What annoys advocates of crackpottery

[lpetrich]

Though many advocates of crackpottery display "crank magnetism", being willing to believe other sorts of crackpottery, many of them nevertheless draw the line at various sorts of crackpottery, especially competing sorts.

Someone once handed my mother a version of Jack Chick's "Big Daddy". She responded that she believes that we came here in flying saucers. That someone then stated that my mother will be going to Hell.

I remember a believer in Erich von Däniken's ancient astronauts advocating that theory, making analogies with cargo cults and the like. However, whenever I brought up Gerard K. O'Neill's space colonies, he'd say "You can't be serious?" I must say that I couldn't imagine why anyone would consider space colonies to be crackpottery.

Likewise, a certain Farsight considers mainstream speculations like multiverses to be pure crackpottery.


Looking elsewhere, consider the Anglo-Israelites or British-Israelites (Saxons = "Isaac's sons"). Bertrand Russell in An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish noted that there are two main sects of them, those that think that the British people are descended from all ten of the lost ten tribes, and those that think that the British people are only descended from the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh. He'd profess himself a member of the other and have a lot of very pleasant argumentation.

From Martin Gardner, Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science:

Bertrand Russell, in his article, "In the Company of Cranks," Saturday Review, Aug. 11, 1956, writes:

Experience has taught me a technique for dealing with such people. Nowadays when I meet the Ephraim-and-Manasseh devotees I say, "I don't think you've got it quite right. I think the English are Ephraim and the Scotch are Manasseh." On this basis a pleasant and inconclusive argument becomes possible. In like manner, I counter the devotees of the Great Pyramid by adoration of the Sphinx; and the devotee of nuts by pointing out that hazelnuts and walnuts are just as deleterious as other foods and only Brazil nuts should be tolerated by the faithful. But when I was younger I had not yet acquired this technique, with the result that my contacts with cranks were sometimes alarming.

Full article: "In the Company of Cranks" by Bertrand Russell, The Saturday Review, Saturday, August 11th, 1956 - UNZ.org

It's not a very kind sentiment, but I must say that I enjoy getting under a crackpot's skin in this way. Any experience with positing rival crackpottery?

 

[Peez]

Though many advocates of crackpottery display "crank magnetism", being willing to believe other sorts of crackpottery, many of them nevertheless draw the line at various sorts of crackpottery, especially competing sorts.

Someone once handed my mother a version of Jack Chick's "Big Daddy". She responded that she believes that we came here in flying saucers. That someone then stated that my mother will be going to Hell.

I remember a believer in Erich von Däniken's ancient astronauts advocating that theory, making analogies with cargo cults and the like. However, whenever I brought up Gerard K. O'Neill's space colonies, he'd say "You can't be serious?" I must say that I couldn't imagine why anyone would consider space colonies to be crackpottery.

Likewise, a certain Farsight considers mainstream speculations like multiverses to be pure crackpottery.


Looking elsewhere, consider the Anglo-Israelites or British-Israelites (Saxons = "Isaac's sons"). Bertrand Russell in An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish noted that there are two main sects of them, those that think that the British people are descended from all ten of the lost ten tribes, and those that think that the British people are only descended from the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh. He'd profess himself a member of the other and have a lot of very pleasant argumentation.

From Martin Gardner, Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science:

Bertrand Russell, in his article, "In the Company of Cranks," Saturday Review, Aug. 11, 1956, writes:

Experience has taught me a technique for dealing with such people. Nowadays when I meet the Ephraim-and-Manasseh devotees I say, "I don't think you've got it quite right. I think the English are Ephraim and the Scotch are Manasseh." On this basis a pleasant and inconclusive argument becomes possible. In like manner, I counter the devotees of the Great Pyramid by adoration of the Sphinx; and the devotee of nuts by pointing out that hazelnuts and walnuts are just as deleterious as other foods and only Brazil nuts should be tolerated by the faithful. But when I was younger I had not yet acquired this technique, with the result that my contacts with cranks were sometimes alarming.

Full article: "In the Company of Cranks" by Bertrand Russell, The Saturday Review, Saturday, August 11th, 1956 - UNZ.org

It's not a very kind sentiment, but I must say that I enjoy getting under a crackpot's skin in this way. Any experience with positing rival crackpottery?

The delicious thing about such an approach is that you can use whatever hair-brained argument they do, and watch them squirm in an effort to find a way to differentiate the way they are using it from the way you are using it.

