The fact of the matter is that right now—as you are reading these words—it is virtually certain that somewhere in the world, one or more children are being held in exactly the same unimaginable conditions as Jaycee. Some may die in captivity and be disposed of like trash; others will eventually be freed after untold physical and psychological damage.

Yet there are thousands of self-proclaimed psychics and psychic detectives in the world who claim to be able to find missing persons. Some are rich and famous, such as Sylvia Browne, Allison DuBois (inspiration for the NBC show Medium), Noreen Renier, and Carla Baron; others are known only locally. If they have the powers they claim, perhaps they should take a break from their TV appearances and lucrative lecture circuits to actually help find these and other desperate missing persons.

Yesterday when news broke that the mother of Amanda Berry, one of the kidnapped girls rescued in Cleveland, had consulted “psychic” Sylvia Browne and been told she was dead, prominent skeptics such as Ben Goldacre, D.J. Grothe, Sharon Hill, Mark Edward, Barry Karr, and others joined me in pointing out that Browne had been completely wrong.

But not everyone is happy about this.

A few people responded on my Facebook page and elsewhere to state that this sort of commentary (limited though it was) is inappropriate, that skeptics should not point out psychic failures in tragedies like these. They feel that commenting on events like these smacks of exploitation, a sort of hijacking or co-opting of a sancrosanct event in which commentary should be focused on sympathy for the victims.

Is it somehow insensitive or exploitative for skeptics to point out that psychics failed in these cases? Should skeptics remain silent when an event occurs that makes it clear to even the most obtuse person that psychics are wrong? To be fair, only a handful of people (and even fewer skeptics) complained, but I felt that their point was worth examining more closely.

In both cases a sudden, unexpected tragedy occurred in which psychics could reasonably have been expected to give accurate information about a life-or-death event. In one case psychics failed to predict (and help warn against) an important tragic event, and in another case a prominent psychic gave provably wrong information about a tragic event (and failed to locate and help rescue a missing girl she was asked specifically about).

In the Boston bombing, three people were killed and hundreds were wounded. The Cleveland case is no less horrific; details are still sketchy, but it seems that three young girls were abducted and subjected to physical and sexual abuse for years-perhaps up to a decade. Both are potentially sensitive cases involving crime, life, death, and horrific tragedy. And in both cases it is fair to point out that psychics made glaring, indisputable errors.

No one-and certainly no skeptic-was gloating about these tragedies, crassly exploiting them, or in any way diminishing the gravity of the situation. All we were doing was commenting in passing about one particular aspect that would otherwise likely be missed by the public, and trying to educate the public.

The fact is that psychics are often consulted by (or offer their services to) grieving families, those whose loved ones have been abducted or killed. It is psychics-not the skeptics who help expose them-who try to gain money and prestige from people’s sorrow and misery. It’s inherently an exploitative business, which is why so many prominent skeptics (myself among them) are out there trying to educate the public and put an end to the exploitation.

Being timid about publicizing and highlighting psychic failures serves no one but the psychics, and it robs skeptics of a salient opportunity to bring psychic failures into the public eye. These events were, to borrow a hackneyed phrase, “teachable moments.” It’s not that psychics hadn’t glaringly failed to predict other important, potentially preventable history-changing tragedies (such as the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks), nor that psychics such as Browne had never been wrong about the deaths of missing children (such as Shawn Hornbeck in 2002). It’s that these are events that we’re all talking about at the time, and a skeptical view could be added to the conversation.

Teachers and psychologists know that when you’re trying to teach something it is much more effective to use a real-life, concrete example that everyone has heard of than it is to give an abstract, theoretical, or historical example. Commenting factually about one often-overlooked aspect of a tragedy is not exploitation, it’s smart education and community outreach. Tragedies and events such as the Boston bombing and the abduction of Amanda Berry and the others invariably spark discussions about what could have been done differently, how signs could have been missed, and so on. In those discussions it’s perfectly legitimate to remind people when psychics fail, and remind people of the real-world consequences of psychic failures (and what the world would be like if psychic powers were reliable and proven to exist).

