Café Scientifique – Nottingham

June 13 2011

L J Hurst - Speaker’s Notes

My interest in Pseudo-science and the criticism of it. A short history as an introduction

What sort of pseudo-science did I examine in 1984? Examples.

· Scientology

· Flat earthers

· Strange machines

· UFO believers

What sort of pseudo-science had shown up by 1997? Examples.

· Satanic child abuse

What do we see now? Examples.

· Psychic Sally on TV

· Most Haunted

· Vampire and zombie series

· Failure of the Rapture

· Phony bomb detectors

What’s in the news this week?

· Super plastic Starlite

· Criminals claiming human rights in Bilborough

How has the criticism of pseudo-science developed?

· Books

· Magazines

· Organisations

o CSCICOP, now CSI

o Skeptics Society

· Blogs

· Criticism of religion, even while it is incorporated further into education and medicine (Dawkins, Hitchins, Harris etc)

Pseudo-science developing parallel?

· Blogs

· Conservapedia

· Targeted advertising

· Organisations

· Replies and refutations to Dawkins et al

· Mis-use of Forteana

Should we distinguish between scientific illiteracy and belief in pseudo-science?

· Near-collapse of cleanliness in hospital leading to MRSA outbreaks

· Climate change. “Aggravated human global warming”

· Medical targets

· Death panels interpretation of Quality Adjusted Life Years

Are some givens recent and no more than fashion?

· Concept of herd immunity

· Immunisation versus hygiene

· Compare with mass slaughter in Foot and Mouth epidemic

What are the failings of the Critics?

· Hoist with the petard of contingency (revelations supersede explanation, e.g. changing Roswelll story)

· Ignoring contrary cases

· Critics’ late conversions make for relentlessness?

· Leading figures would be social leaders anyway

· Re-inforcement of existing order, disappearance of independent study

· Failure to admit social origins of problems

“Guardian: Bad Science” vs “Private Eye: MD”

Additional Questions

Why – when information can be sought so easily – is it difficult to transmit? Examples Wikipedia Reference Desk, Straightdope.Com, newsgroups such as alt.usage.english

· Asking the right question

· Understanding the intention of a question

· Making (or not making) an appropriate answer

Emphasis on the correct word and meaning, even in poetry

· Role in Applied Scholastics “Study Tech”

o Misunderstood Words

o Lack of “mass” – physical presence of a word

o Too steep a gradiant

· Contrary case- the CoBuild discovery that nouns are increasingly used metaphorically

RIDGEON So that’s why they made me a knight! And that’s the medical profession!
SIR PATRICK. And a very good profession, too, my lad. When you know as much as I know of the ignorance and superstition of the patients, you’ll wonder that we're half as good as we are.
RIDGEON. We're not a profession: we're a conspiracy.
SIR PATRICK. All professions are conspiracies against the laity.   And we can’t all be geniuses like you. Every fool can get ill; but every fool can’t be a good doctor: there are not enough good ones to go round. And for all you know, Bloomfield Bonington kills less people than you do.
RIDGEON. Oh, very likely.

Shaw, George Bernard The Doctor's Dilemma

Afterword June 18 2011

Not every point above was covered in the talk. Some points expanded considerably.

http://www.meetup.com/nottingham-book-group/events/17188983/