Social Skepticism’s Top 25 Weapon Words (Oct 2015)
Weapon Words
/philosophy : pseudoscience : propaganda : jargon/ : Words of Mass Defamation.
Fashion terms among those who consider themselves too elite and intelligent to observe that the King wears no clothes. The manufacture, instruction and deployment of key expressions into the educational, push channel media, public and SSkeptic discourse, targeting a goal of social intimidation and indoctrination. Celebrity SSkeptics proactively introduce a term or phrase into the SSkeptic community, which then promulgates it through repetition and finger pointing, thereby establishing a clique’ fashion statement around the expression. The words are used as weapons to artificially defame targeted individuals, observations and in the deceptive obviation of access to science by unwelcome topics. Subsequently such words are plied to place SSkeptic compliant peer pressure on budding scientists or persons of influence in high school, university and beyond.
Discern that, despite the loud proclamations to the contrary, neither these words nor their users adhere to any context of promoting the application of science or critical thinking. These words are purposefully broad-footprint words of mass destruction employed to fight a war of oppression; wherein the SSkeptic does not care who they injure, just as long as the people they do not like are intimidated and under fear of retribution and reproach – if they think wrong thoughts – or say wrong things. SSkeptics do not practice peer review, nor do they hold their fellows accountable. This affords them freedom to spin all sorts of deceit and harm under the delusion that 1. they are adding clarity to a discussion, and 2. they are adding value to the world.
“The term ‘pseudoscience’ has become little more than an inflammatory buzzword for quickly dismissing one’s opponents in media sound-bites.” – Richard McNally, an editor at Skeptic Magazine (UK)
Ranking of Social Skepticism’s Current Top 25 Weapon Words
Rank Expression Current Employment Context
- Pseudoscience Reigning champion buzzword – The Forbidden 121 Topics
- Magical Thinking To discredit all dissent as constituting a belief in magic
- Pareidolia Current fad word in SSkepticism
- Anti-Science A person who disagrees with a Social Skeptic
- Manufactroversy Any initiative to study GMO’s, pesticides or Big Pharma
- Contrarian To impugn any person who holds a SSkeptic accountable
- Denier One who disagrees is spun as denying science – rather than being in rational disagreement
- Creationist Any idea which does not adhere to Naturalist Nihilism religious teaching
- Privilege Any action on the part of a specific race, gender and religion
- Apophenia Counter any medical data which shows a concerning trend
- Woo Ghost hunting SSkeptic buzzword now useful against all disliked data
- Anti-Vaccinationista Safe vaccination proponents are spun as irrational militants
- Confabulation Only SSkeptics are allowed to extrapolate off of circumstantial data
- Scientific Literacy If you do not believe what we want, the you are to be re-educated
- Neologism A word which introduces or adds clarity to a threatening idea or observation
- Truther Anyone who dissents on a specific subject
- Numpty A person who is regarded as stupid and therefore not deserving of a voice, vote nor opinion.
- Tin Foil Hat A person who thinks unauthorized thoughts
- Quack Any medicine which does not support big 5 Pharma/Healthcare revenue
- Believer One who does not loudly decry the Forbidden 121 SSkeptic subjects
- Sheeple Anyone who does not immediately dismiss the Forbidden 121
- Bunk Fading in use as debunkers are increasingly called into question
- Monkey Suit Something presumed debunked long ago and now spun as myth
- Crank A Bubba who is rather insistent on what he saw or provides evidence
- Conspiracy Theory Any questioning of a SSkeptic agenda item
Great list! Do you have a link to the 121 topics social skeptics forbid? Vaccines and GMOs would be two of them.
Hi, I just ran across your website, after looking up a source for Ignosticism. I am working on making a new kind of skepticism that is different from Scientific Skepticism as well. You can evaluate it, through either my website, (receptiveskepticism.com, or my facebook page (facebook.com/receptiveskepticism. I also have had a group for this project on facebook for about a year now, https://www.facebook.com/groups/925334447494947/ I like the ideals and the clear skeptical intellectual honesty. I share many of them. Though I take it in some different directions, and arrive at different conclusions than you. Still I see some idealistic alignment in… Read more »
Hey John! Super, thanks for dropping by and checking out the material in a very thoughtful and sincere fashion. Like me, I am speculating that ignosticism makes a lot of sense for a receptive skeptic, and from the desire to not waste your time inside the bifurcation combat between the Atheists and the Religious. What I am trying to say here in my blog, is that Scientific Skepticism, is a reasonable domain, an ‘allegiance to a set of professionally effective set of practice standards.’ This is the definition of ethics. Skepticism is a subset of this scientific practice. This is… Read more »