Re: psychoceramics: Cult of Personality

["Andrew C. Bulhak" <acb @ zikzak.net>]

[Matt Brown]
> >>But why bother poking these folks with a "Ha ha, you're stupid" message?
> >>
> >         That truly is mean-spirited, in a way most of us were raised to
> >avoid.  It's tempting, but better we should indulge in our yucks in seemly
> >privacy.
> 
> I was raised to avoid confrontation and to respect loonies. My father, a
> Ph.D. in Physics, seemed to attract them and treated them all with kindness
> and respect. I don't know if it was pity or a midwestern background, but
> that kindness just brought more loonies to the house. ESP, remote-viewing,
> even Uri Gellar came to the house and bent our silverware one night (BTW,
> if you ever get to dine with him, I recommend finger food.) For a long time
> I thought this was good since when they were with us, they were not
> deluding the other nuts.
> 
> Now I think I was wrong. Letting people bash science and spew nonsense as
> fact degrades us all and over time gives creedence to the next loonie that
> takes one step further out of reality. Read the Skeptical Inquirer, 

I disagree.  I am of the opinion that the militant Gardnerite skeptics 
are a bad thing, even discounting the entertainment value of kooks.
Theirs is a crusade to heap ridicule upon every unorthodox idea, and
a lot of accepted ideas started out as unorthodox if not kooky.  (Take,
for example, the idea that smoking causes lung cancer;  it's common
wisdom now, but it was once ridiculed by the establishment.)

Even if one doesn't go to the extremes that some militant skeptics 
do, attempting to get rid of kooks or discourage the expression of 
kooky ideas can reduce memetic diversity, having an adverse effect
on the memetic ecology.

 -- acb [and besides, kooks are entertaining...]

-- 
 andrew c.'. bul+hac?k           "A thousand worlds and every world's a door.
 http://www.zikzak.net/~acb/      The lights go out; I think I think of you,
 -<----------------------->-      But in these times it's so hard to be sure."
                                        ( neil gaiman, "luther's villanelle" )