In my experience it’s very useful to take every opportunity to remind the public that psychic detectives consistently fail, and that their advice is far more likely to harm a police investigation than help it. The public usually only hears one side of the story; in books and magazine articles and on TV shows, psychics regularly run roughshod over the truth, exaggerating and in some cases fabricating their claims of success. It is far rarer that people get a chance to hear the skeptical viewpoint, from myself or Randi or Mark Edward, or Michael Shermer, Gary Posner, Jim Underdown, Joe Nickell, and others who focus on psychics. Because skeptics are in the tiny minority, we may only get the rare chance to make these points to the public regarding a situation most people have heard of.

To longtime skeptics it can often seem like we’re repeating ourselves. But it’s important to remember that many of the things we know and take for granted are not necessarily obvious or shared by others. I sometimes get tired of saying the same things, but my skeptical colleagues remind me that you can’t just say something once and expect anyone to hear it. Audiences are constantly changing; the people you write for or speak to one month may be different than the people you write for or speak to the next month. Even if they hear what you say, they may not be paying attention, or may not think it’s relevant to them. So you can’t just point out psychic failures in one high-profile tragedy or missing person case and feel you’ve informed the public.

If skeptics can get even a few people to think for a second before giving money to a psychic, or listening to one, then to me it’s worth it if one or two people feel that maybe it was in poor taste or “too soon.” The potential consequences are too high; when you’re dealing with psychics who claim to have special precognitive abilities but cannot (or, worse, inexplicably choose not to) warn people about preventable tragedies and terrorist attacks, the gloves need to come off. When you’re dealing with callous grief vampires who lie to grieving mothers and tell them that their missing children are dead, the time has passed to be genteel.

Robert Bartholomew and his brother Paul grew up near the shores of Lake Champlain, sparking an early interest not only in the lake monster said to dwell within the lake but also steeped in the social and cultural context of the mysterious beastie. In his new book The Untold Story of Champ: A Social History of America’s Loch Ness Monster Robert, a sociologist, fortean investigator, and former broadcast journalist, takes a fresh look at Champ, long dubbed “America’s Loch Ness Monster.”
There have only been a handful of other books dealing in any depth or scholarship with Champ, among them Joe Zarzynski’s Champ: Beyond the Legend, and of course Lake Monster Mysteries: Investigating the World’s Most Elusive Creatures, co-authored by Joe Nickell and myself. The Untold History of Champ builds on these books and others, correcting some mistakes and putting the information in its social and historical context-which, as I have often argued, is vitally important for truly understanding mysterious phenomena. Along the way Bartholomew fills in fascinating gaps and details in the story of Champ.

But Bartholomew does something that no other author has, taking us behind the scenes for a glimpse at the colorful personalities that have gathered over the years (and especially in the early 1980s when Champ fever was at its peak). The story of those who looked for Champ is just as interesting as the story of Champ itself. Famed showman and huckster P.T. Barnum makes an important appearance (offering $50,000 for the monster’s carcass in 1873), as do many prominent cryptozoologists including Philip Reines, Loren Coleman, J. Richard Greenwell, Roy Mackal, and others who convened a 1981 conference titled, “Does Champ Exist? A Scientific Seminar.” The intrigue between and among these researchers is interesting enough to fill several chapters.

There are several good books about the people involved in the search for Bigfoot, including Anatomy of a Beast: Obsession and Myth on the Trail of Bigfoot, by Michael McLeod; Bigfoot: The Life and Times of a Legend, by Joshua Blu Buhs; and Searching for Sasquatch: Crackpots, Eggheads, and Cryptozoology, by Brian Regal. But there has been comparatively little insight into the motivations and personalities of those searching for lake monsters, and this book nicely fills that gap.
The book exhaustively reviews Champ sightings, both early and modern. He uncovers common myths along the way, such as that the beast was first sighted by the explorer after whom the lake was named, Samuel de Champlain. The best evidence for Champ, the famous 1977 photograph by Sandra Mansi, is presented in some detail, and the book offers new, tantalizing revelations about the circumstances of Mansi’s sighting and the publication of her photograph.

