Fight the Current ... or Ride the Waves (depending)

A charismatic speaker starts espousing a crackpot theory.  The theory is based on an obscure book published by a little-remembered figure with strong ties to the Church and who is generally recognized to have no scientific credentials.  The speaker offers “evidence,” most of which is just drawings he himself made, and mostly just asks open-ended questions, because that way he can’t be held accountable for telling outright lies.  Everyone agrees that the public is likely to be misled by this person’s dangerous ideas, which could cause irreparable harm.

I bet that scenario sounds way too familiar to you in today’s world.  But I’m not talking about an “anti-vaxxer” or a climate-change-denier.  I’m not even talking about Tucker Carlson, surprisingly.  I am, in fact, talking about Galileo: the “little-remembered figure” was Copernicus, and the “crackpot theory” was heliocentrism ... the idea that the earth revolves around the sun and not the other way around.  You may think I’ve twisted the facts, but it’s absolutely true that most of what Galileo offered as evidence were his own drawings, and it’s also true that (at least for many years), he avoided making statements of fact which might ruffle the feathers of the Catholic Church.  And it was quite a pervasive belief that Galileo’s ideas were putting the very souls of the public in jeopardy, which was considered far more insidious than merely putting lives at risk.

I present this story because we seem to be getting confused these days by what “skepticism” actually means.  And, admittedly, people such as the aforementioned Fox “news” host make it very difficult.  One the one hand, Tucker presents himself as a classic skeptic: hey, he’s just asking questions, right?  And people attack him just as they did to poor Galileo, just because he questions the accepted wisdom (of medical science, of climate change, of systemic racism ... take your pick).  Poor, poor Tucker—you see what happened to Galileo, right?  Convicted, imprisoned, ultimately died there.  That could happen to Tucker!

Obviously I don’t intend to defend Tucker Carlson, and obviously I don’t think he compares very favorably to Galileo.  But I think it’s important that we don’t dismiss Carlson because he asks difficult questions and demands proof: that actually is what a skeptic is supposed to do.  I think it’s important we dismiss Carlson because he doesn’t offer any answers and refuses to accept proof when it’s handed to him on a silver platter.  Sadly, people like Carlson give skeptics a bad name, and make us more prone to dismiss people who might actually have legitimate points.

But I don’t think we can lay the blame for the decline in skepticism squarely at the feet of Tucker Carlson and his ilk.  The sad truth is that skepticism, like almost all tools for good, is used quite selectively by the majority of people.  For a simple example, buried right in the middle of a very long (but interesting) New Yorker article, we find this nugget:

While acupuncture is widely accepted as a medical treatment in various Asian countries, its use is much more contested in the West. These cultural differences have profoundly influenced the results of clinical trials. Between 1966 and 1995, there were forty-seven studies of acupuncture in China, Taiwan, and Japan, and every single trial concluded that acupuncture was an effective treatment. During the same period, there were ninety-four clinical trials of acupuncture in the United States, Sweden, and the U.K., and only fifty-six per cent of these studies found any therapeutic benefits.

Obviously there’s some bias going on.  But I bet your instinctive reaction was to assume that the bias is on the part of the Asian studies: your scientific skepticism of course leads you to question those results.  By why not question the results on the other side?  Is it perhaps possible that the Western studies are biased against finding benefits that they don’t really believe in?

I’m not saying that’s definitely the case, of course—in fact, given my views on balance and paradox, you’ve probably already guessed that I personally think there’s some bias on both sides, and that the truth lies somewhere in the middle.  But I find it interesting that most people that I know would naturally assume that the people who couldn’t find any evidence were more reliable.  On the one hand, you have scientific proof that a thing exists; on the other, you have no proof of anything at all.  And yet most people reading this will believe the side with no proof.  Why is that?

The answer, of course, is that it isn’t.  If I show you studies that show that vaccines work, and studies that show that they don’t, you’ll believe the positive ones.  On the other hand, if I show you studies that show that vaccines are linked to autism, and studies that show they aren’t, you’ll believe the negative ones.  The truth of it is, you’re just going to believe whichever studies you were predisposed to believe in the first place.  But, see, that’s not how skepticism is supposed to work.

Paul Kurtz, sometimes called the father of secular humanism and author of The New Skepticism, wrote:

Briefly stated, a skeptic is one who is willing to question any claim to truth, asking for clarity in definition, consistency in logic, and adequacy of evidence.  The use of skepticism is thus an essential part of objective scientific inquiry and the search for reliable knowledge.

Question any claim: even the ones you’re already “sure” are true.  Demand logic and evidence.  These are great criteria.  Surely idiots like Tucker Carlson crumble under such demands.  But other areas are more gray.

