Stop striving to impress skeptics. Just because scientists employ skepticism, does not mean therefore that skeptics represent science. In fact, they only serve to personify a straw man of science. They seek to foment conflict between the public and scientists – because that serves to impart power to them and their club.
Skeptics† have placed you under the spell of a little mind trick. They do not seek the truth of any particular matter, rather they seek only to leverage your sincerity, wonder and inquisitiveness towards a goal of power, humiliation and polarization. They wish you to infer that scientists regard your lines of inquiry, rights and notions – as woo. They wish to imply that science relies upon proof and that scientists have disproved you, and further regard you as anti-science (q.e.d. anti-them). Upon sensing this finger-point generated animus, scientists begin to perceive much of the public as a frothing, anti-science horde who cannot fathom what they do, and further must now be ignored in order to save the world. This is the actual lesson skeptics are teaching all concerned on both sides – “You must worship me as the smartest, cede unto me the power of punishment (of both the public and scientists) – as I now represent science.” It is a clever little social trick of identity bullying.
In this they ironically pose as a factor which promotes understanding of science on the part of the public.
Skeptics desperately need you – to add fuel to their superiority complex, polarizing message, power to humiliate, club member ranking, acclaim, and to tacitly reinforce their religious view of the world – however, you do not need them. You do not need to invite them to events to ‘provide a skeptical perspective’, as this is part of the game of misrepresentation which they play on everyone. Most researchers are already skeptical in their work; most scientists are skeptics by nature and training. This infusion of discipline is a natural part of living a sincere, hard working life. But this does not mean that self-identity skeptics do any research, nor that they are sincere, nor that they are scientists – nor especially that they represent science.
Through personifying a straw man of science, skeptics seek to foment conflict between the public and science – a state wherein their club gains authority along with the power to punish; because both science and the public now perceive each other as the denialist enemy. An enemy which you must fear, mistrust and marginalize.
Do not fall for this game. You will know that you have won, when skeptics ignore you back.
Society struggles today with a problem of people pretending to be scientists. A PhD is not a holier-than-thou instrument through which one can claim authority inside every subject one desires. Such an appeal to authority outside one’s body of current and active professional research – is bullying, no matter how politely it is posed. This type of activity is now pandemic: authority-baiting risky science in order to protect profits, at the ignored peril of American citizens.
I do not claim to be a scientist. I would not claim the moniker of skeptic either, were it not for the necessity of how ethical skepticism is presented inside this blog. As a strategy advisor to trade groups, nations and companies I have a deep and varied experience base, ranging from being president of a research lab making groundbreaking discovery, to a director in intelligence, to designing some of the most complex operations on the planet, all the way to helping determine brand strategy for several familiar corporations. All things which demand intense research development and novel conjecture at risk, and under accountability. No, the average professional does not typically gain exposure to such a variety of expertise sets, but once a company finds a good strategic resource with a long successful track record – they will ask them to step in and address a variety of challenges. My client tenures are long, and my business repeat rate is one of the highest in the industry. These are things called ‘accountability measures’ – something with which typical PhD’s, with possible exception of the need to publish, are wholly unfamiliar.
Today social media struggles under not only the burden of fake news and fake skeptics, but also under a throng of apparatchiks posing as scientists. Those catalyseurs whose artifice is to foment conflict between actual science and the public. Those who wish to categorize 97% of society as doltish and ignorant, for observing that their families are suffering, considering forbidden ideas or witnessing forbidden things, and not bowing down to their insistent social doctrines – those who abuse ‘science’ as their civilian and innocent shield inside their illegitimate war on the American public.
A preemptive attack on the only entity with the authority to hold their cronies accountable. Create conflict between the public and science – declare the public anti-science and irrational – proceed with the corporate profit plan which places them and their families at high risk.
The Science Council defines a scientist in this manner:1
A scientist is someone who systematically gathers and uses research and evidence, making a hypothesis and testing it, to gain and share understanding and knowledge.
A scientist can be further defined by:
how they go about this, for instance by use of statistics (Statisticians) or data (Data scientists)
what they’re seeking understanding of, for instance the elements in the universe (Chemists, Geologists etc), or the stars in the sky (Astronomers)
where they apply their science, for instance in the food industry (Food Scientist)
However all scientists are united by their relentless curiosity and systematic approach to assuaging it.
Even though I might fall under the definition of scientist, by means of the Science Council framework, there are specific reasons why I would seldom if ever claim such a role. I might be a scientist inside certain issues of trade and operations, but I do not hold a PhD – as that tends to pigeon-hole professionals in my industry. I have hired many scientists and bear a great deal of respect for them, and what they have taught me over the decades. However, as you will notice in the definition above, neither is a PhD the qualification of what makes a scientist. Instead, there are several elements which are requisite before one can claim to be a scientist under a specific topic. These include:
Who IS a Scientist
Current primary paid employment inside the sub-category of research, under independent registration or charter, or
A background of having studied a significant percentage of the body of research material covering the sub-category of research under discussion, and
A set of recent publications or a postdoctoral fellowship specifically focused upon incremental testing-based conjecture inside the sub-category of research under discussion, and
A body of research data which your team/lab/self has developed from direct study, and not science journalism sources, or
A well experienced PhD who has undertaken solely a teaching role or professorship in their area of discipline, or
A society or journal recognized role active in peer review inside the sub-category of research under discussion, and
A professional meeting the above criteria who has taken sabbatical, time to write a book, family leave or recent retirement.
