I appreciate both the Conspiracy Theorists and the Skeptics

[Domitan]

Ever since I've been here on DU, I've seen a wide range of personalities here including some that seem rather antagonistic to each other. One such relationship is that between the Conspiracy Theorists and the Skeptics. I consider myself an open-minded skeptic. Some may deem me as having too much stock in tin, and others may see me as too "scientific-minded" and not open to all possibilities. I'll just be me, thank you.

I can understand where both camps come from. On one hand, all the chaos and deceit in the world, especially from the powerful government and business groups, make it understandable that some won't take the "printed word" at face value and question what really happened. On the other hand, application of reason and careful research is essential in weeding out the bullshit. I think the reasonable ones in both camps offer a lot here in that they can provide us syntheses of issues. Both groups discuss and debate points that can be sharpened as the discourse goes along...then we are left to decide for ourselves.

Let's take Minstrel Boy and the Magistrate, both of whom I find to be reasonable chaps. A number of people may unfairly write off Minstrel Boy as Chief Woo-Woo, but I've seen that he's prudent enough to not accept the blatant BS or disinformation (e.g., "no plane hit the Pentagon"). He's read a lot of interesting material. and I've noticed that his tone is to provide intriguing sources that makes us think "outside the box". Minstrel Boy does not automatically swallow everything that he reads, but cautions us against automatically dismissing them right off the bat. "What really could be there?" is how I see his postings. The Magistrate on the other hand takes a hardline rational stance that does not accept some speculation if he feels there are other more mundane interpretations or explanations for the hot issues at hand. He engages in these discussions by analyzing them point by point and often using Ockham's Razor. Some find the Magistrate to be the heavy sort that oppresses free speculation. I don't find that the case, as he allows a lot of these discussions to go on. People make the choice to read or address what he says. He does make us think too. I enjoyed reading a few discussions between Minstrel Boy and the Magistrate where they defend their points and trade good rebuttals to each other's points without getting personal or defensive. If one point is challenged, the other attempts to sharpen his defense so that his original point becomes stronger...and so on. I like that. That gives us the chance to think more about each stance on an issue, and decide for ourselves which one seems more reasonable for us.

I don't care for the kneejerkism that I see from some on both camps. I just shake my head when I see such blanket statements (which are used against even the reasonable ones from both sides). "You are part of the conspiracy!" "You're too blind to see the dark evil that comes from the Martian Cthulhu worshippers!!" "It's not on the news, so you're a nutzoid!" "Time to institutionize the wackos here!" Whatever, whatever. Yes, there are sloppy thinkers that deserve ridicule (e.g., those who saw the Bush brothers as steering the hurricanes into Florida for their own benefit) or silly kneejerkers that don't haven't really earned their "skeptic" badge of honour (e.g., those who take any criticism of Israel as a sure sign of anti-semite Nazis infiltrating DU). I know all the insults will continue to fly, all the defensiveness will go on...but I can see both sides making for interesting discussions.

Carry on, campers.

[smirkymonkey]

1. Thanks for your very reasonable post.

No wonder there are so few responses - common sense doesn't seem to go over too well in GD.

Anyway, kicked and nominated, as I think it's wise to consider both viewpoints without necessarily having to settle in any one particular camp on an issue. Why is that concept so hard for some people to grasp?

:kick:

[Domitan]

5. Many reasons

but some allow their emotions to overwhelm their thinking camps. Some are driven by their egos. Some are just tired of going over the same points again and again (understandable if the other side does not budge despite his point being successfully refuted).

[Mythsaje]

2. Uh-huh...

I see it much the same way you do. I am an "enlightened skeptic." When something wild hits the screen, I nod and go "uh-huh. Maybe. Maybe not."

Steering hurricanes--that's crazy talk.

[Domitan]

4. Exactly

If something is still in the realm of speculation, I won't declare it fact. It's too bad when some jump on speculation as the gospel truth, as it only makes them look more foolish. If something is not yet verified and not deemed too ridiculous for me, I just keep it in my personal X-files until it can be verified in the future, if ever.

[beam me up scottie]

17. "It's too bad when some jump on speculation as the gospel truth"

Doubting everything except speculation does not make one a skeptic.

"When we say we are “skeptical,” we mean that we must see compelling evidence before we believe."

from The Skeptic Society

[AuntPatsy]

3. Great post, worthy of a kick.

[havocmom]

6. Recommended and a kick

OK, maybe it was just my knee jerking ;) but you make a great deal of sense.

