For the first two years that Skeptics spoke at Dragon*Con, there was a panel known as the "Skeptics vs. Believers Smackdown," which featured prominent skeptics and non-skeptics in a debate about the paranormal. I noticed that in both years, the believers were quick to apply the label "skeptic" to themselves, while calling the skeptics "cynics" instead.

And then an interesting thing happened. In year three of the debate, it was canceled due to the lack of people willing to sit on the believers' side. There were no lack of skeptics, in fact as many as ten volunteered, but there was only one person who would sit on the believers side. Why is this?

Last weekend, Alison Smith and I sat on a debate panel for the radio show The Paranormal View. This show discusses the paranormal like many shows of its kind, but they also have the occasional show where skeptics are invited to debate believers. This time... they showed up.

But rather than a debate, the two hour radio show (available for download here) turned into two hours of the skeptics and believers agreeing that most of what's on TV regarding the paranormal is at odds with reality, and that many of the phenomena observed have mundane explanations.

And this causes me to question: where are the believers? Where are the folks who are ready to put their evidence up for evaluation and discussion? I've never seen a self-identified skeptic back down from a discussion, but it seems the believers are wary of examination, and those that are brave enough to meet us quickly join our side. They may not agree with us entirely, but they will claim to use science to come to their conclusions. Thus when the skeptics cry for evidence and critical thought, the believers agree that these are necessary.

Why then do they believe in things such as ghosts, EVPs, and orbs?

I believe that in many cases, they have seen something unexplained. When you add that in with the strong desire to believe in the supernatural, the conclusion is reached before the proper evidence is collected.  And therein lies the major difference between "us" and "them."

I like to look at the difference between belief and skepticism as a continuum. Everyone is a skeptic to some degree, but believers have a lower threshold of evidence before they believe in any given thing. Skeptics tend to want incontrovertible evidence before committing to belief. But there is another possibility.

If I saw an 8-foot tall, smelly hominid in the forest, I might believe in bigfoot. If I told skeptics this story, they might accuse me of mistaken identity, delusion, or outright fabrication. But for me, I'd know bigfoot was real because I'd seen it. And the fact of the matter is, I just may have seen a real bigfoot, even if I couldn't demonstrate incontrovertible proof of it. Perhaps the same is true of those who believe in ghosts and can't provide enough evidence. I don't think this is the parsimonious explanation, but I have to hold out that it's possible.

I don't think there's that much distance between honest ghost hunters and skeptics. I think both are searching for the truth; it's just that one side has a reason—justifiable or not—for belief, and the other does not. When you add in a desire to believe on behalf of the believers, the picture is clear.

My conclusion is that it might be best for skeptics to embrace believers as fellow seekers of the truth, and rather than castigate them for poor science or premature credulity. We should exchange ideas on how best to explain phenomena, whatever it may be. If any of these things are real, we all want to know about it. And of course I lean to the side of incontrovertible evidence, I'm just suggesting that a softer approach might be more productive.

And for those that foster belief for private gain through trickery, deception, and outright lying, the ire of both sides is deserved. Give a "believer" a chance, you'll see they're at least as angry about that behavior as we are.

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (22)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

...
written by ConTester, October 05, 2009

One of the essential difficulties in believers vs. sceptics confrontations is that each side has significantly different conceptions of what constitutes “evidence.” Thus, they will agree that evidence is indispensable but not on what counts as proof and what doesn’t. The believers tend to accept anything that appears to give support to their views, regardless how flimsy, tangential or ephemeral it might be, whereas the sceptic demands evidence up to a minimum scientific standard: repeatable, demonstrable and objectively assessable.

report abuse

vote down

vote up

Votes: +21

...
written by emactan, October 05, 2009

Yes I do agree that personal experience is powerful. It can be quite persuasive. Even the religious hold them up as evidence. As for embracing believers as fellow truth seekers, there may be a chasm--those who accept scientific ways of finding out what's real and what's plausible/probable and those who put an inordinate value on anecdotal evidence and who don't take probabilities into account.

In my own dealings with believers I've noticed that there is a rather poor awareness of which methods of knowing are productive and reliable. And so I have to a lot of time in my discussions trying to pass on what I myself had to learn--clear and critical thinking. It's not that these people are anti-science. Rather it's that they know science only as a collection of discoveries--merely the end results of a process. Revealing the innards of this process of thinking and analyzing and showing people how useful and rewarding it is in our everyday lives is I think the way to make believers develop the skeptical attitude.

report abuse

vote down

vote up

Votes: +8

JREF is having an effect.
written by Michael K Gray, October 05, 2009

The woo-meisters may well be 'backing off', as they can clearly see the rise of those willing to *robustly* counter, (if not entirely demolish), their pathetic superstitions with demonstrable, scientifically repeatable FACTS.

