Month: May 2019

In an ongoing debate, Jim, The Conservative Skeptic, has done a number of posts on Skepticism and I haven’t been able to keep up with his pace, because I always have to do a little homework before I feel like I can reply.

Today, I will start with “A Lack of Skepticism in Academia?”

If you have followed the most recent hoopla over the Grievance Studies Project conducted by Portland State University Assistant Professor Peter Boghossian, along with his co-authors James Lindsay and Helen Pluckrose, you know that this team advocates for a reintroduction of skepticism into academia, particularly in areas they call “Grievance Studies.” Grievance Studies refers to any “Something or Other Studies” that tends to focus on and inflame the grievances of certain identity groups, typically centered around race, gender or sexuality. Such studies might include Critical Race Theory, Gender Studies, Feminist Studies, Queer Studies, and so on.

The authors were able to publish a total of seven scholarly research papers in peer-reviewed journals, with the exception of one, which was actually a poetry journal with laxer standards. The most famous of these papers was titled, “Human reactions to rape culture and queer performativity at urban dog parks in Portland, Oregon.”

Each of the articles the team wrote deliberately contained absurd or satirical elements, but used language mimicking the scholarship in these fields as well as citing the most prominent thinkers in these areas.

The “hoax” or “audit” as you may prefer to call it, raised eyebrows about the rigorousness of what was passing for scholarship in these fields, especially when some studies are what are known as autoethnographies, which is a fancy word for research conducted from a personal perspective and then applied to broader cultural truths. These works, based on the lived experience of one individual, are then entered into the academic record and can be cited by other writers as sources.

Well, it is only natural that academics not in these fields may look askance at these types of works quietly wondering if these research papers should qualify as true scholarship. However, questioning these types of studies is likely to get you a verbal slap, as you may be accused of bigotry, misogyny, racism, white fragility, implicit bias… for simply asking is this true? Is this factual? Can we extrapolate truth from the experience of a single individual and apply it to the culture at large? Is it important to study dogs humping each other in a dog park and deriving conclusions about human rape?

And what about the academic journals? These were not predatory journals where the author pays to be published. These were legitimate academic journals within their fields. Why did the peer reviewers of these papers not detect a problem? Why did some praise the works as adding to the body of knowledge on this or that topic, like whether men should experiment with dildos to overcome homophobia?

So yes, academic skepticism is more important than ever as universities of today change and embrace some of these techniques within the Grievance Studies fields.

For more on this topic, you may find resources here:

At http://bit.ly/2OsWnnH, you may find a link to the project summary, all papers written (some did not achieve publication), professional reviews, and much more.

Filmmaker Mike Nayna has documented the project and his YouTube channel may be found here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzk08fzh5c_BhjQa1w35wtA

My own review of an actual (not a hoax) Gender Studies paper:

Hot Wings in Academia: YouTube Show about Eating Hot Wings “Creates, Maintains & Manipulates Inequitable Gender Hierarchies” & If You Disagree—Misogyny

My summary of one of the accepted Grievance Studies papers:

James Lindsay Channels a Feminist and Things Get Kind of Weird: An Academic Hoax

 

An anonymous open letter reacting to the Grievance Studies Project penned by disgruntled faculty and associates at Portland State:

https://psuvanguard.com/conceptual-penises-and-other-trolling/

Illustration from Edwin D. Babbitt’s The Principles of Light and Color (1878) 

A fellow Twitter user who goes by the handle JustMe @APeasantLife (Charles) challenged me to clarify some of our ongoing posts on Modern Skepticism that Jim and I have been exchanging.

One question he had is that we don’t seem to be very clear on how we define Skepticism, and I want to revisit that briefly and summarize it and bring it down to a more basic definition: an attitude of doubt.

Now, Charles correctly points out, what are the limits of doubt? Should we really question everything? He rightly asks, “How does one choose that which should be questioned?”

Well, that’s a great question. I think one of the ways I try and determine what should be questioned is by observing what I call “truth claims.” Truth claims are presented as fact with the assumption that they are based on evidence.