[Minstrel Boy]

7. Thanks Domitan

I think "conspiracy theorists" should be called "skeptics" themselves sometimes, because occasionally what's called "conspiracy theory" is nothing but skepticism of the dominent narrative.

[bloom]

13. skeptics

I don't put a label on myself - but I do think it is funny when I consider myself to be skeptical of something the government is doing (for instance) and someone is skeptical of my skepticism. And then goes so far as to call himself - the 'skeptic' - by believing what the government tells him. (And even posts in the 'skeptics' group.)

But he probably thinks the "dominant narrative" is to be skeptical and so he is skeptical of that.

[DemExpat]

36. It does get confusing sometimes, I agree...

:D

DemEx

[LibertyorDeath]

19. With Pleasure

:kick::kick::kick::kick::kick::kick::kick::kick::kick::kick::kick::kick:

[The Magistrate]

8. You Will Be A Lonely Fellow, Sir

But you are wise, and your point is a good one. Certainly, where discussion proceeds with civility, tensions between different points of view can prove productive and beneficial.

Allow me to join in your appreciation of Mr. Minstrel Boy. Our relations are not always of the most friendly nature, for we indeed have some profound disagreements on the workings of this unhappy world. But he is certainly a respectable and honest opponent, which counts for a great deal to my view. He does not engage in abuse as a technique of debate, and it is generally a pleasure to contest with him. My suspicion is that we have differences of experience and temperament that contribute to the irreconcilable differences between our outlooks.

Allow me, too, please, one cavail with your description of myself, for it is impossible for me to accept at face value your compliment that "he allows a lot of these discussions to go on." Our actions as Moderators are always the result of consensus among us, and a decision to allow or not allow a discussion is therefore not mine to make, and it would be wrong for me to accept any plaudits personally. However, it is a point of honor to me to be fair, and that is something I endeavor to be to the limits of my capabilities: being human, those may well fall short of someone else's ideal, but there is no help for that.

"Who has no enemies has no friends."

[Domitan]

28. I've rarely seen any moderator get deep into many discussions

It's refreshing to see that.

[JackRiddler]

9. But please do get the terminology right.

Those who doubt the official conspiracy theory are the real skeptics.

Those who believe in Osama and the 19 pirates have accepted an unfounded conspiracy theory.

Jack Riddler, an Original 9/11 Skeptic

[Minstrel Boy]

10. "Cynical, sophisticated and subtle"

This seems like maybe a good place to post excerpts from something I wrote for my blog a couple of months ago.


Cynical, sophisticated and subtle

Sometimes nonsense is just nonsense. Sometimes, like when Marshall Applewhite hollered "All aboard!" for the Hale-Bopp Express, it's dangerous nonsense. Sometimes the nonsense is also disinformation. And sometimes, disinformation is not nonsense at all. And for the truth, that's the most dangerous.

...

...consider the Pentagon crash, and the confiscation of the video from the service station security camera. That the video has never been released is regarded by many as damning evidence that authorities are trying to hide the true nature of the crash: that the video must reveal that it wasn't Flight 77 but a missile, or a fighter jet. But think: perhaps the video remains hidden because some people are quite happy to mindfuck the conspiracists and perpetuate an erroneous line of inquiry. Would they want to lay to rest a mistaken hypothesis, when it misdirects the efforts of so many? It may be that the question is not What have they got to hide? but rather, Why do they want us to think that they're hiding something?

....

...the best disinformation is that which most closely resembles the truth as we know it. It may look just like what we're expecting to find. But within it, is a time bomb meant to blow up in our faces.

Jim Garrison knew the feeling. He had his case against Clay Shaw blow up because of the cross-examination of Charles Spiesel, a New York accountant he'd belatedly added to his witness list. Spiesel testified he had heard Shaw and David Ferrie discuss the possible assassination of John F Kennedy. When the Chief Defense Counsel rose, he "uncannily" knew to destroy Spiesel's credibility, and Garrison's, by probing him about mind control. Spiesel complained that "hypnosis and psychological warfare" had been used on him, and he had been mentally tortured by the NYPD. And who knows: Spiesel could have been a mind control subject, but it wouldn't have mattered. This was still years before the declassification, such as it was, of MK-ULTRA, and the admission that the government had been pursuing technologies of the sort to which Spiesel claimed he had been subjected. But this was unknown, and unimagined by most, so in the eyes of the jury his testimony was rendered worthless.