I like to see this as a result of the JREF actually having an impact, and being successful in the "E" part of the acronym: Education!

report abuse

vote down

vote up

Votes: +5

...
written by Squid, October 06, 2009

I was at D*Con this year, and wanted to attend SvsB. I heard it was a great show the past two years and was sad I had missed it. I'm glad I didn't miss anything, but still feel sad that it didn't occur.

I've been on both sides of the argument, (I was a believer for most of my early life, but now I'm a skeptic) but I feel that there's something more than just a threshold of evidence. I think that there is a biological component to belief. I don't have any solid evidence, but it seems to me that if a brain can be so dysfunctional that it tricks someone into seeing things, (visual and audible delusions) than it could also make someone believe in them, even without any concrete evidence.

Squid

report abuse

vote down

vote up

Votes: +3

Maybe Dave Is Available
written by TDjazz, October 06, 2009

Why not invite Dave Mabus to the next Dragon*Con to debate on the side of the believers? It should be entertaining and unsettling at the same time.

report abuse

vote down

vote up

Votes: +1

...
written by garyg, October 06, 2009

>Maybe Dave Is Available
>written by TDjazz, October 06, 2009
>Why not invite Dave Mabus to the next Dragon*Con to debate on the side of the believers? It should be entertaining and unsettling at the same time.

Or the Syfy ("Ghosthunters") Channel?

report abuse

vote down

vote up

Votes: +0

...
written by Karl_Withakay, October 06, 2009

My conclusion is that it might be best for skeptics to embrace believers as fellow seekers of the truth, and rather than castigate them for poor science or premature credulity. We should exchange ideas on how best to explain phenomena, whatever it may be. If any of these things are real, we all want to know about it. And of course I lean to the side of incontrovertible evidence, I'm just suggesting that a softer approach might be more productive.

But all too often, the believers are not seekers of the truth. They are seekers of evidence and confirmation for an already established belief. They will ignore all evidence and explanations to the contrary. They stack the deck in their favor, cherry picking whatever supports their position and dismissing anything that does not. They are not interested in explanations other than the ones they already have, and are only interested in a one directional conversation about those explanations.

When dealing with true believers who are not thinking critically, and are not interested in a legitimate investigation of the issue/ phenomenon, the "softer" approach frequently gets you nowhere, and could often be thought of as accommodation.

Indeed the soft approach can often lead to a manufactoversy and lend credibility to the perception that there is legitimate debate on issues where there often isn't one. (Vaccines and autism, holocaust denial, homeopathy, etc)

report abuse

vote down

vote up

Votes: +16

Faith means always having to say you're sorry...
written by CasaRojo, October 06, 2009

True believers are going to believe in whatever they truly believe in until they don't. duh... Perhaps many will never get to the point that their beliefs don't make sense to them but maybe they'll get to a point where they'll STFU about it because they'll realize that they have no *real* proof. I've had difficult to explain experiences but most, if not all, have been explained (through education, through my wanting the truth)to my satisfaction. The truth *is* out there for many hard to explain phenomena. You simply need to want/need the truth and for many truth seekers it is a process. And as long as the faithful are apologizing to me for having to have faith, I'll forgive them.

report abuse

vote down

vote up

Votes: +0

Woo Believers
written by Wurmwyd, October 06, 2009

Hi there!

I know that when I believed in Woo, I actually admired the efforts of Randi and other skeptics, because I used to believe that they were getting rid of all the fakes, frauds and phonies so that all of the REAL psychics could run their honest businesses. I believed that Woo was REAL, but that there was a lot of fakery out there. A lot of true believers are probably the same way. They believe that the truth is out there, and if the skeptics would just come out with them on an actual investigation, they'd be just as convinced! Even on Ghost Hunters, they claim to "de-bunk" certain things, so that they can get to the "actual ghosts". I think a lot of woo believers think of themselves as skeptics, just because they skew a hundred times more skeptical than Shirley McClaine or Madonna. They assume that it's those OTHER woo believers that are crazy.

report abuse

vote down

vote up

Votes: +6

"Believer"
written by jkeenan, October 06, 2009

I am what one would call a "believer" and am usually happy to discuss that. As a potential panel participant, the question that I would have, most naturally, would be "is anyone listening?" And, by listening, I don't mean necessarily agreeing.

