Pseudoskepticism, which typically is portraying someone's work as despicable with scientifically unsound polemics, is a modern day threat to the traditional standard
          of discussion in science and popular science. This essay gives seven tell-tale signs by which pseudoskepticism can be recognized

Cabbolet, Marcoen J. T. F.

English

Pseudoskepticism, which typically is portraying someone's work as despicable with scientifically unsound polemics, is a modern day threat to the traditional standard of discussion in science and popular science. This opinion piece gives seven tell-tale signs by which pseudoskepticism can be recognized

PhilPapers

Tell-Tale Signs of Pseudoskepticism (Bogus Skepticism)Marcoen J.T.F. Cabbolet∗Department of Philosophy, Vrije Universiteit BrusselPleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels (Belgium)Abstract — Pseudoskepticism, which typically is portraying someone’s work as despica-ble with scientifically unsound polemics, is a modern day threat to the traditional standardof discussion in science and popular science. This essay gives seven tell-tale signs by whichpseudoskepticism can be recognized.In Ancient Greece, skepticism was an elaborate system of teachings, which, among other things, gavean interesting guideline to a happy life. Oversimplifying things, this boiled down to the following:most people are unhappy because the things they experience do not meet the expectations they hadon the basis of some belief, so we can avoid disappointment by not believing in anything—and thereinlies happiness. This aspect of ‘not believing’ is still present in modern-days scientific skepticism. Theidea is that when researcher A publishes a claim, a skeptical researcher B replies that he doesn’tbelieve in it for this and this reason: by exposing a weak spot in A’s proof of the claim, A now has aproblem. It may be that A can solve the problem, which makes the proof stronger, but it may alsobe that A has to retract the claim: this is the usual course of affairs in science, this is how scienceprogresses–skepticism thus plays a crucial role in it.Pseudoskepticism, on the other hand, is something completely different: the term has been intro-duced by Truzzi for making negative claims about someone else’s work without satisfying the burdenof proof that these claims require (1987). So where the skeptic merely states that he doesn’t believein someone else’s claims, the pseudoskeptic comes himself up with claims and these are always (very)negative. But pseudoskepticism is not just making negative claims: the keywords are ‘dishonesty’and ‘foul play’.1 And it is not aimed at finding out the truth, but at discrediting someone’s research.A feeling for the term is best acquired by an illustrative example. For that matter, we can have alook at peer review, which plays a central role in modern science: it serves as the filter both for thepublication of research papers in scientific journals and for the allocation of research grants. Peerreview is supposed to be an objective assessment of the scientific quality, but unfortunately, that isnot always the case: with the advent of peer review a new form of charlatanry has namely silentlycrept into science, and that is passing off fabricated negative conclusions about someone else’s work asthe genuine findings of a serious evaluation of the scientific quality of the work—e.g. stating that themathematical formulas in the work are syntactically wrong, while this is not at all the case. That is anexample of pseudoskepticism at its worst: a modern day violation of the commandment ”Thou shaltnot bear false witness against thy neighbor”. But unfortunately, it happens that this way scientificfindings that are not in line with the prevailing paradigm are kept out of important scientific journals.Pseudoskepticism in peer review reports rarely surfaces in the public domain because these reportsare confidential, but it is not something that rarely occurs, nor is it limited to any particular branchof science: its occurrence in physics, mathematics, philosophy is so widespread that probably everyworking researcher has encountered it at least once in his or her career. Indications that it already inthe 1950’s occurred on a large scale can be found in the literature, e.g. (Schweber, 1989). In addition,pseudoskepticism isn’t confined to confidential peer review reports: it also occurs in opinion piecesin newspapers and university weeklies as well as in articles in popular science journals—in particularwhen from the hand of professional scientists with a university affiliation, or even a Nobel laureate,∗E-mail: Marcoen.Cabbolet@vub.ac.be1it can severely discredit someone’s work because readers generally trust authorities and will thereforebelieve the allegations to be true.Now one can be complacent with the situation that modern science finds itself in, but pseudoskep-ticism poses a major structural problem and the issue has to be addressed. In (Cabbolet, 2014)preventive measures have been suggested, including the proposal to start treating pseudoskepticismas scientific misconduct. In addition to that, the purpose of this essay is to give the tell-tale signs ofpseudoskepticism. This might help editors to recognize it in peer review reports or articles submittedfor publication, thus giving a reason for rejection (one can easily say to a referee: look, that reviewreport of yours doesn’t satisfy our standards, write a decent one). For the members of the generalpublic this might help to distinguish pseudoskepticism from genuine scientific skepticism.Below seven tell-tale signs of pseudoskepticism are given.2 The crux is that in science, it is notthe case that “anything goes” when commenting on someone else’s work: these tell-tale signs indicatethat an author uses tactics that are inadmissible in science. That doesn’t mean that each of themis always present in a pseudoskeptical attack, but any single one of these tell-tale signs is a seriousindication of dishonesty and foul play—in other words, that the piece is not written with truth findingin mind, but merely to discredit someone’s work!