In On the Trail of the Assassins, Garrison writes:

For one very long moment, while I am sure that my face revealed no concern, I was swept by a feeling of nausea. I realized that the clandestine operation of the opposition was so cynical, so sophisticated, and, at the same time, so subtle, that destroying an old-fashioned state jury trial was very much like shooting a fish in a barrel with a shotgun.

Most of us, I think, are good-hearted people who are alive to this material because we recognize injustice and mean for it to end. That can be our strength, but it can also find hobbling expression in naive thinking. I believe on this side we could do with some healthy cynicism, sophistication and subtly of our own. Maybe it could rescue some credibility. Save lives, even.

I think of Gary Caradori, Chief Investigator for the Nebraska Legislature's Franklin committee, calling Senator Loran Schmit and exclaiming "We've got them! There's no way they can get out of it now!" He was returning from Chicago with photographic evidence of Lawrence King's elite paedophile ring. Schmit took another phone call a short while later, which informed him that Caradori had died in the crash of his small plane. His evidence was never recovered.

We want to get them, but let's never again say "There's no way they can get out of it now." Let's think several steps ahead, because they do. And when the bad guys shoot fish in a barrel, usually we're the fish. So we'd better be thinking outside the barrel.

[smirkymonkey]

12. Excellent post.

I think we have a duty to question everything - for me it is the only way to keep my hope for a better world alive, for as long as we swallow the "official story" without question we turn out fates and our lives over to the worst elements of society: those who would gladly sacrifice us all to further their warped agendas based on power, blood lust and greed.

[DemExpat]

37. Hi, smirkymonkey....

:hi:

:thumbsup:

DemEx

[smirkymonkey]

47. Hi DemExpat!

:hi: :)

[beam me up scottie]

11. Great post.

Facts by themselves are not evidence, no matter how many or how unlikely.

A true skeptic listens to all and makes up his own mind.

If we cannot trust anything that the news agencies tell us, why does every theory cite them as sources ?

Yes, governments and media lie, but no skeptic would use that to claim that every piece of information they provide is automatically false.


"Making up your mind does not mean freeing yourself to believe what you want - but examining so closely that you know the result."
~Alan Gregg

[Domitan]

27. You're welcome

One key in determining which source is more credible than the other is Predictive Validity. Which site is disciplined and insightful enough to provide stories that are eventually verified or can predict what happens in the time ahead?

Let me give an example:

Rumormillnews.com : some fun read but too many unverified stories as well as those that never pan out. Not a quotable source for me at all.

Antiwar.com : very disciplined (avoids many speculations and prejudiced assertions) and has strong predictive validity (e.g., one of the first to identify the neocon cabal and talked in July 2003 about how the Plame outing would haunt the White House). One source that I'd be happy to cite.

[beam me up scottie]

14. What is a Skeptic?

What is a Skeptic?

From The Skeptics Society
http://www.skeptic.com/
****

What does it mean to be a skeptic? Some people believe that skepticism is rejection of new ideas, or worse, they confuse “skeptic” with “cynic” and think that skeptics are a bunch of grumpy curmudgeons unwilling to accept any claim that challenges the status quo. This is wrong. Skepticism is a provisional approach to claims. It is the application of reason to any and all ideas—no sacred cows allowed. In other words, skepticism is a method, not a position. Ideally, skeptics do not go into an investigation closed to the possibility that a phenomenon might be real or that a claim might be true. When we say we are “skeptical,” we mean that we must see compelling evidence before we believe. Skeptics are from Missouri—the “show me” state. When we hear a fantastic claim we say, “that’s nice, prove it.”

Skepticism has a long historical tradition dating back to ancient Greece when Socrates observed: “All I know is that I know nothing.” But this pure position is sterile and unproductive and held by virtually no one. If you are skeptical about everything, you would have to be skeptical of your own skepticism. Like the decaying subatomic particle, pure skepticism uncoils and spins off the viewing screen of our intellectual cloud chamber.

