Dick Strawkins wrote:Steersman wrote:
A fairly comprehensive analysis, the essence of which I generally agree with: “some good work being done and a lot of bad workâ€.
But, unfortunately or not, Watson has also apparently said, in both the Skepticon 5 talk and her earlier one in Berlin, pretty much the same thing. However, it seems to me that she has also said, even more problematically, more than a few things in both that leads either explicitly or by inference to the conclusion that she is condemning the entire discipline.
And those contradictory statements tend to lead to the impression that she is talking out of both sides of her mouth either by intent or through ignorance -- neither of which should add much lustre to her reputation. And if she doesn’t make any effort to correct the basis for the latter possibility then I would say that the former conclusion quite unfortunately has to carry the field.
What's your point here?
That she kinda-sorta-mighta- not got everything completely wrong?
Are we really lowering the bar to that level?
Forget Rebecca. The problem is the Skeptic movement itself is being driven by a kind of celebrity culture.
If you care more for getting 'personalities' to appear at your convention rather than communicating the best science you can then these sorts of disasters are inevitable.
I bet Russell Blackford wishes this story broke the same week he said he would refuse to go to a convention that hired Rebecca as a speaker.
I’ll agree that, at least as a hypothesis to be considered, “the Skeptic movement is being driven by a kind of celebrity cultureâ€. But if that is the case and if there is a problem with it then it seems that if you wish to rectify the problem then you have to demonstrate how and why there is a problem. Which you can only do, it seems to me, by analyzing Watson’s statements, determining where and why they are both right and wrong, seeing what the consequences are, and by then judging them.
And, as mentioned, it seems to me that she is talking out of both sides of her mouth either through intent or ignorance, that she is making contradictory statements about a field that is of some importance and relevance. And I think the evidence for that argument is the fact that both Zvan and Clint, among others, have apparently spent no small amount of time evaluating those two talks and have come to two, largely diametrically opposite, interpretations.
Now either one or both are “lying-in-their-teeth†or they are by intent or inadvertently selecting from all of Watson’s statements only those which lead to those opposite positions. Somewhat similar to the parable about the
blind men and an elephant. Or, somewhat more prosaically if somewhat simplistically, Zvan is looking at all of the evidence with her left eye closed while Clint is looking at it with his right eye closed. And by taking both their reports – consistent with the philosophy of
objectivity – we are able to obtain, theoretically at least, a “mind-independent†assessment of the content of Watson’s presentations, i.e., that there are several egregriously and problematically contradictory statements within them. And, by the
principle of explosion, “from a contradiction, anything follows†– notably in this case by some fractious and time-consuming and unproductive argumentation. Not to mention, ultimately, by conference attendees being very badly served.
Seems to me that the problem here is a compound one, composed of, on the one hand, the truth or falsity of the premises and methodologies of the discipline itself, and, on the other, the consistency of the presentation itself, a consistency which is, I think, sadly lacking due, in part, to the impact of feminist dogma and bias. With the latter being, as one or two others here have noted, another manifestation of
Lysenkoism.
