On Thu, 14 May 2009, Edmund Storms wrote: > It is truly amazing and scary to see how much power and influences the > skeptics have.
It's a "Witch-hunt atmosphere," full of self-nominated witchhunters, very similar to the red scare paranoia of the 1950s. Be careful or you'll be labeled as "suspected Commie" and have to move to some other town. > I think an interesting study could be made of why skepticism has so much > power compared to what is claimed to be good science based on an open > minded evaluation of observation. In a word: fear. Modern witch-hunts are all about fear of banishment from the community. > Why are people who clearly violate the > standards of science, rational discussion, and honesty given any > influence at all? Besides the existence of witchhunters, the more fundamental problem is that no member of the community dares point out the fanatacism and corruption of the witch-hunters. If criticism of skeptics is seen as infallible evidence of crackpotism, then there are no checks and balances against skeptic corruption. The first law of the modern Skeptic seems to be "Thou Shalt Only Criticise the Victim, Never Yourself." Nobody seems to care that this turns intelligent people into the worst sort of pseudoscientists. (((((((((((((((((( ( ( ( ( (O) ) ) ) ) ))))))))))))))))))) William J. Beaty SCIENCE HOBBYIST website billb amasci com http://amasci.com EE/programmer/sci-exhibits amateur science, hobby projects, sci fair Seattle, WA 206-762-3818 unusual phenomena, tesla coils, weird sci