#1: ad hominem attacks.Typically, a pseudoskeptic is so eager to portray the author of the targeted work as an amateur thathe resorts to ad hominem attacks: this is a rhetorical technique that is absolutely inadmissible in ascientific discourse, and therefore this is the number one tell-tale sign that a piece is nothing but apseudoskeptical attack.3It is thus a real giveaway when the author of the targeted work is called “incompetent”, an“amateur”, a “charlatan”, a “crackpot”, “ignorant”, “only out to brag about it in a pub”, etc. So,the occurrence of any of these words alone is already an indication that the entire piece is of doubtfulmerit.Of course it can happen that someone, say, researcher A, has misunderstood a result, and one canthen write in a reply that obviously the result was misunderstood by A to mean X, while in reality itmeans Y. But that is a very specific reply, well within the framework of a scientific discussion, thataddresses the argument of A: pseudoskepticism, on the other hand, typically concerns lashing out atthe author instead of addressing the argument.#2: vitriolic tone.Typically, a pseudoskeptical attack portrays the targeted work as despicable: usually this is done byriddling the text with belittling phrases and strong pejoratives. Consequently, the piece has a vitriolicor even libelous tone that is immediately evident even from a quick superficial reading: that tone isthe tell-tale sign of pseudoskepticism.The archetypical belittling phrase is “every first-year student could have come up with the samething”. Illustrative examples of strong pejoratives are “nonsense”, “perverse”, “a disgrace”, “worth-less”, “meaningless”, “inferior”, “devoid of content”, “complete rubbish”, and the like, which are thentypically said about the targeted work as a whole.Of course, there are also pejoratives that are used in a scientific discourse, such as ‘logicallyinconsistent’, ‘mathematically at fault’, ‘conceptually incoherent’, but these have a precise meaningand must be proven when used. The belittling phrases and pejoratives used by pseudoskeptics, on theother hand, have no scientific meaning whatsoever and are not admissible in a scientific paper: theymerely express an author’s dislike of the targeted work. However, as Feynman put it: when we havea new theory then it is not relevant whether we like it or not, the only relevant question is whetherit is consistent with experimental data (Feynman, 2011, 16-3).#3: non-specific comments.In science, when commenting on someone else’s work, one very specifically addresses the details ofthe work in question. A pseudoskeptic, however, typically doesn’t go through the hard work of reallyunderstanding the targeted work. This feature manifests itself in superficiality of the comments. It is2therefore a tell-tale sign of pseudoskepticism when a piece concerns nothing but negative allegationsat the metalevel, that is, negative allegations about the targeted work as a whole, without going intothe details of the targeted work.More often than not, these allegations also apply to established scientific theories, which immedi-ately shows that the negative statements are not an argument against the targeted work. A typicalexample is to state that the targeted work is nothing but a bunch of formulas, as if that is somehowa bad thing: the same can be said of virtually all established theories, which shows that it isn’t a realargument.#4: absence of proof.Another typical feature of pseudoskeptics is that they have no shame: one of the most shameless waysto attack someone else’s work is to put forward outright fabrications, which, if true, would imply grossincompetence of the author of the targeted work. But fabrications cannot be proven by their verynature. Consequently, absence of proof of the (usually grave) allegations in a piece is a sure tell-talesign of pseudoskepticism at its worst, and a strong indication that the piece may contain fabricatedallegations.An illustrative example is an absence of proof of the one statement that is probably the most abusedphrase of all in modern science: “this work is of insufficient scientific quality”. In a pseudoskepticalattack, this is typically said of the targeted work without specifying which criteria of scientific qualityare not met, and why or how they are not met—there are peer review reports that consist of just thisone phrase.#5: false metaphors.In science, comments on someone else’s work remain confined to that work: one doesn’t indulgeoneself in metaphors. In a pseudoskeptical attack, however, often the targeted work is compared to atheory that is known to be false or that is obviously ridiculous, as if it is the same thing. Illustrativeexamples are phrases like “this is the same as saying that the earth is flat”, or “this is the same assaying that the phenomenon is caused by angels”: these are tell-tale signs of a pseudoskeptical attack.There are more sophisticated cases, but the point is that this use of metaphors is a rhetoricaltechnique that is absolutely inadmissible in a scientific discourse. The error is the same in all thesecases: contrary to what is stated by the pseudoskeptic, it is not at all the same thing.