Modern skepticism is embodied in the scientific method, that involves gathering data to formulate and test naturalistic explanations for natural phenomena. A claim becomes factual when it is confirmed to such an extent it would be reasonable to offer temporary agreement. But all facts in science are provisional and subject to challenge, and therefore skepticism is a method leading to provisional conclusions. Some claims, such as water dowsing, ESP, and creationism, have been tested (and failed the tests) often enough that we can provisionally conclude that they are not valid. Other claims, such as hypnosis, the origins of language, and black holes, have been tested but results are inconclusive so we must continue formulating and testing hypotheses and theories until we can reach a provisional conclusion.

The key to skepticism is to continuously and vigorously apply the methods of science to navigate the treacherous straits between “know nothing” skepticism and “anything goes” credulity. Over three centuries ago the French philosopher and skeptic, René Descartes, after one of the most thorough skeptical purges in intellectual history, concluded that he knew one thing for certain: Cogito ergo sum—I think therefore I am. But evolution may have designed us in the other direction. Humans evolved to be pattern-seeking, cause-inferring animals, shaped by nature to find meaningful relationships in the world. Those who were best at doing this left behind the most offspring. We are their descendents. In other words, to be human is to think. To paraphrase Descartes:

Sum Ergo Cogito—I Am Therefore I Think.
****

[The Magistrate]

16. Allow Me, Ma'am, A Brief Defense Of Cynicism

"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it."

[beam me up scottie]

20. By all means.

True that.

"True ideas are those that we can assimilate, validate, corroborate, and verify. False ideas are those that we cannot. That is the practical difference it makes to us to have true ideas; that therefore is the meaning of truth, for it is all that truth is known as."
~William James

[madeline_con]

51. Well said.

:applause:

[The Magistrate]

55. Thank You, Ma'am

The comment is Mr. G. B. Shaw's, of whom it was said that "It is his life's work to announce the obvious in terms of the scandalous."

[greyl]

53. OT: I address you, ma'ams and sirs

Am I the only one who thinks that the arbitrarily total use of ma'am and sir interrupts the cadence when reading messages?

Having to mentally add the stuttered pauses for comma ma'ams and comma sirs can detract from an authentically valuable message.

imeo

[Minstrel Boy]

18. But that's a narrow definition of a scientific skeptic. n/t

[beam me up scottie]

21. It's a very simple, broad and accurate definition of a skeptic.

It does not limit skepticism in any manner.

I have never heard of a scientific skeptic.

All skeptics use scientific methods to debunk.

[The Magistrate]

22. It Applies Beyond Narrowly Construed Scientific Questions, Sir

One of the key points is assesment of the worth of testimonies in the various forms they are supplied in....

[omega minimo]

15. We're all Bozos on this bus

Conspiracy and skepticism have been topsy-turvified by the fact that our nation, our government and our futures have been hijacked by an unelected gang of global pirates.

[frictionlessO]

23. Reaching across this divide is a great thing. Thanks for your open but not

mindless approach. I am very very glad to see someone of middle ground try to heal this rupture in our lines.

Your points are well reasoned... reminds of the "no shadow without light" thing. As long as things remain for the most part civil and non threatening and or maligning, DU can be a great force of a think tank. Where speculation is honed into theory by near instantaneous peer review (albeit sometimes hyper critically from all sides). Those theories can be made into talking points worthy of LTTEs ,contacting elected officials, and emails to multiple media scources.

In fact by our network of left leaning websites we have carved several notches into the proverbial bedpost. In fact we've had a lot more victories than most thought we would have.

We can take pride in working on these things together and maybe use that pride to nurture a feeling of mutual admiration fro eachother like both Minstrel Boy and The Magistrate have shown eachother here on this thread tonight.

To me this is the real gold of DU, learning how to unite and work together has always been the vast Lefts most gaping problem. This thread could stand as a good first step in both sides having respect for eachother as compatriots and partners in trying to bring some good back to this world, not just our country... though that is undoubtedly where we should begin.

In fact I'd go so far as to "speculate" that if the Left ever truly united the right wingers wouldn't know what hit them. We could move that middle back to the middle and GASP! actually have some semblance of political discourse in Washington once more. That is all I want, and Im nearly sure that even those who do not like me at all would agree... I hope that they would anyway.

Good all over you for this thread. A peacemaker amongst us!
Thank you....

