Bullshit
I've been a dyed-in-the-wool Skeptic ever since I read The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan. I recall being delighted and surprised to connect with someone who was willing to say out loud that UFOs, Crop Circles and all the rest of it was crap, or at least dramatically unsupported by the evidence.
One thing that's overwhelming as a skeptic is just how much junk there is out there that people believe with no evidence. Astrology, reflexology, bigfoot, feng shui, and religions of all stripe. It seems possible that most people are wrong about most things most of the time. And as a fair-minded thinker, I have to believe that this generalization probably applies to me as well. So, what are the things that I believe that are just plain wrong?
I've been watching the first season of Penn & Teller's Bullshit! and enjoying it thoroughly. One of the episodes is about a guy fighting for a smoking ban in New York restaurants, with P&T taking the position that this is bullshit, and and infringement on the rights of smokers. We have a similar ban here in Vancouver, and frankly I'm a huge fan of it because I'm really not fond of cigarette smoke.
So, I'm in the position of supporting the smoking ban because it's what I prefer, but agreeing with Penn & Teller that it's an infringement on the freedom of people who like to smoke. (There's a lot of detail about the junk science that was used to push the ban, but I won't bother you with the details.) It's a fun position for me to be in because I've caught myself in a bit of hypocrisy and I'm having trouble figuring out how to resolve it. Either,
(a) I change my tune on the smoking ban, taking the position that it's a bad thing to do to smokers, or
(b) come up with a better argument supporting the ban that doesn't put my beliefs in conflict.
Of course, my approach will be to give (b) everything that I've got, but I'm not particularly hopeful that there is a good argument to be made. If we must discard the health angle because the evidence is bad, then it's hard to see how one can justify an outright ban on behavior that's simply annoying. There's lots of annoying behavior out there. In fact, I'm not sure there's a good argument even if the data supported a health-related ban, we don't see any governments banning coal mining or cutting timber
One thing that's overwhelming as a skeptic is just how much junk there is out there that people believe with no evidence. Astrology, reflexology, bigfoot, feng shui, and religions of all stripe. It seems possible that most people are wrong about most things most of the time. And as a fair-minded thinker, I have to believe that this generalization probably applies to me as well. So, what are the things that I believe that are just plain wrong?
I've been watching the first season of Penn & Teller's Bullshit! and enjoying it thoroughly. One of the episodes is about a guy fighting for a smoking ban in New York restaurants, with P&T taking the position that this is bullshit, and and infringement on the rights of smokers. We have a similar ban here in Vancouver, and frankly I'm a huge fan of it because I'm really not fond of cigarette smoke.
So, I'm in the position of supporting the smoking ban because it's what I prefer, but agreeing with Penn & Teller that it's an infringement on the freedom of people who like to smoke. (There's a lot of detail about the junk science that was used to push the ban, but I won't bother you with the details.) It's a fun position for me to be in because I've caught myself in a bit of hypocrisy and I'm having trouble figuring out how to resolve it. Either,
(a) I change my tune on the smoking ban, taking the position that it's a bad thing to do to smokers, or
(b) come up with a better argument supporting the ban that doesn't put my beliefs in conflict.
Of course, my approach will be to give (b) everything that I've got, but I'm not particularly hopeful that there is a good argument to be made. If we must discard the health angle because the evidence is bad, then it's hard to see how one can justify an outright ban on behavior that's simply annoying. There's lots of annoying behavior out there. In fact, I'm not sure there's a good argument even if the data supported a health-related ban, we don't see any governments banning coal mining or cutting timber
posted by Brent at 11:18 PM
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