The wise are those who speak not unless they obtain a hearing. Potential participants on the "believer" side of the panel might have assumed, correctly or incorrectly, that they would not actually get a hearing.

report abuse

vote down

vote up

Votes: +1

...
written by wallacej14, October 06, 2009

Jeff -

I don't know if you saw my comments on your earlier article on faith. Thanks for relenting a bit on the "bunker mentality" that I see so often on this site. The articles and, particularly, the fora, are often mostly self-congratulatory ("Isn't it great how much smarter we are than almost everyone else?"); there seems to be litte interest in actual debate between people with truly different ideas. (Note: I'm not for a moment suggesting that all ideas are equally vaild). At any rate, this is a very encouraging post for someone used to being loudly derided on this site.

report abuse

vote down

vote up

Votes: +5

To understand believers' reactions
written by TF, October 06, 2009

...one could take a look at this funny debate which was on German television in 2007. It features German scientist Joachim Bublath, para"psychologist" Walter von Lucadou and Nina Hagen, who strongly believes in Aliens.
It is indeed interesting how she resists any arguments and forces Mr. Bublath to leave.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOXcKcSQD9w

Sorry folks, it's German :-)

report abuse

vote down

vote up

Votes: +1

Turin Believers.
written by Karl_Withakay, October 06, 2009

Steven Novella has a nice post today regarding the Shroud of Turin and how many people insist in believing in its authenticity despite all the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. There's really no honest debate or quest for truth there, just the facts vs ideological belief.

http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=1041

report abuse

vote down

vote up

Votes: +3

...
written by Alan3354, October 06, 2009

Wasn't Obama's birth certificate wrapped in the shroud of Turin?

It's curious what people believe with no evidence at all, and what they believe despite voluminous evidence to the contrary.

report abuse

vote down

vote up

Votes: +1

@Jeff
written by CasaRojo, October 06, 2009

I just listened to the radio show you referenced and I see what prompted your article. It was one of the better/encouraging one of these types of "paranormal" shows that I've heard. Everyone was so reasonable. These are not typically the people that I end up in a debate with. Then again, I'm a psycho magnet so.... You and Alison did great and you two make me proud to be associated with the JREF. Paddle on my friends. :-)

report abuse

vote down

vote up

Votes: +0

...
written by rjh02, October 06, 2009

Anyone who does a bit of research on the Internet will find the facts. Now all what is left of the believers are people who are deluded, people who do not do the proper research and the frauds. They all make poor debaters.

Slowly the followers will slowly cease to exist. However this will take generations. If you want examples look at history. People used to believe in blood letting, being left handed was wrong and witches. Not to mention many other things. Now those are no longer beliefs held by many educated people.

report abuse

vote down

vote up

Votes: +0

Yeah, but...
written by tctheunbeliever, October 06, 2009

It's not the educated people I'm afraid of. Why debate when you can just shout down your opponent?

Not disagreeing, just being a cynical atheist type.

report abuse

vote down

vote up

Votes: +0

...
written by rjh02, October 06, 2009

There are ways and means to deal with people who shout you down. Makes them look like **** (which they are).

report abuse

vote down

vote up

Votes: +0

...
written by Otara, October 06, 2009

Unfortunately not everyone can be a university graduate or the like, and researching on the net is in my view actually quite difficult unless you know how to evaluate research quite well - for every good debunking site there can be 5 woo sites which can look quite authoritative to the average person. In my view what we're seeing is more and more factionalisation of views, with people staying in 'their' part of the internet and a similar thing is playing out with debates and the like.

report abuse

vote down

vote up

Votes: +5

...
written by Squid, October 07, 2009

Regarding the "Ghosthunters"... actually, they were panel participants about two years ago, according to what I've heard. It was a lively debate.

report abuse

vote down

vote up

Votes: +0

...
written by Zoroaster, October 11, 2009

A continuum is a good way to describe the situation and I'm a little turned off by the overuse of the term "woo" to put down and trivialize the paranormal believers. Without years of education that I don't care to obtain at this time, my belief in quarks and gamma rays and germs and the Copernican solar system amount to little more than faith that somebody else has done the math and figured it all out. A few less years of education and it would be pretty easy for someone to convince me that they were doing science when they weren't.

report abuse

vote down

vote up

Votes: +2

newshopstyle
written by newshopstyle, November 02, 2009

This versatile styling tool has an ergonomic design and curved edge plates to create any style from straight to curly and everything in between. With a flash heating element and fixed temperature setting, the power to create the style of your dreams is your hands.
GHD
GHD IV Styler

report abuse

vote down

vote up

Votes: +0