#6: contradiction with history and basic principles of science.When attacking a new theory that has not yet been experimentally tested, a pseudoskeptical pieceoften blatantly contradicts well-known facts from the history of science, as well as basic scientificprinciples. The three archetypical examples that turn up time and time again are (i) stating thatscientific discoveries are nowadays only made by large international collaborations, to insinuate thatthe work of a single author cannot be a scientific discovery; (ii) stating that scientific theories are alwaysdeveloped from experimental facts, to insinuate that anything else cannot ever be a scientific theory;and (iii) using an accepted model (other than Einstein’s Special Relativity) beyond its established areaof application as a criterion of truth, to insinuate that a work that contradicts that model cannot bea scientific theory.4The arguments (i) and (ii) completely ignore that virtually all of modern science is built on thework of individuals, who more often than not theoretically predicted phenomena before these wereexperimentally observed (Einstein: time dilation and curvature of space; Dirac: antimatter), and whooften did their groundbreaking work in relative isolation (Einstein, Bohr). The argument (iii) ignoresthe fact that historical breakthroughs in science often went squarely against the accepted model of thetime, and contradicts a basic principle of science, put into words by Feynman as follows: “experimentis the sole judge of scientific truth” (Feynman, 2011, 1-1).#7: straight to the mass media.It is a bad sign when a scientific claim is taken straight to the mass media (e.g. the cold nuclearfusion case), but it is an equally bad sign when an attack on someone else’s work is taken straight to3the mass media. When writing a scientific critical comment on a work, the right method is to firstcontact its author and discuss the criticism with him/her. When submitting the critical comment forpublication in a scientific journal, one is often required to present evidence of such a prior contactwith the author of the targeted work.But not so the pseudoskeptic. Typically, he doesn’t contact the author of the targeted work,nor does he attempt to publish his “findings” in a peer reviewed journal: he takes his allegationsstraight to the mass media. So an editor of a newspaper or university weekly who sees that an at-tack on someone’s work is submitted for publication, can—especially when the piece contains graveaccusations—simply ask for evidence of contact with the author of the targeted work: any failure toprovide such evidence is then a tell-tale sign that the piece is nothing but a pseudoskeptical attack,and an indication that it may contain fabrications.In addition, but that is not an immediate tell-tale sign, pseudoskeptics never publish a retraction.Usually in science, if researcher A publishes a claim and researcher B refutes the proof, then A pub-lishes a retraction of the claim. But not so the pseudoskeptic. Even when confronted with conclusiveproof that his allegations are false, he will refuse to publish a retraction or to publicly acknowledgethat the claims were fabricated: the typical pseudoskeptic will stick to his fabrications as if not aword has been said—as in the Biblical proverbs, like a dog back to his own vomit, or like a washedsow back to the mud pool (2 Pet. 2:22). This surfaces only after some discussion, yet it indicates thatthe original piece was a pseudoskeptical attack.Notes1Pseudoskepticism has the same connotation as pseudoscience: both entail a drastic departure fromthe framework of a scientific discourse.2While these tell-tale signs have been derived from the controversy that arose from this author’swork on the foundations of physics, there is some overlap with the unpublished essays “Symptoms ofpathological skepticism” by W.J. Beaty (1996) and “Seven warning signs of bogus skepticism” by R.Boerner (2003), which are available on the internet. The difference is that the tell-tale signs presentedhere are general, while Beaty and Boerner mention specific examples (e.g. of ad hominem attacks).3Here ad hominem attacks are taken to include name calling.4Of course a new work is unscientific if it makes predictions that contradict the outcome of well-established experiments. E.g. we know that the gravitational force on an object above the earth’ssurface is larger than that on an identical object at identical height above the moon’s surface: if a newwork predicts otherwise, then it is false—no question about it. But there is a huge difference betweencontradicting things that are known to be the case on account of well-established experimental results,and contradicting things that are believed to be the case on account of extrapolating the validity of atheoretical model beyond its established area of application: the latter is even a necessity for a scientificrevolution. The pseudoskeptical attacks meant here confuse these two scenarios in a grotesque way:these attacks concerns variations of “dear Dr. Schroedinger, it is well known that electrons orbitnuclei as particles on continuous trajectories. Therefore, your wave mechanics is complete rubbish.”ReferencesCabbolet, M.J.T.F. 2014. Scientific misconduct: three forms that directly harm others as the modusoperandi of mill’s tyranny of the prevailing opinion. Science and Engineering Ethics 20(1), 41-54.Feynman, R. 2011. The Feynman Lectures On Physics. Vol 1. New Millennium Edition. New York:Basic Books.Schweber, S.S. 1989. Some reflections on the history of particle physics in the 1950’s. In: L.M. Brown,M. Dresden, L. Hoddeson (Eds), Pions To Quarks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 681.Truzzi, M. 1987. On pseudo-skepticism. Zetetic Scholar, 12-13, 3-4.4

Tell-Tale Signs of Pseudoskepticism (Bogus Skepticism)

https://philpapers.org/archive/CABTSO-3.pdf

Tell-Tale Signs of Pseudoskepticism (Bogus Skepticism)

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

PhilPapers