A few weeks ago I blogged about a new word, along with some other interesting words, that I coined, newsvertising. Well, interestingly, John Oliver has had some commentary on the concept, which he calls "native advertising." I still like my term better, but I have to admit that his take on the concept is pretty dang funny. 

I love Wikipedia. I love the whole concept. A crowd-sourcing miracle. The "People's Encyclopedia!" Both the greatest strength and weakness of Wikipedia is that nearly everyone can be an editor. With over 30 million articles in 286 languages, to say it has caught on is definitely an understatement. All that with no advertising (Yay!)--only grants and donations. It is somewhat surprising that there aren't more errors, but it seems to compare favorably with the accuracy of such venerable giants as Encyclopedia Britannica, which continues to survive, at least online. Frankly, I think encyclopedias as a business are doomed. I wonder how much longer Encyclopedia Britannica and World Book can last.
    Here's a fun entry, Wikipedia's List of Common Misconceptions. Have a beef with one of the supposed misconceptions?  Well, get in there and edit. Straighten them out. Here's another fun site: a website showing real-time recent changes of Wiki entries from all over the world. Wikipedia has its critics, but here I want to discuss one group that is helping to keep the entries honest, accurate, and referenced. Susan Gerbic's idea: guerrilla skepticism started about 2 years ago and has already attracted over 120 editors in 17 different languages. So what is meant by "guerilla skepticism?" Here is the entry from their mission statement:  

"The mission of the Guerrilla Skepticism editing team is to improve skeptical content of Wikipedia. We do this by improving pages of our skeptic spokespeople, providing noteworthy citations, and removing the unsourced claims from paranormal and pseudoscientific pages. Why? Because evidence is cool. We train – We mentor – Join us."

Let's hear it for "cool" evidence. Since there is no credible evidence for the paranormal, this sounds like the proverbial fish-in-a-barrel, right? Nope. Unfortunately, the opposition is mounting a counter-offense. Two well known  investigators or paranormal research, Rupert Sheldrake and Robert McLuhan have both recently written and blogged about guerilla skepticism. Sheldrake believes in telepathic communication between owners and their pets. He has done research that supposedly indicates that dogs can detect when their owners decide to come home. Hmmm. According to Sheldrake, "guerrilla skeptics... devote a great deal of time and energy to modifying Wikipedia entries so that they reflect a skeptical point of view about psychic phenomena, and try to portray research on these subjects as pseudoscience."  Robert McLuhan wrote a book called RANDI'S PRIZE: What sceptics say about the paranormal, why they are wrong and why it matters.  I invite you to read this Amazon review of the book, which is a pretty good summary of my feelings. McLuhan writes: We can't really complain about hostile editing, as long it stays within the Wikipedia guidelines for editors, which Gerbic seems committed to doing. As she sees it, it's all about insisting on backing up claims with evidence, which is what sceptics are all about...it's a pity that this key source for learning and education is so compromised as far as serious parapsychology is concerned. There is of course plenty of information about parapsychology, but little that isn't gummed up with sceptic disdain."
     "Skeptical point of view"? "Hostile editing"? "Serious parapsychology"? "Sceptic disdain"?
     Skepticism, obviously, should be neither hostile, nor disdainful; it should be pursued in the spirit of the search for truth, not in defense of any point of view. Otherwise, one is engaged in What Richard Feynman described as cargo cult science. 
     Try this on for size: I think that truth can only fit into three categories: true, not true, and confusing. A skeptic believes in the scientific method: that evidence should precede belief, and that when contradictory evidence is generated you need to change your beliefs, not shoe-horn the evidence into a pre-existing framework of beliefs--the latter is the province of religion or pseudoscience.
     All right. I've traveled too far away from my original intent in this blog entry, which was not to engage in quack-bashing, but to congratulate Susan Gerbic for her great idea and to thank all the contributors to Guerrilla Skepticism for their time and trouble. I hope to meet Susan when she comes to Tacoma for the CFI Summit in Tacoma this fall, so I can thank her in person.

Here is a link to the audio of the Dennett talk delivered at Seattle Town Hall if you want to hear it again, or if you missed it. It was a terrific interview.