Like virtually all “unexplained” phenomenon, the history of Champ is in part a history of hoaxes, and the book examines several of them in detail, along with similar stories from nearby Lake George, which had its own lake monster-and, of course, its own lake monster hoax. Bartholomew’s book is, at its heart, an overall skeptical book, but its goal is not to prove nor disprove the creature’s existence. It is instead exactly what the subtitle announces: an objective social history of the creature covering nearly a century and half of sightings, discussion and debate, informed by folklore, cryptozoology, fortean studies, local Vermont history, skepticism, and the inevitable crackpot….

Trance

Directed by Danny Boyle

2 stars

Starring James McAvoy and Rosario Dawson

In the new film Trance, James McAvoy plays Simon, a London art auctioneer who is struck on the head by an art thief (Vincent Cassel) during a heist. Simon recovers in hospital (as the British say), and we soon learn not only that he was in on the robbery and that he somehow managed to steal the art but-regrettably for all involved-he’s got amnesia and can’t remember where he hid it. After threats and torture, Simon and the thieves enlist the aid of a hypnotherapist (Rosario Dawson) who attempts to delve into Simon’s subconscious to help him find the stolen art. Not only are millions of dollars on the line, but Simon’s life is as well, and along the way all sorts of real and false memories pop up, as well as crosses and double-crosses. If it all sounds like a potentially intriguing plot for a great movie, it is. However Trance is not that movie.

Don’t blame the actors; the cast is game and professional. Not a single one of these capable actors betrays a trace of indignity or annoyance at the absurd contortions their characters are asked to go through in service of this scattered plot. Don’t blame the director, Danny Boyle, who helmed films such as 127 Hours and Slumdog Millionaire, and knows his way around a camera.

No, much of the blame for this dud lies at the feet of the writers, who are too clever by half (or maybe two-thirds). Trance is meant to be a mind-bending trip along the lines of Inception, but comes off like it was written by an eighth grader who was assigned to re-write Memento for a creative writing class.

About halfway through Trance, I lost focus on the plot and my mind began wandering, taking me back to a seminar I attended years ago at The Screenwriting Conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I’d learned many techniques of plot construction from veteran screenwriters, but what I was seeing on the screen didn’t seem to fit any of them. In screenplays, one event should organically and logically lead to the next. Characters shouldn’t simply suddenly do things for no reason, or do things that only make sense if they somehow knew the future. I’d narrowed Trance down to three possibilities: monkey, computer, and hat. Over and over, the phrase “monkey, computer, or hat?” ran through my mind.

Did a roomful of monkeys at keyboards bang this stuff out over the course of a few months, stopping only for banana breaks? That seemed plausible at first, but then I saw that the plot wasn’t totally random, there was clearly some human factor involved. That led me to suspect that some computer had followed a special algorithm to create the zig-zag logic, time sequences, and non-sequiturs that were filling the screen. Or maybe I was not being charitable enough, and screenwriters Joe Ahearne and John Hodge had actually written scenes that could plausibly go together, and then wrote each scene on a slip of paper which was then put into a hat, drawn out randomly, then reassembled them into the script. I still don’t know the answer, but I’ll go with “hat.”

One of the (many) problems with the film is that the core of the plot deals with memory, amnesia, and hypnosis yet clearly knows nothing about memory, amnesia, or hypnosis. I have a degree in psychology-and often write about these topics in various contexts—and I can assure you that the assumptions and premises under which the characters (and indeed the entire film) operates are about as similar to real psychology as Bugs Bunny is to real rabbits.

I’m not going to be one of those pedantic nerds who complains that what we see on the silver screen doesn’t happen in real life. The film is not a documentary, and I get that. However if you’re going to write a movie in which psychology plays a key role in the plot, then you might want to know what the hell you’re writing about and keep it at least remotely plausible. Otherwise, why bother to include it at all? You can’t take a story about 1940s baseball players and expect to casually include references to spaceships.

Trance is not inherently a bad movie; it’s just one of those movies where the longer it went on, the less I cared who lived, who died, or whether anyone found that damned painting. Trance has—or pretends it has—a few twists that I won’t give away, but even after the big twist at the end, little of the previous 103 minutes makes much sense. It’s never clear what, exactly, the relationship was between the three main characters, so the ending is unsatisfying. Your mileage may vary; if you just want to experience Danny Boyle’s cinematic showmanship, which ranges from brilliant and creative to garish and ham-handed, then Trance may be worth your while.

