Talk:Pseudoskepticism

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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. ^{— Unsigned, by: Charles88 / talk / contribs} 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)