Judge for yourself ....

[Admin]

I find the phrase 'judge for yourself', common on believer websites, really irritating. It often accompanies a blurred low res photo, noisy sound recording or short anecdotal account of an apparently anomalous incident.

It goes along with the believer mindset that the best way of discerning whether something is real or not, true or false, is to try it for yourself and variations on it (see it for yourself, etc.)

I find this to be a wild Appeal to Vanity (fallacy) as the assumption is that no matter what the experts say, no matter what science says, no matter what the huge wealth of knowledge that years of research has led to, if you try it for yourself and it works then it does indeed work and everyone and everything else is wrong - you don't have gaps in your knowledge, and you are not prone to cognitive biases, etc. like everyone else, are you?!

The Fallacy of Personal Validation - it seems to be what belief systems are built on.

[Trinoc]

Isn't the opposite of "Judge for yourself" ... "Take it on the word of someone else's authority"?

We should always judge the evidence for ourselves - I would say that is pretty much the definition of skepticism - the only point at issue is the quality of the evidence, which of course we must also judge.

Otherwise we are simply (correctly) rejecting the authority of woo, but substituting it (wrongly) with the authority of some abstract idea of skepticism.

[Admin]

Isn't the opposite of "Judge for yourself" ... "Take it on the word of someone else's authority"?

Yes in a sense, but there are recognised authorities on things. If I wanted to know something on psychology, I'd do a search of the scientific literature. There's no guarantee that it's absolutely right, but it's better than asking someone completely unqualified who'd "tried it for themselves".

We should always judge the evidence for ourselves - I would say that is pretty much the definition of skepticism - the only point at issue is the quality of the evidence, which of course we must also judge.

Otherwise we are simply (correctly) rejecting the authority of woo, but substituting it (wrongly) with the authority of some abstract idea of skepticism.

The quality of evidence is the key.

"Judging for yourself" is what skeptics should do but they should use appropriate sources of information and at least be reasonably skilled in Critical Thinking so they can assess the information.

Obviously that's not always possible, but even if you want to assess, say, a paper on quantum physics, you might not be able to do it - but there's usually someone qualified who you can ask: that's relying on (appropriate) authority again though!

I think the problem when people "see it for themselves" is when they also see themselves as the authority.

I've called this many things: the perceived infallibility of the senses, the fallacy of personal validation, the "I cannot be fooled" approach, etc. but it really boils down to people accepting that they (their senses, perceptions, etc.) are capable of deciding things based upon their own experience.

This attitude is pervasive with paranormal belief, alternative medicine, etc.

[FarSideOfTheMoon]

Isn't the opposite of "Judge for yourself" ... "Take it on the word of someone else's authority"?

We should always judge the evidence for ourselves - I would say that is pretty much the definition of skepticism - the only point at issue is the quality of the evidence, which of course we must also judge.

Otherwise we are simply (correctly) rejecting the authority of woo, but substituting it (wrongly) with the authority of some abstract idea of skepticism.

It's something I do often think about, how you can reject criticism when you call someone on the 'appeal to authority' fallacy. We all rely on authority, and how do we prove that our 'authority' is valid.

The problem is of course, none of us are able to be expert in everything. It's like Australia - I've never been there but how do I know it exists?

I think judging the evidence to a skeptic should mean evaluating the quality of the source as much as the evidence itself.

[FarSideOfTheMoon]

This is powerful stuff! I was so scared of the dark when i was young, all because the people arounf me had a habit of telling fairy tales with a darker twist *snif*

This is actually something I've been thinking about with my 18 month old daughter. I often carry her into dark rooms in the morning for example, and it's got me thinking about how we develop our fear of the dark.

I'm sure some of it must be evolved behaviour in that we should naturally be wary of a hidden threat, but I do remember an influence from older people inventing all sorts of horrors in the dark when I was young.

[Admin]

Just a quick point on the "Argument to Authority" fallacy.

It's actually better described as the "Argument to Questionable Authority" fallacy.

There's nothing wrong with appealing to authority (!) - it's when you appeal to someone or something that is not really an appropriate authority that the fallacy is made.

[Trinoc]

Just a quick point on the "Argument to Authority" fallacy.

It's actually better described as the "Argument to Questionable Authority" fallacy.

There's nothing wrong with appealing to authority (!) - it's when you appeal to someone or something that is not really an appropriate authority that the fallacy is made.

Who is to judge what is an appropriate authority? We will have the authorities we trust and the believers will have the authorities they trust, so the debate gets nowhere.

The only significant difference between the skeptical and believer approaches to evidence is surely that the skeptical point of view includes evaluating the evidence for oneself. It might not be possible to understand all of the technical details, but it should always be possible to determine whether there is enough evidence of any sort from which to form a hypothesis, whether the evidence appears consistent, and whether it is sufficiently sparing in the amount of existing science that it tries to turn on its head.