In Part 1, which appeared a few weeks ago, I discussed my body of work in terms of larger themes and personal motivations and values. In this second half I’ll touch on what I see as the practical limits of organized skepticism and skeptical inquiry.

As I previously noted, there are countless causes I support, including environmentalism, feminism, animal protection, social justice, exposing hypocrisy, science communication, media literacy, and others. But I rarely tackle these issues under the banner of skepticism, instead I bring them up in the context of other subjects. In other words, I usually don’t set out to write an article or blog or column on these subjects but instead address them through news stories that have a skeptical education and/or social justice angle to them.

As Daniel Loxton wrote, “I’m a skeptic, and also a humanist, and also an atheist, and also other things besides. In acknowledging my multiple distinct affiliations, I follow a respectable and old tradition in scientific skepticism. As National Center for Science Education Executive Director and Bay Area Skeptics Chair Eugenie Scott explains, ‘Most people have more than one identity: I’ll wear my humanist hat in some circles, but not at the bee-keeper’s meeting.’ Your own priorities may call you to many actions in many movements. Want to oppose religion, fight for church-state separation, or fix government? Those have never been goals for scientific skepticism, but they are the explicit unifying goals for other movements that would deeply appreciate your help. So help them! Be a skeptic-and be other things besides.”

My Skepticism

I’ve always felt that that skepticism is a big tent, and there’s room for contributions from a wide variety of people, often with different styles. For example, Penn and Teller’s brand of brash skepticism is not my style, but they are very good at what they do. This is how I view skepticism and its role.

Skepticism, like science, is a way of finding out about the world. It is (or, I would argue, should be) more or less value-neutral. Skepticism does not tell us that you should not believe in ghosts, it tells us how to find out whether or not ghosts exist, which is more valuable. We make important choices in our lives based upon what we believe is true, and not just about paranormal issues but important social and political issues as well.  If we believe that power lines near our home cause cancer, we may move our family out of an otherwise safe neighborhood.  If we believe that the chemical Alar (at one time sprayed on apples) is endangering our children, we may keep them from eating needed fruits.  If we believe that vaccinating our children against diseases may give them autism, we may endanger their lives.  If we believe that we are likely to be killed in random violence or terrorism, we may worry needlessly and spend precious funds to avoid minuscule threats.

Nobody has all the answers; all we can do is to try and weed out the false beliefs to the best of our ability.  Every single one of us holds beliefs that are false or only partially true.  Perhaps the most important process in human thinking and knowledge is the recognition and awareness that we may be wrong-and the commitment to correct our mistakes. 

Skeptical Mission Creep

One issue that often arises when discussing the scope of skepticism is mission creep: What are the proper goals of skepticism, and how do we know when we have stepped outside those goals? I visited a Canadian skeptics group a few years ago during a book and speaking tour, and one of the leaders mentioned that they had recently participated in a gay rights parade. This struck me as odd. Not because I’m against gay rights or gay marriage-in fact I strongly support both-but because I don’t see gay rights as a skeptical issue. In fact it didn’t even seem to be an issue of evidence-based public policy.

Mission creep, in which the purpose of an organization expands incrementally beyond its original goals, is a common issue in activist organizations. It can be good or bad, depending on your point of view. Some see the broadening of original goals to include related purposes to be a good thing, while others see it as watering down the organization and squandering resources on worthy-but-irrelevant causes. One of the consequences of mission creep is that it inevitably disenfranchises some of its members. There are countless causes that I feel strongly about and contribute to that have nothing to do with skepticism, and so I don’t support them in the name (or under the banner) of skepticism.

I see little benefit (and indeed the potential for considerable damage) when organized skepticism (if there be such a beast) gets into political and social activism.  Most skeptics I know tend to be politically liberal, though many are not. Many skeptics I know tend to be humanists and atheists, though many are not (including the great polymath and CSICOP co-founder Martin Gardner). Implicitly or explicitly suggesting that skepticism (or, by extension, good critical thinking) presupposes a given political or social agenda is not only incorrect but unnecessarily divisive.