Peez

 

[ApostateAbe]

I just noticed that someone turned "Big Daddy?" into live action. It is amazing. Deserves an Emmy.

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3L9VaMhbSPs[/YOUTUBE]

 

[Peez]

I just noticed that someone turned "Big Daddy?" into live action. It is amazing. Deserves an Emmy.

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3L9VaMhbSPs[/YOUTUBE]

I don't believe that I have ever seen anyone not peddling woo who used both "Dr." before their name and "Ph.D." after it.

Peez

 

[braces_for_impact]

I actually had something kinda relevant on the bus earlier this week. I was on my way home, listening to podcasts as I usually do when I noticed an old lady. She was wearing a frizzed out wig, non-matching dirty clothes and was trying to get what appeared to be an old FM headphone radio to work that wasn't cooperating. She pulled a large (10 inches or so) quartz crystal out of her huge bag lady type purse and began to make the sign of the cross, muttering under her breath and waving her hands. Then she would try to make the radio work again, to no avail. This was interesting people watching, but she was being quiet and pretty much keeping to herself.

A woman off to the side started saying loudly, "That's not going to work, that's Satan there." The woman turned around, mumbling something about "Are you talking to me", before going back to her little ritual. The other lady keeps saying loudly, in a very condescending tone things like, "Witchcraft doesn't work, it's Satanic, you need Jesus, you're cavorting with demons," etc.

I finally turned around and asked her to leave the old lady alone, since she was being quiet and wasn't bothering anyone. She responded to me that the old lady was "inviting evil and Satan onto the bus" that "Satan was here now" and she began to raise her hands in the air and praise Jesus. I asked her what she was doing and she said "I'm praying", as she looked at me like I was stupid. I asked her why she was doing the same thing she was chastising the old lady for, and told her it looked pretty hypocritical to me. She replied that there was a difference, she was praying, but the old lady was casting a spell. I told her it was the same exact thing. The old lady was petitioning the spirits for help, and that she was petitioning Jesus, a spirit for help. There was no difference as far as I could see. She got pretty incensed at me at this point and pulled the cord to have the bus stop. As she got up to leave she said "Oh Lord, I'm leaving, Satan is on this bus!" I asked her if Satan was eligible to pay the fare using a senior discount, which made a lot of people laugh, and then she was gone.

You see so many interesting people on the public transit system.

 

[Keith&Co.]

She replied that there was a difference, she was praying, but the old lady was casting a spell.

This is probably why gamers score so well on comparative religion surveys. All clerics have the same set of invocations, but not all of them have the Wisdom score to make it work.

 

[dystopian]

I remember a believer in Erich von Däniken's ancient astronauts advocating that theory, making analogies with cargo cults and the like. However, whenever I brought up Gerard K. O'Neill's space colonies, he'd say "You can't be serious?" I must say that I couldn't imagine why anyone would consider space colonies to be crackpottery.

Wait, so he believed that either there were ancient human civilizations capable of spaceflight or alien visitors... but he couldn't even believe the notion that we *might* one day construct space habitats?

 

[Kharakov]

I enjoy reading Steven Dutch's various papers on pseudoscientific thinking. Here is one entitled "when the cranks rule".

Although accusations of persecution are rife in pseudoscience, ironically, it is much more common for pseudoscientists to persecute orthodox scientists whenever the pseudoscientists gain the upper hand. Consider these remarks by John C.Campbell on the use of dowsing rods to locate Viet Cong tunnels in Vietnam (on the efficacy of the method, the necessary and sufficient comment is that we lost the war. More specifically, we lost the battle for the tunnels. Surely Marines with welding rods could be expected to find tunnels faster than the Viet Cong could dig them).

For the first time in human history, there now exists a situation in which the disciplined thinking techniques, and precision-observing techniques of modern science will be applied in a positive sense to the problem of a subjective phenomenon. "Positive" in that the research men will be commanded, ordered, and damn well required to stop using their talents to prove it isn't so, because their theories hold it impossible, and find out why it is so, because it works. Those scientists who are personally psychologically so oriented that they simply can't accept that notion will be simply brushed aside, and men who can and will see what's happening on their own campuses, and will sincerely try to understand this new order of phenomenon will be installed.

.....

 

[Shadowy Man]

I don't believe that I have ever seen anyone not peddling woo who used both "Dr." before their name and "Ph.D." after it.

Peez

Ha!! The best is when they use P.H.D.