[The Magistrate]

24. Allow Me To Second Your Last Paragraph Particularly, Sir

Disunity on the Left is indeed the secret of reactionary success throughout history. Perhaps the most illustrative example in recent history is the Spanish Civil War, something it is not possible for me to urge too strongly people inform themselves on. We on the left simply must learn to overcome this splintering tendency, and co-operate towards things we can all agree on. It will be difficult. Reactionaries, being in their hearts authoritarians and eager for authority over themselves, will more readily unite under a leader and against a foe; leftists and progressives, being in their hearts rebels and rejectors of authority, find it much more difficult to subordinate themselves in a common cause that does not focus on what they want most, whether in the direction or the ultimate goal of the effort. In my view, what should be taken as the first priority in our present situation is simply the breaking of the most reactionary elements of our polity, that are now in power in our national government: without this being achieved, nothing is possible, that any of us desire. Time enough to scrap when we have power to scrap over....

[frictionlessO]

30. Trust has become a most rare performance in almost any poilitical arena.

I think sometimes I project that mistrust on my fellows more often than I should. I also think I've seen the same from just about all sides of the Left. I dont want that... More specifically I want to work with all on the left and put aside my own agenda to do the big things that need to be done and we all know what they are. Your last line is succinct enough to be a meme for the entire left.

Everyday I wake up with one thing on my mind, how to get people who know how to use the power and art of detente towards the betterment of most, back into power. Isn't that what we all want? What leads us to such a consensus is not nearly as important as remembering that there is in fact such a consensus to begin with and how we can use the consesus to break that stranglehold the radicals on the right have on our democracy and this republic. As you much more eloquently stated.

In short good sir, I know of nothing so important as what you posted above. If this were achieved things could finally begin down the road towards the hope of all other agendas. Time enough to debate those agendas when so much is not at such risk.

Further I have taken it upon myself to be much more clear when stating a speculative stance. I believe that by doing so many of us can avboid the ire of our fellows here at DU. I think there are steps that can be taken on others sides as well to keep the flamage down to a reasonable and workable level.

Thank you for your reply in these regards, it provides me with much needed hope and inspiration and I'll gladly trade humorous barbs with you across a pint any old day for such balanced words.

[The Magistrate]

45. And My Thanks To You, Sir

It is a great pleasure to be met with such a spirit.

"Time enough to scrap when we have power to scrap over."

[omega minimo]

25. Are those egalitarian "notches in the proverbial bedpost"?

[frictionlessO]

31. *giggles*

We all must look to our own notches and decide for ourselves what kind of notches those are in the bedpost. I am quite sure some of us have different ways of viewing such notches let alone the actual notching of such notches. The notches I view have all been achieved through some form of unity in the face of tremendous odds.

Then again my own personal first "real" notch was indeed in the face of even more tremendous odds and that had not all to do with politics mind you! lol....

[Domitan]

29. Indeed!

Healthy discourse leads to fresher minds, IMHO.

[frictionlessO]

32. Yes yes and what are fellows learn in the following of such discussions

may very well be invaluable in many distinct ways.

Thank you again!

[alittlelark]

26. Thank You for this post.

It is reasonable and honest.

[Taxloss]

33. I'm happy to add my name to this.

As long as we call speculation what it is, seek hard evidence above all else, and argue the argument, not against the people, we should be OK.

[Just Me]

34. Differing perceptions are inevitable.

However, if we maintain a common goal of reaching towards the truth, we work out our differences. Personally, what I MOST enjoy on this board is the varying views on matters.

Nice post! :yourock:

[DemExpat]

35. Hear, hear, Domitan!

I also appreciate seeing both sides - the free thinking linking and questioning - the brain storming, as it were - and the careful watch of reason to keep an eye on what facts are known.

Especially when those representing both styles of thinking have deep respect and courtesy for the other approach.

Thanks for saying this,

DemEx

[Sterling]

38. I do too, in the context of free expression it is great to hear all sides

of a discussion. Why someone would want this place to limit discussion is beyond me. Me are all grown ups that deserve to have our beliefs and opinions treated equally by the admins.

[starroute]

39. All of us are just trying to make sense of the world in our own ways

Reality is very big and messy, but we as humans are hard-wired to try to make sense of it. To look for patterns and common factors, to make predictions about the results of our actions so we don't have to stake our lives on random choices, to accumulate knowledge that can be passed on to the next generation.

On the whole this is a good thing. It has brought us as a species to where we are today. But it also means we are vulnerable to getting caught up in false patterns and random similarities. The messier the world around us becomes, the easier it is to be swept away by explanations which are simple, comprehensive, and wrong.

