Talk:Pseudoskepticism

I reed gud but this articul dun mek no since. 02:36, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Ah agrees. TheoryOfPractice (talk) 02:39, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I third that motion.The Goonie 1 (talk) 02:47, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Shall I take it out back and shoot it? TheoryOfPractice (talk) 02:50, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * No, it just needs some love and care. If you don't want to fix, just pop it on the community chalkboard or the to-do list or something. 03:09, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

It's not that i don't want to fix it--it's that I have no fuckin' idea what the hell it's supposed to be about. TheoryOfPractice (talk) 03:10, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Trent has been big on this recently, why not ask him? 03:12, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I think, from what it appears I can understand, that it is supposed to be about people who dismiss skeptics as "pseudoskeptics" just because the skeptics won't "open their mind" to woo.The Goonie 1 (talk) 03:17, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Pseudoskepticism shouldn't have a letitamete use
It should follow the tone that the word "Pseudoscience" leads by making an easy lable to crackpot scientists, in this case crackpot head-in-sand. An ideal origin for the idea might be with Socratest attesting that he has to be a "stingfly" which propels the lazy ass into thinking.

"It is, however, sometimes used in its apparent meaning"
This is where I lose this thing--WHAT apparent meaning, as opposed to what is discussed in the 1st pgph? TheoryOfPractice (talk) 03:18, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Exactly what I am having trouble wrapping my head around. How/when is it used in "its apparent meaning" and could examples be provided as to when it is used correctly, as opposed to when it's abused?The Goonie 1 (talk) 03:20, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps a better definition?
"Pseudoskepticism is a loaded term used by promoters of woo to in order to dismiss skeptical criticism as unfounded" or something like that, and work our way from there, one step at a time?The Goonie 1 (talk) 03:24, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I like your sentence. 07:59, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Glad to be of help.The Goonie 1 (talk) 13:08, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * While looking for more on this term I came across the WP talk page. Looks like a tricky one to define.--BobNot Jim 17:15, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Skeptical/sceptical.
Goonie--it's not a typo. TheoryOfPractice (talk) 17:09, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I see. It appears we have yet another American vs. British English dialectical conflict.  My mistake, but perhaps we should find a way to spell it and use that way consistantly throughout the article (which way, I don't care.)The Goonie 1 (talk) 17:41, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I was using English without thinking - but I'm happy to go with US.--BobNot Jim 17:43, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Sounds good. In my defence, using different dialects in the same article is defenseless because it just doesn't look right (as my example shows).  I was only changing it in the interests of whitewashing.The Goonie 1 (talk) 21:24, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Serious?
Are you guys serious on this section, because if you are I could use mabye at WS. Because it's an unfunny caricature, or actually it's a caricature that would only be funny to the other side, and I'm not sure how serious you guys are about it. Tarantallegra (talk) 21:47, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Dunno who wrote it but it reads like sense to me. 21:52, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Excellent. Tarantallegra (talk) 23:46, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Quotes
You should put in some quotes to jazz this up. You've got to have some good ones. Tarantallegra (talk) 07:50, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Rational wiki = Pseudoscience - some dumb BON
The following was added by a BON who deleted the rest of the talk page:

I love how the term pseudo distorisonan skeptical, his article is a complete string of opinions. Where is the relationship with Marcello Truzzi? Truzzi Was a charlatan? No, but you say Woo developers use it. Whether their articles and in itself is of lower quality than those of Wikipedia, this article get a ten on all matters relating to lies and justification. Best of all is its pseudo debate, to see who has the right, in a few words say nothing, are simply "arguments" in circles. Are complete pseudo scientists.
 * WTF? Even made into a proper post, this doesn't make any sense at all. 21:20, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Skepticism and agnosticism (extreme agnosticism?)
My issue is "What is extreme agnosticism?" and I see 'extreme' here as a way to denote that said position is so agnostic, it reaches the edge, the extreme, if you will, of how agnostic it can be.

In this section we talk about extreme agnosticism and how it is basically the same as being highly sceptical due to extreme agnosticism arising from acknowledging the sheer improbability of some dubious unproven stuff.

I personally have a problem with this, because personally I've always felt that either the term agnosticism describes something that is just orthogonal to the whole theistic probability scale, or if it indeed be on that scale, an extreme version of it would be smack in the 50/50 middle.