However, over the years I have witnessed agenda heavy science conclusions published by the following cast of nefarious characters, who typically do not understand the related evidence, exaggerate scant statistical studies tallying absences of observation into proof of an absence, nor grasp the critical path of logic required to assemble a conjecture. Those who conflate possession of an intimidating word or phrase, with adeptness inside great ideas:
What IS NOT a Scientist
An academician who spouts off principles of Bayesian reduction & thinks that is science
Anyone who lacks curiosity or regards an issue of Ockham’s Razor plurality as ‘settled science’
A PhD, especially if in a semi or non-related field
A person who knows a great deal of irrelevancy (ingens vanitatum) and likes to demonstrate this as a method of intimidation
Someone who establishes a research corporation only to conduct one study for its funding corporation, and then retires
Someone who used to work in science and is still touting their PhD or history while now pursuing a new home/career activity
Anyone who beats you over the head with the ‘scientific method’ and subsequently violates it in the very next utterance
Anyone who (outside classroom or professional context) insists on being called ‘Doctor’
A member of the Association for the Advancement of Science
A fellow at CSICOP or JREF or…
Someone who has read The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe
Anyone whose ass sits in a pub, never goes into the field, and chronically pontificates about critical thinking
One who abuses their status as scientist to underpin their political or social advocacy
Someone who declares them self to be a ‘skeptic’
Anyone who displays a lack of integrity or exploits convenient ambiguity to push final conclusions
A science enthusiast
A critical thinker
Anyone who has never authored a single patent application nor research study
A science journalist or communicator, even with a PhD
A science journalist summarizing other studies by means of a ‘research article’
Anyone who counts a journalistic summary article as one of a body of ‘studies’
A corporate technology social media or media apologist
A lab technician conducting tests and filing testing assays/reports
A clinical technician or diagnostician
Someone who possesses a list of studies
A person fresh out of dissertation, or who has not worked professionally in that field since degree was conferred
Anyone who regurgitates a social apothegm, cannot identify the critical logic of their claim and how it is supported by the salient field research, or falsely appeals to their own authority (outside of philosophy)
One who feigns politeness in an effort to create and demean opponents by means of a well advertised status or history in science (not only a bully, but dishonest as well)
Anyone who bullies others by means of implied qualifications (including if they met the qualification of scientist above) – as this betrays an extreme bias of disqualification.
Society struggles, especially in these most recent decades of imperious oligarch technology profit, with people pretending to be scientists. This body of pretenders includes scientists themselves at times. A PhD is not a holier-than-thou instrument through which one can claim authority. An appeal to authority is nothing but that, an informal fallacy which brings one’s objectivity and integrity into question. But an appeal to authority outside one’s body of current and active expertise – is bullying, no matter how politely it is posed. This type of activity, pushing risky science in order to protect oligarch profits at the peril of American citizens, is pandemic. It is an extreme mental pathology called Dunning-Kruger Projection:
Dunning-Kruger Projection (aka Plaiting)
/philosophy : bias : methodology/ : the condition in which an expert, scientist or PhD in one discipline over-confidently or ignorantly fails to realize that they are not competent to speak in another discipline, or attempts to pass authority ‘as a scientist’ inside an expertise set to which they are only mildly competent at best. Any attempt to use the identity of ‘scientist’ to underpin authority, bully, seek worship or conduct self-deception regarding an array of subjects inside of which they in actuality know very little.
This is a type of psychological vulnerability. A severe inferiority cover on the part of a person who must demean others in order to survive. And just as with fake skepticism, the ethical skeptic must constantly be on the alert for such catalyseurs, who seek to promote conflict between the public and what they interpret to be ‘the science’.
The Ethical Skeptic, “No You Are Not a Scientist” The Ethical Skeptic, WordPress, 15 Jun 2018; Web, https://wp.me/p17q0e-7Pm
Does a subject threaten you? Create a swarm of obvious hoaxes around it.
The excuse “I did it to show how easy it is to fake this” is not a suitable excuse for committing fraud. If the subject is so easy to debunk, why do you need to manufacture hoax propaganda?
One form of entertainment which SSkeptic acolytes seem to enjoy performing as a service to impress their pseudo-intellectual mentors, is the tactic of posting obviously hoaxed videos to the internet and YouTube as tour de force methodology in discrediting the subject matter involved in the videos. Take for instance the STRANGE SOUNDS HEARD ALL AROUND WORLD 2012 series of videos currently viral on the internet.