I try to avoid both extremes. I'm skeptical of people who try to blame all the world's troubles on a single cause -- whether al-Qaeda or the Bavarian Illuminati -- and I'm equally skeptical of people who want to throw up their hands and say that everyone's crazy and bad things happen for no particular reason and there's no point trying to make sense of it.

But that still leaves a very large middle ground. What sort of hypothetical explanations for the mess we find ourselves in should be taken seriously and used as a basis for future action?

Obviously, we all have our own approach to that question. In my own case, I have three main touchpoints:

1) When I was a kid in the late 50's and early 60's, it was a puzzle to me that the US was largely democratic and liberal at home but supported the most despotic and regressive regimes imaginable overseas. That was a contradiction I couldn't resolve. If the same government was running both our foreign and our domestic policies, how could they be so different?

2) At the same time, I and most of my schoolmates (being a cynical bunch of bright New York City kids) believed that politicians in general were an unscrupulous, corrupt bunch out for their own advantage. But when we went on our senior trip to DC and got to meet some of those politicians, they seemed largely decent and well-meaning. That was a second unresolvable contradiction.

Both these contradictions suggested that the visible surface of democratic politics concealed a far less democratic underside, which even the people in charge of making and enforcing the laws were not quite willing to be aware of. The fact that this dark underbelly has now risen to the surface and become more blatant doesn't resolve the contradictions -- it only makes them more urgent.

3) Finally, in the early 70's, I experienced a moment of clarity in which I realized that even though the natural world might be full of accidents and coincidences, human social interactions were far more carefully structured. Any particular interaction -- say, this thread we're currently posting on -- is like an elaborate symphony, where every addition helps develop a coherent theme and every word is meaningful within the context of the whole. Taking it a step further, DU in its entirety can be seen as an ongoing work of art, or perhaps a philosophical meditation. And all of world history is a continuing ritual drama, in which every one of us is a playwright, an actor, and a member of the audience all at the same time.

That was a bit too cosmic a perception for daily use -- but what I did bring away from it was a sense that by patiently assembling the pieces, looking at what roles people were playing, and taking their words seriously instead of as conventional gestures, it would be possible to make a good deal more sense of the world than is commonly considered to be possible. That pretty much sums up what I've been doing here at DU.

If I tend to be at the tinfoil end of these discussions, it's because I do take people's words and actions seriously. If PNAC calls for a new Pearl Harbor to facilitate their agenda and then a new Pearl Harbor happens, I don't dismiss it as idle coincidence. If London gets bombed at a moment that appears to benefit Bush and Blair and nobody else, I stroke my chin and go, "Hmmm." If I feel as though I'm trapped in a bad sci-fi movie -- as I have time and again over the last four years -- I start to wonder who's writing the script.

We humans really do create our own reality -- that's what separates us from Neanderthal and all our other equally bright but apparently less imaginative cousins. It's that process of creation, and not the supposedly solid "facts" of history, that you have to keep your eye on if you want to know what's really happening.

That's why I'm generally on the side of the conspiracy theorists. They seem to be looking in the right direction, even if they're often wrong about the details. They're working on answering questions that the literalists haven't even begun to ask.

[bloom]

40. "why I'm generally on the side of the conspiracy theorists"

That was an excellent post.

Any more I am on the side of the "conspiracy theorists" - which I have come to see as anyone who doesn't take the Mainstream Media at their word & realizes that most of the important stuff is omitted - so you have to find it elsewhere.

(And yes - "conspiracy theorists" can be people on the left or the right or neither.)


And I hope that DU does not devolve into just saying how stupid the MSM is - because we all know that. It is far more interesting to try to find out what we are not being told by them. Or what might be said once and then slipped into the rabbit hole. (Gladio, for instance).

[DemExpat]

41. Excellent!

I love your cosmic perception outlined in point number 3, starroute.

:thumbsup:

DemEx

[dalaigh lllama]

42. I completely agree

and have always enjoyed the varying points of view expressed here. If nothing else, the discourse becomes an ongoing school to teach us, if we so desire, how to separate the wheat from the chaff.

As my dad used to say: keep an open mind, but not so open that the wind can blow through.

[Domitan]

49. Experience is a great teacher

It helps us learn more which is wheat and which is chaff. If more of the elementary and secondary schools would emphasize this critical thinking skill and ability to engage in various discourses as you describe, we'd be a much more adept world.

