Don't Be A Dick (a talk by Phil Plait)

[Nelson]

For those who aren't familiar with Phil Plait, he is a former active physicist/astronomer and currently a skeptic blogger who runs a blog called Bad Astronomy. He recently gave a talk at TAM, which is on Vimeo here (I couldn't find a youtube link, so I can't embed):

http://vimeo.com/13704095

The gist of the talk is (my paraphrasing):

As skeptics, our goal should be to convince others that active skepticism is the correct way to think about reality. In order to do this, we need to take extra care not to alienate those we hope to convince by being unnecessarily aggressive or insulting.

I'm just curious how others feel about this. Any and all thoughts are welcome. I would strongly suggest watching the actual video, as I don't think my two sentence summary is sufficient to convey Phil's position. Overall I quite agree with his argument. However, he does seem to make an argument at the end that suggests some form of accommodationism, on which I would have to disagree. It's possible that I misunderstood the point he was trying to make here, since he only had a minute or two on that subject. So, thoughts?

 

[monitoradiation]

Basically Plait's angle is that if you do is sneakily and try to befriend the person, it'll work better.

While I agree partly with not making enemies for no reason, I think there is room for a wide range of methods. I don't particularly rule out hostility or tomfoolery or sarcasm if the situation calls for it.

 

[Gunboat Diplomat]

I'm not sure what to think of this...

I don't think Phil made any suggestion that you should "accommodate" believers, if I understand that term. The only message I heard was that you shouldn't ever resort to vitriol.

Now, considering this is my take on what was said, you might be wondering what I'm unsure about! I certainly agree that you shouldn't be unnecessarily insulting but I also think that a certain kind of belligerence is, in many situations, more effective than Phil implies.

I agree with the sentiment that no one changes their mind on the spot, regardless of the strength of the rebuttal. This isn't literally true but, to my knowledge, it is universally true for certain kinds of belief. For instance, while I may be willing to change my mind about what time a movie will be playing, my deconversion from Christianity was a very slow process. I'm not entirely sure what the difference between these beliefs (and many others) are and I'm curious to know what others think... However, a barbed response to something that was inappropriately arrogant or insulting can have a lasting effect on someone. They didn't show the number of hands that went up when Phil asked how many people changed their minds after being insulted but I suspect that, while it was low, it wasn't zero...

More importantly, I think strongly worded arguments are more effective at turning non-participants than mild ones. If someone whose argument I sympathize with is merely shown to be in error, I may be inclined to think that his general argument is still valid even though some point was not quite right. If you show someone to be an incoherent idiot, I will want to disassociate myself from them. This is what happened to DonExodus2...

Finally, there are sadly many debates where you have nothing to lose in terms of your opponent's opinion of you. You can be the most courteous and dispassionate person in the world and, for philosophical reasons, your opponent still thinks you're the scum of the Earth, sent by Satan himself (often literally!). Their opinion of you can't get any lower. In these situations, it really doesn't matter what you say and your only hope is to accomplish something with the audience like previously described...

Having said all that, I still agree with most of what Phil was saying. I think it's complicated and situational. I'm really not sure what to think...