“What bothers me is not the fact that a specific subject has been discredited; what concerns me, and what the public at large is missing, is that this discrediting machine can never be switched off.” – The Ethical Skeptic
I love keeping a power drill for work projects on my sailboat when underway. But I do not leave it laying around on the deck running unattended. Most of the videos involved in this Strange Sounds 2012 Campaign have been produced by persons seeking to gain attention to themselves and their videos, as a series of hoaxes, so that the creations can subsequently be cited as such by the prominent internet debunkers. This is a form of partnership, with the Fake-Hoaxers becoming the unwitting or not participants in a machinery of deception. Machinery which is honing its teeth on clueless people and easy subjects… for now. In many cases the video posters themselves state freely that the videos are indeed fakes; nonetheless, they are then subsequently cited by the SSkeptic Cabal as constituting evidence of a hoax. This is a partnership of fools and can in the end, only serve to obfuscate and blind us to ANY subject at large. Take the video example below, posted by an agenda-biased but affable gentleman who used to go by the user name V00D00SIXXX to YouTube on Jan 21, 2012. This gentleman has genuinely debunked many of the strange sound viral videos, and I applaud that effort in the generic sense. The problem is, that the videos he cites as “evidence” – were posted in their originality with the intent of being example fakes in the first place. So what indeed have we accomplished? Indeed, there is a surreptitious and deeper goal to all this. One of which I believe that VooDooSixxx, as unwitting pawn, is not even aware.
2012 Strange Noises Heard Worldwide Videos Debunked into Oblivion
The above propaganda video has been removed, but its job was already done. Establishing a thing called fake doubt. We actually do not know if there are any strange sounds being heard at all. And now we never will.
Now, I do not find credibility in the Strange Sounds 2012 subject being passed off in serious videos, without further data. So I am not losing any sleep over the strange sounds issue. However, the strange sounds concern me less than do the strange and unethical actions of the SSkeptic Cabal. As an Ethical Skeptic, I bristle at this condition: We can no longer ascertain data through the cacophony of willful deceit and fabricated counter-propaganda. VooDooSixxx even includes the malicious, later self-exposed fake video cited above, as evidence of hoaxing. We are manufacturing the evidence as well as making the conclusion? Why?
Hoax-Baiting
If the subject is so easy to debunk, why would one need allies to manufacture evidence in support of its debunking? Moreover, if one were ethical – then why would you cite as supporting ‘evidence,’ data which you KNOW, and was advertised in the video itself, to be made up in the first place?
This is a key method of Social Skepticism, and is promoted to accomplish the goal of Stooge Posing and Hoax-Baiting. Many videos on YouTube are crafted by SSkeptics to stand as evidence cited by other skeptics – in an epidemic of Hoax-Baiting, while even other SSkeptics are paid to create hoax videos on YouTube by third parties seeking to sway public discourse in and around a disfavored subject, and quash any relevant serious material on the subject. VooDooSixxx even includes footage in his video from a 2011 Comet Elenin Apocalypse promoter, a clear case of Associative Condemnation in order to explain why he is making a prejudged conclusion in crafting his debunking video. While he is more than likely correct in his assessment, Comet Elenin has little to do with this evidentiary pathway. This by no means constitutes skepticism, is by no means ethical, and is by no means representative of the Scientific Method.
Fake-Hoaxes as a tactic of Deskeption are dangerous. They are fast becoming a tour de force methodology on the part of the Deskeption Cabal. Trained groups of sycophants create these materials at the behest and example of the SSkeptic community, and for fun. Others subsequently discover the ‘hoaxes’ through being “Oh so smart” in their role as Junior SSkeptics in training in an effort to impress their mentors in the Cabal.
The excuse “I did it to show how easy it is to fake this” is not a suitable excuse for committing fraud.
Fake-Hoaxing is dangerous, willful pseudoscience and deceit.
Obama Birth Certificate – SSkeptic Fake-Hoaxing in Action
A PURPOSEFUL forgery. For the SSkeptic, it is all about protecting institutions by any means necessary. The Obama Birth Certificate is one such serious example and form of a Fake-Hoax, albeit slightly different in its logic from the Strange Sounds video issue. A copy of the birth certificate with 17 or more OBVIOUS evidences of inconsistency/apparent adjustments was released to the public last year. The layer tampering was so obvious, that to the reasonable public mind, surely anyone seeking to release a fake birth certificate would never commit such errors. A presumption is therefore foisted by the SSkeptic Cabal, that the errors must have been committed at the originating Hawaii offices back from 1961, and whether fraud or not, therefore a more legitimate birth certificate cannot be located. In this brilliant strategy, the fake-hoax version of the birth certificate exonerates the publishers of the certificate from any crime, as they would be stupid to release such a fake, were they indeed ill-intentioned – and we, the victims are left fully unable to ascertain the truth in the matter. Take as Deskeption closure this ‘fall right in line’ statement by Nathan Goulding in the National Register Online from April 27, 2011, concerning the certificate
“What’s not plausible is that the government spent all this time manufacturing Obama’s birth certificate only to commit the laughably rookie mistake of exporting the layers (with the apparent errors)… Let’s leave it at that.”