There already exist well-run, effective organizations for just about any social or political cause. If you want to support wolf conservation, breast cancer research, reproductive rights, animal rights, alternative energy sources, social justice, independent news media, feminism, freedom for Tibet, gay rights, the prevention of overfishing, Democrats, Republicans, libertarians, transgender librarians, or any other of countless causes, there are plenty of opportunities to do so. Furthermore, those organizations already have the infrastructure to make things happen; that’s why in many cases it’s better to support a large, existing organization than to start fresh or duplicate another organization’s goals or purpose. There’s no need for skeptics to reinvent the wheel, and there’s also no need to brand skeptics groups as an umbrella organization for any of those causes just because some individual skeptics within those groups support them.

Daniel Loxton has discussed this several times, including in a recent blog:

Greta Christina and Jamila Bey raised a very interesting objection to this notion of traditional subject matter: “If you always talk about the same things, you’ll go on having the community you’ve always had”-to wit, college-educated, nerdy, and widely bearded. If we truly do want to increase diversity, they argued, skepticism should tackle wider topics that wider audiences care about: women’s issues, social justice, progressive political causes, and so on. Now, “tackle wider topics” is a red flag for me. I’ve spent 20 years of my life in love with scientific skepticism-a distinct and distinguished public service tradition which is worth preserving. In that time, I’ve become rather cynical about scope discussions between skeptics and atheists. Too often, the argument seems to be that the very definition of my field should be scrapped and replaced by a wider rationalism.

Greta Christina… argued, there are testable, empirical, pseudoscientific claims embedded within the arenas of social values, political discourse, and yes, religion as well. The forest may be out of scope, but some of the trees are not. ...Skeptics can tackle those strictly empirical questions without a centimeter of mission drift, and without losing any of our traditional scientific focus…Of course, skeptics always have tackled testable claims that happen to have important implications for religion, politics, or human nature, but Greta Christina’s point nonetheless bears repeating: traditional skepticism can do its traditional work within its traditional scope, and still contribute useful assistance to our friends in other movements. If we look for places to do that, we’re bound to find new opportunities and new allies.

Mixed Messages

Aside from the issue of mission creep, there’s the problem of mixed messages when skepticism is mixed with other forms of social activism. If I’m being interviewed by USA Today or ABC News, I am being consulted as an expert in my field-not something outside my field, even if I feel strongly about it. For example if I’m trying to reassure the public that childhood vaccines are safe (despite anti-vaccination propaganda), I need to stay on topic and not try to find a way to work a comment about my support for gay marriage or President Obama.

Not only would it muddle the message, but I’d lose whatever credibility I had. My goal is to convince all Americans-regardless of whether or not they agree with me about supporting gay marriage or Obama-that vaccinating children is important and safe. Anyone who disagrees with me on gay marriage or Obama will likely, either consciously or unconsciously, dismiss my comments about vaccination as well because it’s a clear injection of personal opinion and social agenda into a presumably fact-based discussion. In fact doing so may even make such people more likely to do the opposite of what I’m suggesting.

The same thing can happen on a larger scale when skeptical groups take official (or quasi-official) positions on a wide variety of social and political agendas. We skeptics need all the help we can get, and alienating those who need to hear skeptical information is counter-productive. Each position that an organization takes on some social agenda cleaves off some members who may disagree with that position (or may in fact agree with the position but simply believe that the organization as a whole should not be adopting specific positions).

This is not to say that organizations should have no agendas; indeed many have very clear social and political agendas: Planned Parenthood, the National Rifle Association, Morality in Media, and countless other groups have strong positions. But skepticism is different; it advocates for a way of finding out about the world, and different people who apply skepticism may find themselves on different sides of important social and political debates.

The analogy I use is a class in schools that focuses on critical thinking. A teacher creates a curriculum that teaches logic, skepticism, and critical thinking. The school principal and other teachers may think that a critical thinking class is a waste of time-after all, don’t students learn critical thinking in the mainstream courses like history, geography, algebra, social studies, and so on? The answer is emphatically no: critical thinking and skepticism provide students with the cognitive tools they need to help understand the world (including history, geography, algebra, social studies, and so on); it is a methodology, not a particular cause or specific agenda.