If I see something presented as a fact, a truth, and it doesn’t sound right to me, I do a fact check. I do this frequently with news. I evaluate the source, and then I compare it with other valued sources to compare the facts of a news story. I often find very different results when I look further into a story. I often go further by checking the source out via tools such as Media Bias Fact Check, Politifact and Snopes. (I personally think Media Bias Fact Check does a pretty good job, but there are other fact-checking sources that are probably quite good.)

Here’s an easy example:

Melania Trump to Personally Murder Beloved Tree? Not Exactly

In this example, in December of 2017 a historic magnolia tree on the White House grounds was going to have to be removed. The different ways in which this story was presented were hilarious. Many headlines made it sound like Melania Trump had gone completely bonkers and was ordering around staff like a diva demanding Andrew Jackson’s 200 year old magnolia be chopped down for no apparent reason. Of course, the truth of the story was much more logical and justified.

Of course, I see the same type of thing when I see a viral video. I approach these stories with skepticism because they are so often selectively edited, often to promote as certain pet political viewpoint. Many viral videos, when you see the entire video, or at the very least the back story, are not what they appear to be and I simply am not going to jump on the outrage brigade.

I’ll give an example of this here. I wrote about a video and story that went viral and became known as the Napping While Black incident at Yale University. This was in the midst of multiple videos being shared that appeared to show white women incessantly calling the cops on black people doing nothing illegal. When I did a bit of fact-checking on the incident, I discovered there was indeed more to the story and that Sarah had become the subject of a rather unprecedented mobbing that had driven her to the brink of suicide. Here is what I found:

Sarah Braasch, Portrayed as Racist Cop Caller at Yale, Debuts YouTube Channel

Let’s say I read about a popular hashtag on Twitter. Last year I became quite curious as to why people were discussing Qanon. Well, I decided to research it and got to the bottom of it as best I could. It would likely be classified as a conspiracy theory, I suppose. By the way, this is probably one of the most read stories on my blog.

Qanon: The Storm is Coming, The Great Awakening & Follow the White Rabbit

Clearly, there are certain truth claims that don’t need to be fact-checked. I am not going to investigate, for example, whether the earth is flat or not, although I did actually go and read the history of the theory. It just wasn’t something that deserved serious attention.

Another great way to use skepticism is when you see “Miracle Cures.” Not only is skepticism good before you lay out your hard-earned cash, but some of these products may actually lead to physical harm, and if that harm comes to innocent children, then the consequences could be horrific. Here’s my best example:

Miracle Mineral Solution (MMS) is Not a Treatment for Autism and Children are Being Harmed by it Use

Now, I do sense that Charles isn’t fond of atheism. As I said before, I don’t believe a skeptic is automatically an atheist.

Charles asserts there are unknowns. I agree with that statement. We are constantly making new discoveries, revising beliefs, retesting theories, etc. But when we discuss religion, are we discussing truth claims or are we discussing faith claims? Is faith a reliable way of knowing?

Now Charles turns the tables on me in an interesting way. I think, if I am not misrepresenting him, that an atheist can be just as dogmatic as a religious person. Charles says atheism itself can become a religion. He asserts “the more active atheists look down their long noses on the religious rabble.” I am not going to disagree with Charles here. I have seen it happen. That’s why I say all skeptics are not atheists. They just are waiting for evidence of the truth of religion.

And, Charles, if you evaluate various belief systems, I do find that some have consequences that can be devastating, so belief without evidence can have real world consequences that are not so good. For example:

Tanzanian Witch Murders and more: Belief Has Real World Consequences

Of course, as I spoke about in another post about the Outsider Test For Faith, that brings a skeptic to ask which religion is the true religion? Which God are we talking about? I think these are reasonable questions to ask.

So can you be a skeptic without questioning religion? I would say yes. Charles says, “Most skeptics I know (hopefully I am as I see myself as well) intelligent, well-informed, acceptable to agreeing with that which the preponderance of the evidence says is so, and careful to apply skepticism to that which makes sense intuitively and/or logically.”

Charles believes religion is necessary. He is not alone in his belief. He states, “On the other hand, it seems apparent that man needs religion (evidenced by the proliferation of religion and commonalities amongst all religions) or something like religion that is an acceptable substitute.”