Then there's also the separate, but somewhat related issue that our Agnosticism article classifies strong agnosticism as the version of agnosticism that comes with a clarifying statement that there will never be any evidence. If we take 'strong' to mean 'more agnostic', then what does that make extreme agnosticism?

Well, in short I am just really confused by the usage of the term 'extreme agnosticism' in the section and I'd appreciate any thoughts as to why I shouldn't be confused or, alternatively, what should be done to the section to clear up the confusion. Nullahnung (talk) 14:25, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

The _Collegiate Times_ citation
The citation is «Collegiate Times - Einstein’s “Greatest Blunder” Proved Correct» which links to http://www.phys.vt.edu/talks/wyp2005/news/WYP20050330-ct.html.

Is there no better citation? There's at least this one mistake (which is actually pretty funny):

"The Big Bang theory helped scientists determine the age of the universe, which is estimated to be 13.7 years old, plus or minus 0.2 billion years."

Additionally, the article is just not well written. (And in Chrome on an iPhone (I haven't checked other devices, OSes, or browsers) the quotation marks in it appear as black-hexagon-with-a-question-mark-inside - i.e. improperly encoded characters...) These little nits diminish the citation's credibility, rightly or wrongly.

I stumbled across this site and thought I'd put my pedantry to work, but I will in all likelihood forget to check back here for responses. Thanks for your time. 70.214.10.148 (talk) 15:25, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm inclined to nix that citation, as it's probably unnecessary and probably bad. FuzzyCatPotato™ (talk/stalk) 16:09, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Pseudoskepticism and misogyny
I've had to put up with a lot of misogynists claiming to be "skeptical of feminism" in my time on the internet. Would addressing this be considered a legitimate use of the term "pseudoskepticism", since the misogynists in question often deny certain issues pertaining to women exist, regardless of the amount of evidence supporting the existence of them? TheMyon (talk) 18:54, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
 * There is a kind of simple, individual test for whether something is skepticism versus pseudo-skepticism: "What would it take for you to decide that you're wrong?"
 * For homeopathy, that could be something like "A single large-scale, double-blind, placebo-controlled study where a homeopathic product matches or exceeds the standard-of-care treatment on primary outcome measures for an actual medical condition", for BigFoot, that could be "A living or dead specimen whose DNA could be sequenced or skeleton examined"
 * For pseudoskeptics, they often have nothing at all they'll accept, or standards that far exceed the general standards of the fields they're discussing. I know that doesn't tell you anything about the general case of antifeminists, but I'm pretty sure it tells you plenty of about tons of specific ones.  ikanreed You probably didn't deserve that 19:15, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Marcello Truzzi's use of the term Pseudoskepticism
Given that Marcello Truzzi was a major promoter of the term pseudoskepticism for those who described themselves in skeptics but which he felt failed to properly apply the precepts of true skepticism, I felt something on his definition of the term was needed in the article. His definition goes beyond just climate change deniers or holocaust deniers to include people who at least on the surface exhibit some aspects of true skepticism but to satisfy enough to pass as true skeptics, at least on certain issues. A true skeptic as he saw them, is able to say "We don't know" or "it's unknown/unproven/undetermined", not just true or false. When evidence is presented that supports the true or false position then a true skeptic can take one side or the other. 22:25, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

This article could use some updating.
In its current state, the focus seems to be more around misuse of the term than what it actually describes when used properly. This may have reflected the general state of things back in the first half of the 10s, but with the rise of actual pseudoskeptical communities it could do with a re-examination and filling out. As it stands, there's no article on this site that really addresses the phenomenon of the 'skeptic' who asserts nazi talking points under the guise of "I'm just being rational" other than in the articles of specific individuals. At least not from what I can find, anyway.--50.229.69.147 (talk) 01:33, 3 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I think that Marcello Truzzi section covers things quite well. Whether something is an example of correctly used skeptical thinking is dependent om whether or not it follows critical thinking methodologies or not.  It's not a question of whether or not we agree with all the political stances a person might hold.
 * Having said that, a few more specific examples of what you are thinking of might help.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 13:48, 3 July 2021 (UTC)