Athée Canadien
Skeptivism: yay or nay?
By rebekah
This afternoon Deepak Chopra stopped his woo woo train speaking tour here in Saskatoon to give a seminar on “Healing Transformation and Higher Consciousness.” [I find it really telling that the website for the event describes the afternoon in this way: "Dr. Chopra’s seminar begins at 2:30 pm. The onsite bookstore will be open at 1:30pm. Arrive early for a chance to browse Deepak’s latest titles." -- note the plug for consumerism! Ah, so much for transcendence.]
I’m not a fan of Chopra, though several of my friends are. And while I view most of his claims with rolled-eyes, I don’t see the harm in some of what he says. If reading his books makes you a better person, then more power to ya. But that said, if reading his woo woo causes you to forsake medical treatment for serious physical ailments, then we run into problems.
This afternoon several people from CFI Saskatchewan stood outside in the freezing cold to hand out flyers that questioned the legitimacy of Chopra and his claims. [there's a bit about Saskatoon's response to Chopra on the February 20th broadcast of Global Saskatoon (clip starts about 8:30 in)]
I feel kind of conflicted about this skeptivism (skeptical activism). While I agree with the content of the flyers that were passed out, and would happily discuss this issue with someone, there’s a part of me that doesn’t like the idea of standing in front of the entrance to an event, handing out this kind of material. It feels — dare I say? — evangelical. How is it any different than a bunch of Ray Comfort-esque folks handing out flyers in front of a venue where an atheist/skeptic is speaking? Do people who paid to attend such an event even take this kind of activism seriously?
This isn’t to say that I’m against vocalizing dissent, speaking out against pseudoscience, or talking one-on-one to others about where Chopra goes wrong. I’m just not a fan of this particular approach of skeptivism: blanketing ticketholders with pamphlets the day of a show.
But I’m up for being persuaded that I’m wrong.
[picture taken from this Skeptic North post on Chopra, which you all should read]
| Print article | This entry was posted by rebekah on February 21, 2011 at 12:46 am, and is filed under Skepticism. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed. |
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Comments are closed.
about 1 year ago
I was going to write you a private email on this very thing. I am extremely uncomfortable with this sort of thing. I find a lot of atheist activism and even general events to be so reminiscent of my church days that it is not even funny.
My husband and I (who is becoming even more hard core atheist than I) were talking about this the other day, and my feelings were stated thusly: “I am just not interested in convincing anyone that what they think or believe, is wrong”. Does this make me a bad, irresponsible atheist? Perhaps. Perhaps I should be more aware of the wooists and their hold on world leaders and be concerned about this. Perhaps I should fight Islam with all my strength because it’s only a matter of time until sharia law is invoked in my country.
I don’t like charlatans, human rights violators, idiots of any kind, but they have always existed and will continue to, long after I have taken my last breath. If people want to waste their money seeing Deepak Chopra (getting back to the aforementioned event) and honestly believe that their life is enhanced doing so, who am I to “challenge” them? And why would I challenge them?
When I hear of activism of this sort I think that there should be an atheist on every set of church steps every Sunday, handing out pamphlets as well.
about 1 year ago
I don’t see how this is different from pointing out a shady mechanic. You can frame it as a consumer rights issue instead of comparing it to evangelicalism.
about 1 year ago
People will not learn unless someone teaches them, if one side is getting all the attention and doing all the teaching only their message is heard.
Fight fire with fire
about 1 year ago
Perhaps the perception of handing out flyers as negative has to do with the fact that almost nobody ever hands out flyers to simply be honest while exposing the false and unverifiable and meaningless. It’s always someone who wants your money, or your vote, or your membership. Or it’s a nut case. I haven’t seen your flyers, but this doesn’t sound like any of that. You can’t seriously be comparing yourself with Ray Comfort. Content matters.
about 1 year ago
You’re right, I didn’t mean to make the analogy that, content-speaking, the CFI flyer was akin to something Comfort would produce. I fully support what was said in the flyer, I just don’t know if I’m comfortable confronting people at the door to an event. The reason why I used Comfort as an example is that he’s someone we probably wouldn’t appreciate receiving literature from on our way to hear an atheist speaker.
about 1 year ago
I’d say there is not much rational basis for trying to convince attendees to such events, however, if that is your goal you’re doing activism wrong. The point of handing out material a such an event is so you can be seen by the media doing that. Protests often equal free media coverage. And that will help you reach the people who might actually benefit.
about 1 year ago
I was intimately involved in CFI Vancouver’s first skeptivism event. The whole idea was to inoculate people who would otherwise accept everything Chopra says as gospel with a few facts, and to encourage them to think critically.
