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Weekend Reading
4 days ago
It's been a slow week at Oot and Aboot, mainly because Some Canadian Skeptic had stuff-to-do coming out the wazoo (which is, if you check, where it comes out). I won't bother listing everything that I had to do this past week for fear of sounding whiny, but I would like to say a final word of thanks to the ASR for a great Skeptics in the Pub talk on the 22nd! I also owe a thanks to everyone who came out and asked questions and shared drinks and conversation. I had a wonderful time and it was great to learn that digital friends were actually real people, and that I have a lot of new skeptic friends out there in Toronto.
"eh? Eh? EHHHHHHH????"
This is the only picture I have of the event (thanks to Richard for the shot), so if anyone else has some, could you please send them to me?
While the talk primarily dealt with Skeptic North, it also dealt with the pros and cons of inevitable amateurism (read: non-expert) in science-advocacy, and how much skepticism needs to embrace "web 2.0" as much as possible, or we risk becoming socially irrelevant. Skepticism has, even as recently as 5 years ago, been a top-down, leadership-driven movement primarily communicated through print-media. But these days, with the proliferation of self-publishing (blogs, you-tube, flickr etc...) and digital social networking (Facebook, Twitter), skepticism is in the midst of a fundamental change in the zeitgeist: we are becoming less of a top-down movement, and more of a bottom-up community, led by grassroots amateurs (and remember, amateur does not me unprofessional)...the experts and big names no longer set the tone anymore, and if us amateurs are leading the fray, we have to be very careful with how we act. Also, this should not be misconstrued as suggesting that experts and "big names" no longer have relevancy: quite the opposite. But all that was laid out in the talk ;).
I'm glad the talk went as well as it did, and I'd like to port it to other venues. So if you'd like to have me speak at your venue, my speaker's fee lies somewhere between a Ferrari and a sandwich.
Speaking of expertise, there are only two (maybe three) areas of knowledge that think I can justifiably call myself to have any level of expertise: Music (and I guess by extension music education) and political science. Since the former doesn't often come up in skepticism (very rarely), and the latter is explicitly out-of-bounds at Skeptic North, I was considering offering more political analysis as it relates to skepticism here at this blog (which, as you'll note in the disclaimer, does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the team at Skeptic North). However, I realize that this is a potentially problematic idea. I'd like to get your thoughts on this issue:
I'm a left-leaning political economy kind of academic, and any politics/skepticism analysis will reflect such an intellectual framework. I'm starting to miss academic political science, and am considering using this venue to explore what I was exploring before taking this teaching job.
Would readers be turned off if I experimented with this, or do readers agree with me that there is not enough of a political discussion (from those educated in the area) in skepticism?
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7 comments:
Ian
said...
January 25, 2010 at 12:25 AM
I think an important part of skepticism is the idea of free inquiry: the idea that we can be skeptical of any idea or any topic. Applying skepticism to politics is, in my view, a natural extension of skepticism, though of course you begin to venture away from the more objective scientific arguments.
So long as the blogger can withstand the criticism that comes with exposing their viewpoints, I'm glad to read any of it.
Neil Middlemiss
said...
January 25, 2010 at 4:56 AM
Great talk on Friday. Sorry I had to cut out during the Q&A (and, as it turned out, I didn't even have to: the friends I was to meet up with ended up cancelling on me)!
The trick with applying skepticism to politics is finding the replicated empirical data to back up your claims. "Science-based politics" is a pretty thin field as yet.
That said, there are plenty of political claims that can be addressed with empirical data, even if it's not as neat and tidy as the data you get from a physics lab (or even a biology lab).
James
said...
January 25, 2010 at 11:25 AM
What Steve wants is a GOOD picture - I forgot my Real Camera and resorted to Blackberry camera and waiting for Steve to stop moving long enough to not blur completely...
xinit
said...
January 25, 2010 at 12:25 PM
It might be interesting to see more skeptical political / policy / economic discussion that isn't rooted in absolute libertarianist philosophy...
xinit
said...
January 25, 2010 at 12:30 PM
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jedi School Drop Out
said...
January 26, 2010 at 9:24 PM
The picture makes it look like the skeptics stormed the local Yuk-Yuks...
"...and I was like 'Dude! Your confirmation bias is showing!'"
- RIMSHOT -
"So what's the deal with homeopathy? If you ask me, it's homeopathetic!... ...Is this thing on?"
Jedi School Drop Out
said...
January 26, 2010 at 9:25 PM
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I love the attempted applications of skepticism to politics. Personal blogs are the perfect venue for spouting whatever is on your mind. Go for it all (of course it helps that I'm of the same political bent as you).