[Admin]

Who is to judge what is an appropriate authority? We will have the authorities we trust and the believers will have the authorities they trust, so the debate gets nowhere.

Do you mean that you think it’s all subjective? You’d be wrong, but that is what many think.

The only significant difference between the skeptical and believer approaches to evidence is surely that the skeptical point of view includes evaluating the evidence for oneself. It might not be possible to understand all of the technical details, but it should always be possible to determine whether there is enough evidence of any sort from which to form a hypothesis, whether the evidence appears consistent, and whether it is sufficiently sparing in the amount of existing science that it tries to turn on its head.

There is a range of quality of evidence, or supporting reasons for an argument, ranging from very weak (anecdotes, personal experience, intuition) to very strong (research; case studies; peer-reviewed, replicated scientific studies).

The difference between skeptics and most other people (including believers) is that we, as a matter of principle, place most weight on strong empirical evidence (as it is robust) and little to no weight on things like personal testimony (as we know just how easy it is for people to be fooled and for them to fool themselves); whereas, many people, especially believers, place a huge amount of weight on personal experience – even to the point that they are happy to think that it contradicts the wealth of scientific evidence built up by many researchers over many years, if it doesn’t agree with their personal insight.

Ask anyone who believes that mediums can talk to the dead for what proof they have and you’ll get an answer along the lines of “personal proof”. Likewise, ask someone why they believe homeopathy works and you’ll get an answer like, “when my baby had eczema and nothing would clear it, we tried homeopathy then it went away – I’ve seen it work for myself”.

The fallacies of reasoning in both examples should be self-evident.

This is my point about personal experience underpinning so many false beliefs. Personal experience is very powerful and that’s why people are so convinced by it; but we need to be aware that our senses and reasoning processes are not infallible and that it is very easy for us to form false conclusions.

It’s very easy to call people who believe the unbelievable things like ‘gullible’ or ‘stupid’ (and in some cases that’s true) but I think this acceptance of, or faith in, ‘personal experience’ is what’s behind most of belief (either the cause of it or the support for it).

To give an example of how much faith people have in their own senses and perceptions: when psychologists investigate, say, memory with regard to eye-witness testimony, they will show a group of people a film of a road accident and then ask them a series of questions on it like “what colour was the traffic light as the car went through?” etc.

Now, it turns out that a lot of people get little details like this completely wrong (even when they can vividly picture the scene in their mind). After the data has been gathered the film is shown again to the group to show them what really took place (in spite of their memory) and guess what conclusion many of them come to?

They think the psychologists are tricking them by playing a different version of the accident!

That’s how powerful belief in ‘personal experience’ can be. It’s something we skeptics should appreciate, as it explains not just one mechanism by which beliefs are acquired but also the phenomenon of ‘belief resilience’ – why people refuse to change their mind when faced with contradictory evidence.

[Trinoc]

This is all fine if all we want to do is pat fellow skeptics on the back and say how clever we all are to know the truth ... but we won't convince anyone else if our arguments look no more convincing from the believers' point of view than theirs look from our point of view.

Simply countering their idea of reliable authority with our own idea of reliable authority will convince nobody. We have to have something else to offer, otherwise we are stuck in a blind alley. I contend that what we have to offer is the knowledge that ordinary people can evaluate the evidence and "judge for themselves", without relying on the integrity of an authority who allegedly understands about things we can never know ourselves.

[Admin]

Trinoc, you're assuming that the purpose of skepticism is to convince believers they're wrong.

I really don't get your point.

Perhaps you can give an example or two to illustrate what it is you mean.

[Trinoc]

Trinoc, you're assuming that the purpose of skepticism is to convince believers they're wrong.

Well, there isn't a lot of point in just being a mutual agreement society. I don't need people to tell me I'm right ... I already know that ... I need people to challenge me about things where I may be wrong even when I'm sure I'm right - and provide evidence in support that I can verify.

Some believers will not change their minds no matter what anyone tells them. Some skeptics are the same. But if we have nothing to offer other than a cosy club of like-minded debunkers I don't know what we are doing here.

[Admin]

What the feck are you going on about?

Do you actually know what skepticism is?

It doesn't look like it!

Unless you make your position clear then I can't respond.

[Trinoc]

What the feck are you going on about?

If your intention was to respond in more and more strident ways until I gave up and stopped bothering with the debate, consider it achieved.

[Admin]

I just find it extremely annoying to have put effort into explaining what I mean in a clear manner only to be responded to with such irrelevant nonsense.

You seem to be having a completely different conversation to me!!!

[Trinoc]

Let's get back to the original question ... is "judging for oneself" the essence of skepticism, or is it anathema to skepticism and should be avoided in favour of appeal to authorities that we deem to be reliable?

(Or, of course, lest anyone should accuse me of false dichotomy, somewhere in between.)