For some of the attendees, “critical thinking” was a dirty word, but for the majority we talked to, they were willing to listen and some were actually surprised to learn the level of distortion of scientific fact that Chopra employs on a regular basis.
The thing to consider is that when nobody dissents from a position, the assumption is that everyone else agrees with it. The absence of a dissenting opinion goes a long way in convincing people to go along with obviously false ideas. It’s not simply grandstanding – having someone there to disagree really does help people appraise things more critically. It’s why Fox News abhors dissenting narratives – they make people turn their brains on.
It’s important that the focus not be Chopra himself. The criticism should be on the things he says. Some of his ideas have some superficial merit, and if those help people achieve some subjective life improvement, then great, but his claims about the way the world works ought to be challenged when they contradict science.
about 1 year ago
Thanks for the explanation, Ian. I could definitely get behind this kind of skeptivism. Maybe I just misunderstood yesterday — and, it could be I’m not cut out for this branch of the atheist movement. Even though it doesn’t necessarily appeal to me doesn’t mean I won’t support others from taking part in it, though.
about 1 year ago
It’s definitely not for everyone, and anyone who says that you can’t be a “good atheist” without getting in people’s faces is just leaking excrement from their mouth.
I think we should be unafraid to use the wide variety of persuasive tools at our disposal, and skeptivism is one of those tools. Many people are uncomfortable with taking people on directly, and that’s totally normal and understandable. Even an aggressive asshole like myself blanches occasionally when engaged in face-to-face confrontation. Not everyone wants to do stuff like that.
Every time we engage in a skeptivist event, we should be critiquing it and finding out how we can do better. If people are feeling that all you’ve done is blanket attendees with fliers that get ignored, then maybe there’s something to be learned from that.
about 1 year ago
Here is a better link for the video.
http://www.globalsaskatoon.com/video/index.html?releasePID=t15YtCuSPoodH8qoGudJw03ynoXzSUce
about 1 year ago
I also think it’s important to recognize that this level of in-your-face activism is definitely not for everyone. We need accomadationalists and firebrands to spread our messages. This is definitely a firebrand-style activism, although it’s generally better (i.e. effective) to smile and talk to people than to call them idiots for attending the event.
about 1 year ago
Ugh. Can we please retire the “call them idiots” straw man? Exactly nobody has ever done that as part of a skeptivist campaign.
about 1 year ago
It you really read the flyer you would find CFI made no such claims. All the flyer did was try to get people thinking. To call this evangelical is ridiculous. No one was a firebrand and no one was told what to think. Comparing us to people that people that say “think the way we do or you go to hell” is extremely insulting. We go out of our way not to tell people what to think. This criticism is way off base.
about 1 year ago
This is a good question, and I was just hit with it recently and still don’t quite know where I sit on the issue. I went to a “We Day” – the Kielburger extravaganza. Everyone thought it was the most amazing event ever, but I thought it was a load. I considered writing a second opinion to the paper when an editorial praised it unconditionally, but I decided not to rain on their parade and instead ranted anonymously on my blog here and then spewed out some more vitriol here.
BUT wouldn’t it be better if people explored these events a bit more critically?? And isn’t it helpful for kids to know they have permission to say, “Wow, that was crap!”?
I’m still not sure.
about 1 year ago
Randy, I like what you are saying. You are right. It would be rather refreshing to get a flyer passed to me that asked nothing of me in the way that we are used to: money, votes, etc.
And Sage, I love what you are saying. We should be able to criticize anyone about anything! That’s why they call it critical thinking, yeah? This is all great food for thought.
I’m curious what the claims were that the flyer did not make? Is this in the original post or the comments? A bit confused here…