Skeptico's Handbook of Woo
Skeptico has a very funny post on the Handbook of Woo. Woo is slang for pseudoscience. Anyone who has participated on this blog has had the opportunity to observe the debate "tactics" used to defend pseudoscience. Now Skeptico has discovered the handy compendium used by pseudo-science defenders everywhere:... [T]his handbook will enable to you debate effectively with skeptics on the web, or at least irritate them for a bit. Read and absorb its contents and you should be able to debate with skeptics without having to know any actual “science” or anything hard like that. And lets face it, if we wanted to study hard stuff and learn any actual facts or evidence, we’d be real scientists and not woos. And where would be the fun in that?I wish I could quote the entire article, but I'll have to restrict the quotes to my favorite points.
Before you start though, you should remember that skeptics have many things on their side. Things like evidence, facts, logic. But don’t despair. If you follow the techniques described below it may seem like you have a valid argument more often that you would imagine, given your actual lack of knowledge, evidence or facts. Good luck, and I’m visualizing your success.
When the skeptic comes back with demands for "evidence" (they love that word) for your claims, you should say the skeptic is being “defensive”. Alternatively you could try a passive aggressive approach and say the skeptic is "attacking"...
If the skeptic has scientific studies that appear to support his point of view, you should point out that scientific studies have been wrong before. Vioxx is always a good word to bring up here, as is Thalidomide...
Remember, your personal experience is always more valid than their scientific studies (or your lack of them). Anecdotes will convince more people you’re right than any number of "studies", so have a couple ready...
Remember that conventional doctors are “allopathic doctors” or “allopaths”. This seemingly scientific term will make it sound like you know technical terms the skeptics don’t. Few people will know they’re meaningless...
Finally, when you’ve used up all the above tactics, say you’re not going to waste any more time with the skeptics you’ve been debating because they’re too sad, stupid, closed-minded, ______ (insert other flaw the skeptic has) to understand your brilliant arguments. Make a big grandiose statement and exit to start anew somewhere else.
Labels: pseudoscience
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