The problem, as I see it, is that our Western viewpoints often lead us to the conclusion that, “we can’t prove that it works, therefore it doesn’t work.” Now, if you think about this for a second—and, remember: one of the things skepticism tells you to demand is consistency in logic—you immediately see that this is a ridiculous conclusion.  Try to turn in that deduction in any college class on logic and you’ll get a very disparaging grade: the argument is not sound.  The conclusion does not follow from the premise.  And yet you most likely accept that it’s true, as long as it’s in reference to something you’ve been taught is pseudoscience.

Let’s take one of my favorite examples: chiropractics.  Now, statistically speaking, I’d say there’s a pretty good chance that you believe that chiropractics is complete hogwash.  Why?  Because of the lack of scientific evidence to support it, of course!  We can’t prove that it works, therefore it doesn’t work.  Q.E.D.  Of course, there are studies that show it does work.  But those are flawed studies, obviously.  They’re biased.  They weren’t rigorous.  It’s amazing how much effort we can put into debunking studies we don’t want to believe, and how little effort we put into debunking studies we do want to believe.  Because all those studies that said that chiropractics don’t work?  You didn’t question them at all ... right?

The silliest thing about this debate is that this is one of those areas where “works”/“doesn’t work” isn’t really a valid way to look at the problem.  Chiropractic is a medical treatment, like a drug, or a medical procedure that might be performed in a hospital.  And, I’m pretty sure we all understand that those types of things work for some people, and don’t work for others.  Some of that has to do with the quality of the drug manufacturer, or the expertise of the medical personnel performing the procedure, but most of it is just because we’re all different on the inside.  I mean, we’re all the same, but we’re also all different.  You and I might have the same medical condition, and we might take the same drug, in the same dosage, at the same times of day and in the same relation to when we eat or when we sleep, and it still might be the case that the drug works for you, and not for me.  People’s insides are just funny that way.

So, likewise, it’s silly to try to say that chiropractic works ... you can only say that it works for you, or that it doesn’t work for you.  It happens to work for me, but I have to tell you, I approached it with a very skeptical attitude.  I went to my first chiropractor, assuming it wouldn’t work.  I made the doctor explain exactly why it was going to work, and I didn’t believe a single word of what he said, because he was spouting off bullshit about chakras and energy pathways and shit like that that is very obviously not true.  And yet ... it worked.  It didn’t matter that I didn’t believe in it, and it didn’t matter that the doctor obviously had no idea how it worked.  It worked ... for me.  And I still go to a chiropractor today, several decades later.  I don’t go for every ailment, and I have certainly found complaints where it didn’t work, but, for many things (especially as I get older), it continues to work, despite all “evidence” that it shouldn’t.  Actually, since I want that consistency in logic that Kurtz was talking about, I did eventually find a chiropractor who approached the practice from more of a kinesiology standpoint, and he finally was able to make it make sense (mostly).  But none of that really matters, because, at least for me, it just works.  (I also enjoy it when people, confronted with this simple fact, try to “explain” it by saying that the relief is “all in my head.” “That’s fine,” I typically respond: “that’s where the pain is.”)

So, if you’ve tried chiropratic, and it worked, then you can say it worked for you ... but not that “it works.” Likewise, if you’ve tried it, and it didn’t work, then you can say that it didn’t work for you ... but not that “it doesn’t work.” And, if you haven’t tried it at all, I don’t think you can intelligently say much of anything.  You just don’t know.  And your scientific skepticism ought to demand evidence, which you can really only gather by trying it out.

Of course, when it comes to things like vaccines or climate change, the answer isn’t so easy.  You could just listen to everyone on TV, and most of the government, who are telling you that the COVID vaccine is safe, or you could listen to idiots like Tucker Carlson or the Russian bots posting to your Facebook account, or the rest of the government, who are telling you it’s not.  But, honestly, your scientific skepticism should be telling you not to take anyone’s word for it.  Sadly, unlike chiropractics, this is not something you want to settle via experimentation.  You have to read about it, and you have to read lots of different sources.  You have to listen to what scientists say about the various vaccines, shutting out what the media personalities and the politicians are saying, and try to evaluate which ones make sense.  There will be scientists on both sides, of course.  But, even without any scientific training, it’s amazing how simple it can be to read what a scientist is spouting and either say “yeah, that makes sense” or “what a nutbag!” In my experience, it’s actually quite rare for even a very well-trained scientist who happens to be a nutjob to able to hide this fact from you.  It does happen, mind you, but it’s rare.  And even when it seems like there are sane voices on both sides, usually there are a lot more sane voices on one side or the other.  Now, that still doesn’t always land you on the right side of the debate (see also: Galileo) ... but it’s a pretty good start.

So be skeptical, but be skeptical of both sides.  When you hear someone swimming upstream against the conventional wisdom, hear them out—at least until you can determine if they’re a nutjob (or a Tucker Carlson, who is really more of a douchebag than a nutjob).  Don’t be afraid to come to a conclusion that puts you at odds with what “everyone” else is saying, but also make sure you have facts and evidence and logic to back up that conclusion.  None of this is simple.  But, then again, life rarely is.