another tee shirt slogan!!!!

no, i believe i actually stated you do should muck about with them for a while so you’ll come to appreciate this blog for the breath of sanity and reason that it is.

perhaps i wasn’t clear. no, actually – what i stated looks about the same.

The ways systems work sociologically is indirectly or directly depending on how much you know, is a verification of why free markets work and are preferable to top-down economies. Is it a scientific conclusion? Hell no, but ultimately when we skeptics provide hypotheses and theories, the degree of plausibility and verifiability is important. It’s why certain political opinions make more sense or are adopted more by skeptics such as Libertarian ideas because they’ve happened to fit much easier or the most with what a person has established has making sense skeptically and scientifically.

I’m strongly opposed to forcing people to have no political ideas at all in the area of skepticism. Do I prefer a more politically independent skeptic? Sure I do, less opportunity for bias and such. But that’s highly impractically to expect, but what is much is practical to expect is self-skepticism, which is much more important in establishing when one is a skeptic and talks politics.

Skeptics aren’t polarizes, they are truth seekers. Polarizing is the field of party politics, not skeptics.

As an addendum, I would like to see skepticism associated with the idea of treating a situation as a different case. At least to promote the idea of not painting different situations the same color and basing a conclusion on that.

Your objection to the voicing of political ideologies in skeptical literature is something that can be discussed, but you don’t get to decree that everything on this site should be entirely devoid of opinion and be scientifically provable — these articles are written by human beings and I enjoy seeing the writers’ thoughts and opinions come out a bit. Not everything can be scientifically proven either, I apply the scientific method to all of my thought processes when applicable, but sometimes this is not possible, particularly in the realm of politics. For example, if we simply crunch the numbers, we might find that the most efficient way to run a society is under a totalitarian, fascist dictatorship. In this case, we need our human thoughts, feelings, and opinions to tell us that despite the loss of efficiency, democracy is a far better way to go.

1. plausible deniability (smoking does not cause cancer)

2. manufacturing concern (vaccines cause autism)

Those are just two old, well known dirty tricks commonly used. You see both constantly used by global warming deniers and creationists. I wish I knew a little more about why these cheap and dirty tricks work.