So, Charles is skeptical that humans will be okay without religion. Yes, he is applying skepticism to the idea that we can be good humans without religion as our moral compass. Charles says, “The religions that fail have no hell, no punishment, no final retribution. Fear drives the most successful religions. Fear is not necessarily a bad thing, or so says my amygdala.”

This is a question I cannot answer other than to say that I suppose we need a study as to whether atheists turn into degenerates or immoral people once they reject religion as true. I cannot provide Charles with proof this is not true. So… his skepticism here is legitimate.

I would like to point out the recent work of Clay Routledge in this area. He would likely agree with Charles that we have an inherent need for religion or some substitute. His book is called Supernatural: Death, Meaning, and the Power of the Invisible World.

Courtesy Amazon: Routledge takes readers through a wide range of fascinating research from psychology that paints a picture of humans as innate supernatural thinkers. Exploring research from the emerging field of experimental existential psychology, he makes the case that all humans have the same underlying existential needs, with similar coping strategies across times, cultures, and degrees of religiousness. Surprisingly, cultural institutions such as sports, environmentalism, secular humanism, and science also showcase supernatural attributes and qualities. Indeed, studies show that supernatural thinking assuages stress and anxiety and improves mood and psychological well-being.

But for a counter perspective, I offer MIchael Shermer’s latest book: Heavens on Earth: The Scientific Search for the Afterlife, Immortality, and Utopia.

From Amazon.

A scientific exploration into humanity’s obsession with the afterlife and quest for immortality from the bestselling author and skeptic Michael Shermer

In his most ambitious work yet, Shermer sets out to discover what drives humans’ belief in life after death, focusing on recent scientific attempts to achieve immortality along with utopian attempts to create heaven on earth.

For millennia, religions have concocted numerous manifestations of heaven and the afterlife, and though no one has ever returned from such a place to report what it is really like–or that it even exists–today science and technology are being used to try to make it happen in our lifetime. From radical life extension to cryonic suspension to mind uploading, Shermer considers how realistic these attempts are from a proper skeptical perspective.
Heavens on Earth concludes with an uplifting paean to purpose and progress and how we can live well in the here-and-now, whether or not there is a hereafter.

Thank you Charles for engaging with us. I enjoyed considering your thoughts on this and any response you have to this post.

This post is in response to The Conservative Skeptic’s “Being Skeptical: Where Does Bias Begin?”– part of an ongoing attempt to clarify modern skepticism for our readers.

Being Skeptical: Where Does Bias Begin? – Conservative Skeptic https://consskep.com/2019/05/15/being-skeptical-where-does-bias-begin/

Religious skepticism is only one aspect of skepticism, but is extremely important. I also believe you can be a skeptic but not be an atheist.

Jim asserts that we are influenced by our upbringing in how we believe, what our parents teach us, but that we can, as adults, revise our beliefs.

I do have more to say on belief in another post, but on this topic I’d like to bring up the work of John W. Loftus in his 2013 book titled The Outsider Test for Faith: How to Know Which Religion Is True. (Loftus also discusses confirmation bias extensively.)

Per Amazon: The book The Outsider Test for Faith description:

Fostering mutual understanding by viewing religion from an outsider perspective

Depending on how one defines religion, there are at least thousands of religions in the world. Given such religious diversity, how can any one religion claim to know the truth? Nothing proposed so far has helped us settle which of these religions, if any, are true–until now.

Author John W. Loftus, a former minister turned atheist, argues we would all be better off if we viewed any religion–including our own–from the informed skepticism of an outsider, a nonbeliever. For this reason he has devised “the outsider test for faith.” He describes it as a variation on the Golden Rule: “Do unto your own faith what you do to other faiths.” Essentially, this means applying the same skepticism to our own beliefs as we do to the beliefs of other faiths. Loftus notes that research from psychology, anthropology, sociology, and neuroscience goes a long way toward explaining why the human race has produced so many belief systems, why religion is culturally dependent, and how religion evolved in the first place. It’s important that people understand these findings to escape the dangerous delusion that any one religion represents the only truth.

