When MichaelShermer revised his bookWhy People Believe
Weird Thingsfor its second edition, he added a chapter titled
“Why Smart People Believe Weird Things”. His point was
that even people who are quite competent and rational in their
thinking about most matters can hold opinions or beliefs that
are not supported by science, logic or even common sense.
The usual example of this is religious scientists who manage
to comfortably believe in miracles and supernatural beings.
I’m with Stephen Jay Gould on this – religion and science are
different, and faith is about belief without evidence. My concern
here is people who are selective about the science they accept.
Many of my skeptical friends can be quite scathing in their
criticism of television programs like CSI for the way they mis -
represent the reality or the practice of science. Simultaneously,
these people are great fans of science iction shows in which the
laws of the universe can be comfortable ignored and the ability
of scientists comes very close to miraculous. This isn’t normally
a problem, but occasionally they seem to confuse iction and
reality.
The speciic example I’ve seen recently is that the coloni-
sation of Mars became a real possibility when Elon Musk’s
SpaceX organisation managed to recover a booster rocket. I
thoroughly enjoyed Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chroniclesand
I think Life on Marswas David Bowie’s best song, but the sort
of problems that could theoretically be solved by humans
moving to Mars can be solved much more feasibly, practically
and affordably right here on Earth.
Mention of Elon Musk reminds me of another strange
aspect of the world of skepticism – hero worship or the cult
of personality. There are some people for whom criticism can
attract a hostile reaction. I was severely reprimanded once by
a group for commenting on the overuse of logical fallacies in
Richard Dawkins’ book The God Delusion, and you have to
be very careful if you want to suggest there is an air of fantasy
about Ray Kurzweil’s predictions about the imminent hybridi-
sation of humans and computers or the notion that Tesla cars
and batteries are about to solve the world’s transportation and
energy problems.
The person I’ve seen most recently enthusing about Mars
colonisation is a very strong proponent of the use of renew-
able energy resources in the battle against climate change.
This brings me to another anomaly – smart people who are
climate change deniers. I’m always amazed when people will
accept, for example, that the science of vaccination is settled
despite there being doubters but who are suspicious of claims
that climate is changing and that humans might have some-
thing to do with this. In an extreme case, one state branch of
Australian Skeptics devoted almost all its website to denialist
claims.
It’s not just scientists or real skeptics who exhibit this incon-
sistency. I participate in some face-to-face philosophy forums
where people address and consider quite diicult problems in
logic, ontology and epistemology.
After a recent talk someone mentioned climate change. I
commented about the systematic changes in plant lowering
and animal reproduction occurring as rainfall and temperature
patterns changed over the past few decades. He said: “Weather,”
which should have been a red lag. I mentioned that one of the
major power stations in the Snowy Mountains Scheme has
been mothballed because the change in snow distribution has
meant that there isn’t enough water to keep it running. He
said, “Weather” even louder.
Within minutes I was surrounded by four people talking
over each other with denialist clichés, each repeating what the
others had said in case I hadn’t heard it the irst time. Here are
some of the things said, which are sadly very familiar to anyone
who has followed this non-debate for any length of time.- There has been no warming of the planet for the past
17 years. - Atmospheric scientists who spoke the truth about the hoax
would lose funding. - If a volcano went off it wouldn’t matter what we did.
- Weather!!!
- It’s not possible for humans to affect weather or climate.
- Reports of global warming are based on faulty measure-
ments. - The majority of scientists agree that climate change is not
happening. - 30,000 scientists signed a petition.
- The climate has always changed, just as it is doing now.
- Maverick scientists are persecuted and their freedom of
speech compromised. - It’s based on modelling, and the models aren’t 100% accu-
rate.
It was all there – the cherry picking of data, the paranoia
about suppression, the inconsistencies, the fallacies, the hope-
lessness of any action, the rejection or misrepresentation of
facts...
At least they didn’t call themselves “skeptics”, although I
wouldn’t be surprised if they reached a consensus of victory
over this “warmist” when I inally gave up and walked away.
MAY 2016|| 47Peter Bowditch is a former President of Australian Skeptics Inc. (www.skeptics.com.au).THE NAKED SKEPTIC Peter BowditchSmart People, Strange Ideas
Even people who are rational about most matters can hold opinions that aren’t supported by
science or even common sense.