[dalaigh lllama]

57. "Rarely is the question asked, is our children learning"

to think critically? Not in high schools, I fear. Tests seem more and more geared to measure how many correct "facts" a student can regurgitate onto the paper.

When I was in college, I took a math class on statistics, and one of the books we used was "How to Lie with Statistics," which was prefaced with that famous quote: "There are lies, damn lies, and statistics." As a rather naive, trusting kid, that book was a real eye-opener to me insofar as how simple it is to distort the truth. Too bad something like that isn't required on a lower education level.

[Quixote1818]

43. It prevents Groupthink which is out of control on FR and in the Bush

administration. It leads to good decision making.

See my post on this:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4104510

[Domitan]

48. Great read!

I remember studying about Groupthink for my social psychology class, as well as witnessing it in real time much to my chagrin. I wish more conservatives (esp in the Repub ranks) would be vigilant against such Groupthink bullshit.

[Quixote1818]

50. The symptoms of Groupthink should be required reading in public

schools and should be posted on the walls above every urinal in Washington, DC.

[sojourner]

44. As I see it, Minstrel Boy has it right that sometimes the "conspiracy

theorist" is the skeptic, by refusing to automatically accept the dominant explanation for phenomena. Science is, after all, the search for knowledge based on empiricism and systematic tests of falsifiable hypotheses.

As I observe the MSM, and gather the data on their "accuracy" I come to the hypothesis that they cannot be trusted to reliably tell the truth. I've tested the hypothesis a number of times (informally of course) and guess what! They can't be trusted to reliably tell the truth!

However, since it is not the case that they lie or distort information consistently, the approach I take is that of a cautiously "open-minded" skeptic. I try (usually) to withhold final judgement until there's a pile of facts and some good corroboration for a particular viewpoint.

I also try not to let the "acceptability" of that viewpoint determine whether it is valid. Take Galileo's discoveries, which were based on empiricism - they were most definitely NOT acceptable to his peers. His ideas were SO unacceptable that even when invited to SEE FOR THEMSELVES (looking through his telescope), his contemporaries refused to do so - and continued to parrot the dominant doctrine of the time (which at the time was dictated by the Church).

[dr.zoidberg]

46. Martian Cthulhu worshipers? LOL! n/t

[Redstone]

52. Occam's Razor. Not Ockham's.

Common misspelling, though. Just thought you'd like to know.

Redstone

[foo_bar]

54. tell it to all the poor blokes in Ockham

and the Encyclopedia Britannica:
http://concise.britannica.com/ebc/article?tocId=9373871

Wikipedia had a canonical flamewar on the subject, with the Occamites insisting on the least necessarily complex spelling:

Pro:

Correct usage in English is the form most often used by English speakers (there is no centralized committee deciding these things). If we stray from that concept too far then we enter into the realm of competing ideas on just what is most correct. And for terms ported into English form non-Latin-1 languages this opens up a can of worms. Granted this particular case isn't as clear cut as many others are but there still is a majority usage at hand; Occam. The fact of the matter is that Ockham's Razor has been used by English speakers for so long that the spelling has mutated to be more pronouncable and easier to spell by English speakers. Thus we have "Occam's Razor". The guy's name hasn't been used by English speakers to any comparable extent so it has not been Anglicized. This is part of the evolution of English. --mav

Con:

Look, I'm sorry if it's slightly more common to use Occam than Ockham. Many people don't know how to spell words like jeopardy, February, and Wednesday. Should our articles reflect that? Our current president seems to enjoy pronouncing "nuclear" as "nukyalur"... let's please not move that article to his version. :) Yes, I realize that I'm using hyperbole here, but my POINT is that I feel that it should be the responsibility of this encyclopedia, when there are two variant spellings, to support the most correct one. This is not to say we exclude the other, but that it merely redirect to the correct one. Now, we can get into a discussion about whether Ockham is truly more correct than Occam, but that's my 2¢. --Dante Alighieri 22:17 Dec 6, 2002 (UTC)

[SmokingJacket]

56. This is why I love DU.

I agree with you completely. There's all kinds of craziness and kneejerkism on DU, but clear thinking on both "sides" really DOES dominate the discourse around here.

:toast: to Minstrel Boy and the Magistrate (if he can put down his Barlett's long enough to have a drink! ;-) )

[The Magistrate]

58. There Is A Tot Of Brandy In My Coffee, Ma'am

Thank you for the invitation....