We have the good fortune in Seattle to have an institution called Town Hall Seattle, which attracts some wonderful celebrities, usually promoting books, to give talks for a very reasonable entry fee--generally five bucks. Tomorrow they are hosting famous philosopher and atheist Daniel Dennett along with George Dyson in a lecture entitled "Thinking About Thinking." Unfortunately, the event is sold out. Fortunately for me, I have an advance ticket.
    Looking very much like Santa Claus, and just about as jolly, Dr. Dennett has the distinction, some would say infamy, of being one of the "Four Horsemen of New Atheism." The other three horsemen are Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and the now-deceased Christopher Hitchens--distinguished company, indeed. Dennett is the co-director of the Tufts University Center For Cognitive Studies. He is author of prominent and popular books "Breaking the Spell" and "Darwin's Dangerous Idea," neither of which I've read (They're on the list.). Some of his favorite topics are evolution, the evolution of religion and consciousness, and the nature of freewill. His homepage has an extensive collection of links to videos, a couple of which I have highlighted below. I'm looking forward to seeing his lecture at Town Hall and let's hope that they schedule his next appearance in the "Great Hall," as he so richly deserves, and not the smaller room downstairs, so that he can reach a larger Seattle audience. If Town Hall makes available a video of his talk, I promise to post a link for the benefit of the folks who couldn't get in.
    So, congratulations to Dr. Dennett for your recognition as a Do Ya Think Blog Rational Hero--and a hearty welcome to Seattle.  

This week's Rational Hero, PZ Myers, is kinda special since he will be lecturing in Seattle next week. The event is sponsored by the Seattle Atheists. Visit the SA website for more details. Here is a direct link to the SA mission statement. If, like me, you're member of the "unchurched," you might find some kindred "spirits" there.
    Dr. Myers is a Professor with a special interest in developmental biology and evolution at the University of Minnesota. He received his undergraduate degree in Zoology at the University of Washington in 1979 and his Ph.D. from the University of Oregon in 1985. He is the author of the extremely popular blog Pharyngula, which is a soapbox for his often inflammatory--some would say refreshingly direct and honest--views on religion, evolutionary biology and politics. He is a potent critic of religion in all its forms. He is, as he describes it, a "blunt scientist." He very much reminds me of an American version of Richard Dawkins. As Myers states in the video below, "Science and religion are incompatible, simply, completely irreconcilable with reality [...]in the same sense that a serious pursuit of knowledge about reality is incompatible with bullshit."  PZ Myers has also been embroiled in the debate about to what extent that the views of the skeptical movement should be (or logically, can be) extended into the political arena. The Atheism Plus movement figures prominently in this debate, which although interesting, is way too complicated to tackle in this short blog post. I recommend this link from the A+ site and this link from the Neurologica Blog for more information.
    I agree with PZ on most points, but I have major differences in his apparent belief, that since religion is "bullshit," it is totally devoid of merit. My principal arguments against this view are two-fold. First, I believe that otherwise commendable people are are emotionally and psychologically unable to deal with a reality without religion. For them, religion is a crutch, but, possibly a necessary support. Perhaps some day we will live in a world where there is adequate psychological support for the needy without religion, but I'm not so sure. My second argument is that Dr. Myers tends, in my opinion, to underestimate the valuable contributions that have been inspired by religion. Yes, religion has been the source of inspired hatred--take the Inquisition and the Crusades as prominent examples--but I think we would live in a much-poorer world without religion-inspired painting, sculpture, literature and music. I also admire the many religion-based charities that have built schools, hospitals and orphanages. Religion, like politics, is a two-edged sword.  But, I think of the skeptical movement as a "big-tent." There is room for uncompromising stridency and kinder, gentler, persuasion, and PZ Myers tends to fall in the first category.
    I recommend, if you live in the Seattle area, that you go and see PZ when he comes to town next week. I'll be there for sure. But for those not lucky enough to live in the Pacific Northwest, below is one of PZ's better speeches. The actual speech is a little over a half an hour with twenty additional minutes of Q+A.