The long answer is quite readable, and engaging. I picked up the book for the chapter on the cult of Ayn Rand (10 pages) - not the best part of the book - and ended up reading the entire 278 pages. His approach is to doggedly pursue with logic, statistics, and research, investigation into some of the bigger 'weird things' people have come to believe in. Paranormals, near-death experiences, aliens, witch hunts, creationism, and holocaust denial. In the process he lays out some of the logical fallacies and debate tricks of those who argue and believe in weird things.
This post is not a book review per se, rather my notes from the most useful chapters 1-3 in which he lays out his thinking behind his brand of skepticism.
He addresses the principal criticism against skeptics like him: "The flaw in pure skepticism is that when taken to an extreme, the position itself cannot stand." (16) Skeptics can become closed-minded and cynical. So he defines the good skeptic: "One who questions the validity of a particular claim by calling for evidence to prove or disprove it."
Shermer first lays out some definitions and descriptions of science and it's basis - from the book (chapter 2):
Science: A set of methods designed to describe and interpret observed or inferred phenomena, past orpresent, and aimed at building a testable body of knowledge open to rejection or confirmation. The following elements are involved in thinking scientifically:
Induction: forming a hypothesis by drawing general conclusions from existing data.
Deduction: Making specific predictions based on the hypothesis.
Observation: Gathering data, driven by hypotheses that tell us what to look for in nature.
Verification: Testing the predictions against further observations to confirm or falsify the initial hypothesis.
From science we may form the following generalizations:
Hypothesis: A testable statement accounting for a set of observations.
Theory: A well-supported and well-tested hypothesis or set of hypotheses. Contrasts with a construct: a nontestable statment to account for a set of observations, eg: "God made them"
Fact: A conclusion confirmed to such an extent that it would be reasonable to offer provisional agreeement.
Rationalism: Basing conclusions on logic and evidence. (The earth is round: the horizon is curved, photographs from space.)
Dogmatism: Basing conclusions on authority rather than logic and evidence. (Our parents told us, our teachers/textbook told us). Dogmatic conclusions are not necessarily wrong, but they beg the question: 'how did the authority reach their conclusion?"
Scientific law: a description of a regularly repeating action that is open to rejection or confirmation. Describes some action in nature tha can be tested. The description is in the mind. The action is in nature. (to resolve Pirsig's paradox p. 33)
Paradigm: A model shared by most, but not all members of a scientific community, designed to describe and interpret observed or inferred phenomena, past or present, and aimed at building a testable body of knowledge open to rejection or confirmation. Or, a paradigm captures the scientific thinking of the majority most most of the time it ceoxists with comepting paradigms. New paradigms displace old paradigms. Four types of paradigm: sociologigical (group of people w/shared outlook), psychological (an individual sees the world differently than those outside the paradigm), epistemological (closed system: phrenology paradigm leads to tools to measure for phrenology), ontological (one can't imagine a new paradigm because it doesn't fit into their existing paradigms - Lavoisier (O2) vs Priestly (no such thing as O2) - since it excludes outside paradigms, it doesn't fit into the definition of a paradigm (40).
He then describes the common ways thinking strays from logic and evidence in "How Thinking Goes Wrong." (ch 3).
Problems in scientific thinking:
- Theory influences observations.
- the observer changes the observed.
- Equipment constructs results.
Problems in pseudoscientific thinking:
- Anecdotes do not make science.
- Scientific language does not make a science.
- Bold statements do not make claims true.
- Heresy does not equal correctness.
- Burden of proof.
- rumors do not equal reality.
- Unexplained is not unexplicable.
- Failures are rationalized.
- After-the-fact reasoning.
- Coincidence.
- Representativeness. (Occam's razor applies)
Logical Problems in Thinking.
- Emotive Words and False Analogies
- Ad Ignoratiam. (if you can't disprove it does not mean it's true)
- Ad Hominem and Tu Quoque. ('to the man', and 'you also" - against the arguer, not the argument)
- Hasty generalization.
- Overreliance on authorities ("Phds find it almost impossible to say 'I don't know.'")
- Either-or, or false dilemma.
- Circular reasoning (tautology)
- Reductio Ad Absurdum and the Slippery slope. (carrying the argument to a logical extreme eg: - Ice cream causes weight gain, soon you will wiegh 350, then you will die of a heart attack: Ice cream causes death).
- Effort inadequacies and the need for certainty, control, and simplicity.
- Problem solving inadequacies.
- Ideological Immunity, or the Planck Problem. (we tend to look for confirmatory, not counter evidence - the more you know about a topic, the less malleable you are towards new non-confirming evidence.)
Hume's Maxim. "No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavors to establish."
The subsequent chapters (4-17) run through specific weird beliefs with some engaging accounts of Shermer's quest to find out why the weird believers believe and his attempts at engaging, debating, and debunking them. He generally tries to do it with out being confrontational, and is largely successful.
An excellent discussion on the merits of debate are summed in a quotation from Stephen Jay Gould:
"Debate is an art form. It is about the winning of arguments. It is not about the discovery of truth. there are certain rules and procedures to debate that have nothing to do with establishing fact - which they are very good at. Some of those rules are: never say anything positive about your own position because it can be attacked, but chip away at what appear to be the weaknesses in your opponent's position." (p153)
Great book. Fairly easy read. Read it.
