On Saturday, Berkeley hosted the first Northern California Science and Skepticism conference: SkeptiCal. The event quickly sold-out, but with good timing, charming wit, plus the liberal application of currency to the appropriate vendor, I was able to attend. (They had a few extra passes.) With talks beginning at 9AM and carrying on until 6PM, the more than 200 attendees from all over the Bay Area and much of Northern California - and even one woman from as far away as Phoenix - all enjoyed a full day of humor, science and engaging discussion.
The biggest thing to take away from SkeptiCal was not that the world will not end in 2012, as David Morrison was happy to let us know. Given his experience in consumer advocacy, Chris Hoofnagle's talk on Denialism was superb. Eugenie C. Scott was her usual well-spoken, well informed self.. And while her advice on teaching science and critical thinking was expertly placed, the real lesson woven through SkeptiCal was twofold: Americans don't know squat about science and as Skeptics we have failed at helping people care.
Brian Dunning drove this point home. Dunning has been profiled here before and, although his presentation was admittedly rough, having never presented it before, his lecture on the Virgin of Guadalupe and the origins of this famous image was still superbly delivered. The specifics of the talk aren't that important and if you've a real curiosity the link above covers all the major points.
How the talk was presented is a different matter, at least for me. According to Dunning, "Skepticism is broken... [it's] almost exclusively about negativity." Skepticism as a movement doesn't work because it is negative, Dunning argues. It is a destructive act, rhetorically and evidentially expunging people's cherished myths and comforting cure-alls. As a rule, when a Skeptic has successfully argued her point, her audience is left having less than they started.
Where before a person could talk about a miracle they had witnessed or an alternative healing methodology that worked for their sibling, after we swoop in and apply the sharp razor of critical thinking, we Skeptics fail to give back that positive message which so captivated the believers attention and spurred their discussion. A person who saw a boomerang shaped UFO chasing them through the night sky has a really cool story to tell. A person who saw the crescent moon in their rear-view mirror doesn't. (True story by the way.)
While Dunning's talk was technically about the history of the Virgin of Guadalupe myth, more importantly, it was an example of how to do Skepticism better.
"Give people something to talk about the next day. [...] If you've done your job as a Skeptic, your audience should have something new to come away with."
Brian Dunning, The Virgin of Guadalupe: A Positive Take
So, for example, while the story of the Virgin Mary appearing to a young man and miraculously imprinting her image on his cloak might be false, what is true is that the man who painted the image, Marcos Cipac de Aquino, is perhaps one of the most influential artists in the whole world. His image is, in part, responsible for the conversion of several million Aztecs to Catholicism and has helped shape the very fabric of Mexican culture to this day. His painting is one of the, if not the, most reproduced works in the world; hell, even I have a version of it hanging in the hallway of my home.
These are cool facts, intriguing concepts to bring to the water-cooler the next day to chat about. So how do we actually present ourselves positively?
This is where things got interesting. After Dunning's presentation the audience broke for several smaller talks, one of which was hosted by This Week in Science co-host Dr. Kirsten "Kiki" Sanford. There to discuss Skepticism in the Media, rather than lecture Dr Kiki instead opted to moderate a discussion between those of us in the audience.
Listening to people from all across the state give their opinions on what they wanted from television news and more generally society, it became pretty clear that while everyone had their own specific causes they wanted to fight for, the agreed-upon trend was that critical analysis was simply missing from everyday news.
With the excessive production of information out there to consume, knowing how to determine the wheat from the chaff is getting harder everyday. One gentleman brought up the point that whether you watch Fox News, CNN or MSNBC, the coverage is generally light and uninformative. You hear a news program which says that a proposed economic policy will do X, while another says Y and a third says Z. Who is correct? How can you tell?
Unless you happen to be an economist who has read the proposal and has experience with that particular field, odds are you haven't the foggiest. I made the point that, given the reach of the internet, in cases like this it is almost always possible to find the proposal and read it yourself. Use the raw information to help guide you to who seems to be telling the truth. This was met with a stern look and a quick, "Just how much time do you have?" That seems to be the heart of the problem. With news media primarily focused on the quick story and the rough sound-bite people have to be able to dig for the facts on their own. This should not be. The entire point of journalism is to do the digging for everyone else, so they don't have to. They have kids to feed and jobs to work. Your average citizen doesn't have the time to download the 1,000 page Healthcare bill and give it a read. That's why they hired a Senator. David Morrison responded to all this with the point that people "need an anchor, a source you can trust." For him that was Walter Cronkite, but now we have Glenn Beck. Things have slipped, to say the least.
So this is what I learned: Skeptics desire elevated discourse.
We want people to have the tools to think critically, we want everyone to have access to material they can craft their thoughts with, and we need to be positive if we're going to accomplish this. We can do the digging, we can become the people to trust, but we need to stop being so negative. Find the exciting hidden facts that appeal to everyone and show them off. Sure the bible is a collection of myths and politically motivated historicism, and that is important information to convey, but simply arguing those facts doesn't inspire. It leaves people without the comfort of their favorite passage.
Go beyond that and engage them in other uses for philology. Get them excited about the transfer of culture, the evolution of belief through time and space as social pressures changed according to politics and geography. Yes, Noah's Ark is a myth, but it is a great myth. It has been told and re-told for thousands of years and we can still find more in the story to inspire us, just as it did the ancient Sumerians.
Don't debunk, impress. Don't argue, engage. In other words, be Skeptical.
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