At a time when the vast diversity of human belief systems is accessible to all, the outsider test for faith offers a rational means for fostering mutual understanding.

——
The following is a quote from Loftus summarizing the Outsider Test for Faith in simple terms:

“With the OTF I’ll argue that we should adopt a skeptical predisposition as best as possible prior to examining the evidence, if we adopt any predisposition at all.

My argument is as follows:

1) Rational people in distinct geographical locations around the globe overwhelmingly adopt and defend a wide diversity of religious faiths due to their upbringing and cultural heritage. This is the religious diversity thesis.

2) Consequently, it seems very likely that adopting one’s religious faith is not merely a matter of independent rational judgment but is causally dependent on cultural conditions to an overwhelming degree. This is the religious dependency thesis.

3) Hence the odds are highly likely that any given adopted religious faith is false.

4) So the best way to test one’s adopted religious faith is from the perspective of an outsider with the same level of skepticism used to evaluate other religious faiths. This expresses the OTF.

The OTF is primarily a test to examine religious faiths […] The OTF is no different than the prince in the Cinderella story who must question forty- five thousand people to see which girl lost the glass slipper at the ball the previous night. They all claim to have done so. Therefore, skepticism is definitely warranted.”

(The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails, 2010)

======
In Street Epistemology, a movement inspired by Peter Boghossian’s A Manual for Creating Atheists, Anthony Magnabosco, a veteran in this field, employs the Outsider Test for Faith quite skillfully in this short video:

Loftus has a website and blog available at http://www.debunking-christianity.com/

———-
I am excerpting some of the official messages as they relate to implications this was indeed a racially motivated incident:

1. Message from Dean Cooley
   May 8, 2018 Published on Yale University Website

Dear Graduate Student,

Incidents like that of last night remind us of the continued work needed to make Yale a truly inclusive place.

Yours,

Lynn Cooley, Ph.D.
Dean, Yale University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
C.N.H. Long Professor of Genetics
Professor of Cell Biology and MCDB
——————
2. Message to graduate students from VP for Student Life Kimberly Goff-Crews
Yale News, Published May 10, 2018
Dear Yale students,

I am deeply troubled by an incident that took place Monday night in the Hall of Graduate Studies. One graduate student called the police to report another student in the common area, who had every right to be there. The Yale police officers who responded spoke with both parties and subsequently admonished the complaining student that the other student had every right to be present.

As Vice President for Student Life, I have worked with administrators, faculty and students to strengthen the resources available to address incidents of racial bias, discrimination, and harassment.

We remain committed to quickly and appropriately addressing issues of racism and bias on campus.

All of us in senior leadership recognize that incidents such as this one are being framed within a difficult national context.

Sincerely,

Kimberly M. Goff-Crews

Yale’s commitment to equity and inclusion Published on Yale University Website

—-
3. Date:
Thursday, May 10, 2018
From:
Peter Salovey, President and Chris Argyris Professor of Psychology

To:
Yale Faculty, Students, and Staff

Dear Students and Colleagues,

Racism is an unqualified evil in our society. Universities are not utopias, and people of color experience racism on our campus as they do elsewhere in our country. This fact angers and disappoints me. We must neither condone nor excuse racism, prejudice, or discrimination at Yale. As a university community committed to creating knowledge and understanding, we reject these kinds of ignorance. We look for ways, instead, to demonstrate our shared humanity.

Personally, recent events have led me to reflect in new ways on the ordinary daily actions each of us can take to show empathy, to see and understand what others are experiencing, and to combat hate and exclusion.
Sincerely,

Peter Salovey
President
Chris Argyris Professor of Psychology

—————-
4. Statement from Yale Police Chief Ronnell Higgins
Published in Yale News, dated May 10, 2018
After review of the facts around the call and the police response to the incident at HGS on May 8, I wanted to share a summary of what happened. Our police officers and I feel strongly that Yale policing cannot be excellent unless our work is inclusive and respectful of everyone we come in contact with. We look forward to continuing to work with faculty, staff and students to support all members of the Yale community.

