwing out lies in order to cause harm. Usually, they don’t. Almost never.
Ok. Never.
That’s one thing that particularly astonishes me about people in the skeptical movement turned advocates for gender identity doctrine. I have been to literally dozens of lectures and many conventions dealing with bizarre beliefs and one of the overriding themes has been understanding and empathizing with believers, rather than scorning and mocking them. Science isn’t intuitive. Fallacies are easy to fall for. “They” are not so different than “us,” because it’s not intelligence, honesty, or a good heart that separates a skeptic from a believer: it’s training. And training doesn’t always stick, or transfer from one topic to another. “The trick is not to fool yourself — and we are the easiest people to fool.” I took that to heart.
And now so many people who promoted that sort of tolerance have just thrown it out the window. If you don’t draw the same conclusions they did regarding the cause and best treatment of trans people, it’s not because you made mistakes in reasoning. It’s because you’re filled with hatred. Just in this one area, you’re a raging bigot control-freak who enjoys causing pain to the most vulnerable among us.
“Can’t you just assume I’m being stupid here?” I’d sometimes ask.
“No.”
Wow. I can almost hear him saying all that in a whiny voice and stomping his feet. Did he block Colin Wright after that exchange?
*checks* Huh. Matt Dilahunty appears to have blocked me, despite have issued almost no tweets and never having interacted with him. I must follow the wrong people or I must have liked the wrong tweets.
I’m surprised he hasn’t blocked me. Must not have been keeping up with events at the old place.
Sastra, what’s even worse is that they won’t even entertain the possibility that they might be wrong. That’s such a key point of skepticism, and they are failing. I am pretty sure I’m right about trans issues, but if they could bring out some solid, robust evidence to convince me, it is still possible to convince me I’m wrong, at least about the reality of changing sex. They’ve provided plenty of evidence to show that temperamentally they are men, and I am right for dismissing their claims on that front.
And that twootle comes with a proclamation built in that he/she/it cannot get out of the conversation fast enough.
He hasn’t blocked me, either!
Soon fix that.
The whole thing about former skeptics being brainwormed by this one topic… It’s something I could talk about all day because I don’t think I’ll ever quite get to the bottom of it. We’ve examined lots of aspects of it here and while I think some of us have been right at least some of the time, we still haven’t managed to explain how widespread and… well…. binary it is.
It’s unsettling. One day I’ll try to tie together all the threads of this issue I have flapping in my head and post it here, but I don’t think it will fully answer the question.
I’m sure there several case studies, theses, and dissertations waiting to be unearthed in this subject. It’s such a glaring blind spot; and not just a quirky, individualized one. I think it is more generalized and widespread than individual quirkiness can account for. It’s become some kind of faux-progressive merit badge, an unexamined indicator of membership in the “Right Side of History Club” which will not age well. The uncritical reflexivity and Manicheanism of it is quite remarkable in a group that prides itself on its “skepticism.” I recall some skeptics who would deride the idea of Mensa membership being used by other skeptics as some sort of bona fide credential of reason and rationality. Being in Mensa, they rightly argued, guaranteed no such thing.
There was a very brief window, around the time of Elevatorgate, when it looked like taking feminist ideas seriously was going to become a dividing line within skepticism. Ironically, it would seem that trans “rights” took its place.
The important thing to remember is that gender criticals are the Last of the True Skeptics (with the exception of those who wander off in to discussions that masks are performative, vaccines are intrusive,,,)
All of which is a reminder that as humans we are all capable of being led off track by our personal biases, and if we go back to Psych 101 we can recall that our perceptions may be affected by our perspective. I recall my friend in Phoenix who considered himself a skeptic yet accepted without question the alkaline diet claim that acidic foods cause cancer and diabetes and that people who eat the wrong foods have a blood pH between 4 and 5. I recall another friend who considers herself a skeptic yet believes that Mercola is telling the truth about diet and medicine and that doctors don’t want to cure people. I recall another friends who considers himself a skeptic and he also insists that 9/11 was ordered by Dick Cheney so he could start the war in Iraq.
So, we get the picture that we can’t rely on our beliefs to guide us, and we always need to question what we believe, and try to determine whether a source of information is valid or not.
May of these skeptics who argue as Dillahunty does ignore the maxim that “The easiest person to fool is yourself.” It’s easy to make fun of Christians, easy to make fun of bigfoot hunters, and anti-vaxxers, but it’s difficult to go against your peer group of fellow skeptics. I’ve lost friends due to the fact that I don’t hate GMO’s, think that prostitution enables sex trafficking of minors even where it’s legal, and now because I don’t think that Transwomen are Women. While I’m skeptical, I will default to believe that women’s rights to privacy and safety shouldn’t be compromised based on self-perception that men want to be women.
Note: I’m skeptical that TWAW, not that womens’ rights to privacy and safety shouldn’t be compromised.
Oliver Cromwell is not my favourite historical figure, but he had it right when he wrote to the Church of Scotland:
Michael Haubrich, I got a thing in the mail yesterday to let me know that my insurance company is now paying for, and my employer promoting, the idea of a keto diet to cure diabetes. I do occasionally buy a keto cookbook because they have some good recipes, but I tear out the recipes I want and pitch the rest in the recycling bin.
I think it concept the keto diet is plausible not to cure, but to treat, aspects of Type 2 diabetes. I am aware of research for treating forms of cirrhosis and certain seizure disorders but no confirmation that it is an effective treatment for diabetes. But the whole moving away from glucose metabolism is not completely crazy. My thought is that one should very carefully consult with a qualified phyiscian and nutriitonist who has seen your lab workups before trying to switch. Our disaffected podcaster talked ad nauseum about how wonderful and clear he was on a keto diet, but then also admitted his cravings for carbs would sometimes cause him to fall. Perhaps the explanation for his recent views has to do with daily overdoses of spaghetti?
Also the wonderfulness and clearness isn’t…quite…entirely…established.
Aren’t we expected to take “lived experience” as prima facie evidence?
I think Dillahunty saw what happened to The Atheist Experience back in 2019 when it clashed with trans dogma and has carefully avoided having the same happen to him.
I’d forgotten about that. In case anyone else has also forgotten – we discussed it at length back then.