Yale Police responded to a call in the early hours of Tuesday, May 8 at 1:40 a.m. The caller reported that she was a student at Hall of Graduate Studies (HGS) and said that there was a woman sleeping in the Common room on the 12th floor and that she did not know who the person was. Three police officers responded to HGS around 1:45 a.m. where the caller met them at the entrance and showed them her ID. She then let them up in the elevator, which stopped at the fifth floor where another student appeared.

At this point, the caller pointed to the other student and said, “This is her.” The protocol is for police to separate the parties involved, so two officers stayed with the woman on the fifth floor and the investigating officer went with the caller to the 12th floor.

The investigating officer spent over 11 minutes initially with the caller to assess the situation, while the other two officers spent about 15 minutes with the other woman to assess the situation and to confirm her identity. After reviewing the scene in the 12th floor common room and seeing a computer, books and notebooks in addition to a blanket and pillow on the couch, the investigating officer determined that the person who had been sleeping in the common room was likely a student, so the officer asked the caller to wait in her room on the 12th floor.

The investigating officer reported what she found to the other two officers on the fifth floor and a supervisor who had arrived to assess the situation and determine whether assistance was needed. The officers were having a difficult time confirming the other student’s identification due to the use of a preferred name in the system that was different from the official name on the ID. The supervisor worked with dispatch and security to clear up the matter, taking down the student’s information and giving her a case number. The assessment of the ID took about 15 minutes, which is longer than usual.

At that point, the investigating officer, with her supervisor, went to the 12th floor where they spoke to the caller again for another seven minutes. Another officer also followed. They informed the caller that the student who had been in the common room was an authorized resident and had every right to be there. They also explained that this was not a police matter and were reporting the incident to the dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Officers left HGS Studies at about 2:34 a.m.
—–
5.  Second statement from Goff-Crews dated May 15, 2018 Published on Yale University Website

Further Listening Sessions and Next Steps on Equity and Inclusion
Dear Students,

• Students have asked what will change about police interactions, and whether the police should even have responded to the call made from HGS last Monday night. Yale Police officers respond whenever they are called for any number of reasons. Only after they respond can police determine the actual situation. To do so, they speak with the caller and anyone else who can help them assess whether the police are needed. It is standard procedure to ask everyone for identification when officers arrive in response to a call. In the HGS incident, the effort to determine the identity of one student took longer than usual because of our recently implemented preferred name policy.

Yale Police officers will receive additional training in de-escalation, problem solving, and unbiased policing, supplementing their existing training on inclusion, diversity, and unconscious bias.

• Students have asked whether there will be disciplinary consequences for the resident of the Hall of Graduate Studies who reported another student to the Yale Police. As an academic institution, the discipline of students is conducted according to the rules and practices of our various schools. Federal law and the university’s commitment to student confidentiality prevents us from discussing discipline or other educational matters regarding individual students.

Sincerely,
Kimberly M. Goff-Crews
Secretary and Vice President for Student Life

From:
Kimberly M. Goff-Crews, Secretary and Vice President for Student Life

To:
All Students
Date:
Tuesday, May 15, 2018
———–
6. Message from Dean Cooley
May 15, 2018
Published on Yale University Website

Dear Graduate School Student,

The incident that occurred at the Hall of Graduate Studies last week shines a spotlight on the topic of race and racism, though it is just one example of the larger challenge of building and maintaining a community built on mutual respect.

As a community and as an institution, we have a responsibility to address issues of racism and belonging.

I have received hundreds of emails from people both on and off campus expressing deep concerns about last week’s incident. As painful and difficult as it was, the attention to the events at HGS gives us an opportunity to examine our processes and policies. I write to you today with some immediate steps the Graduate School will take to heighten awareness of bias and racism.

Provide implicit bias awareness training for all GSAS staff before the beginning of the 2018 fall semester.
Offer dedicated training session for all incoming graduate students on implicit bias awareness.
Train all Ph.D. students in teaching an inclusive classroom either as part of “Teaching @ Yale Day” or in the “Fundamentals of Inclusive Teaching” workshop offered by the Center for Teaching and Learning.

Sincerely,

Lynn Cooley, Ph.D.
Dean, Yale University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
C.N.H. Long Professor of Genetics
Professor of Cell Biology and MCDB