Though a critical thinking teacher will almost certainly use examples from other areas of interest or concern (history, geography, algebra, social studies, etc.) in the process of teaching the students how to think, the specific topic is far less important than the goal. In the same way, though I would hope and expect that the skepticism I and others teach would lead to social activism or the promotion of sociopolitical agendas, it should not be mixed nor mistaken for them.

I’ll close with one more quote from Daniel Loxton: “Whatever it is that you value, please do your own good work-the work that moves and inspires you, the work that makes the world better according to the priorities of your conscience-whatever that work is, and wherever you feel called to contribute.”

Thanks to Dorion Cable and Nat Glick for their assistance in this piece.

I’ve been working at the Center for Inquiry’s Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (formerly CSICOP) for fifteen years. I’m best known for my skeptical investigations and research into paranormal subjects such as ghosts, lake monsters, chupacabras, near-death experiences, crop circles, psychics, and all that. It’s not surprising that people tend to focus on that, since those are weird, sensational claims, but that’s only a small part of my work.

Recently there has been renewed discussion about the role and nature of skepticism. Daniel Loxton, Steven Novella, and Sharon Hill-among many others-have written blogs and full-length articles examining the scope and meaning of skepticism.

I’ve written some on this topic before, in Skeptical Inquirer magazine, in my books, and elsewhere, but upon reflection I realized that I had never really analyzed nor discussed my body of work in terms of larger themes and personal motivations and values. I pretty much plug away month after month and year after year, doing articles, columns, investigations, books, and so on, with no particular grand scheme. But a look at that scheme may be informative.

It was a matter of stepping back to find the forest among the trees, to pick out themes I’m otherwise unaware of because time spent reflecting on my work is time not spent writing or researching. I offer this analysis partly as insight (if anyone wants it) into my work as one of the world’s top skeptics, but also as a more personal story about the breadth of (and motivations for) my skepticism. As Daniel Loxton recently wrote in his piece “Why Is There a Skeptical Movement?” “I spend a lot of time talking about the virtues of focus and the limits of science, but I’m not a robot: I care about many things beyond my narrow professional field. I have political causes I wish personally to advance, moral principles to uphold, existential meaning to embody. I’m involved in many movements.”

Everyone has a different journey to skepticism, and here I speak only for myself. My specialties include skeptical investigation and media literacy, and science literacy. I try to apply skepticism across the board, to all claims including advertising, politics, and social issues. Here’s a representative sample of some of the topics I’ve written about and investigated over the past few years. Many of these have an obvious paranormal angle, but others don’t. 

Social Justice

I find that social justice is one common thread in my work, including speaking out against minority oppression, and those who can’t speak for themselves, or where I believe fear and unreason have drowned out rational discussion. 

1) Attacks on albinos in Africa; men, women, and children who have been targeted because their body parts are thought to be magical. Many have been killed or had their limbs hacked off with machetes. To those who believe in science, albinism is merely a rare medical condition; to those who believe in witchcraft and magic, it is a reason to murder and mutilate the innocent.

http://news.discovery.com/human/health/canadian-man-fights-african-witchcraft-murders.htm

http://www.livescience.com/10603-belief-witchcraft-leads-murders-africa.html

2) Women who have been attacked and disfigured by their husbands or family members

http://news.discovery.com/human/health/oscar-movies-acid-attack-victims-120227.htm

3) Racism and attacks in minorities and immigrants. For example in 2011 I wrote about racist rumors that Arizona wildfires that ravaged the state had been caused by illegal immigrants; I referenced relevant folklore experts to explain how racism can latch on to rumor.

http://news.discovery.com/human/acid-attack-hoax-spurs-racism.htm

http://www.livescience.com/2377-closer-racist-conspiracies.html

http://www.livescience.com/14448-arizona-wildfires-racist-rumors-immigrants.html

4) Child abuse, especially on children whose murders typically don’t attract media attention

http://news.discovery.com/human/health/group-blasts-media-blackout-on-child-abuse.htm

http://news.discovery.com/human/psychology/when-killing-children-doesnt-make-the-news-121226.htm

http://www.livescience.com/17285-child-sexual-abuse-numbers.html

5) Endangered species being killed off by alternative medicines

http://news.yahoo.com/chinese-medicine-driving-rhinos-extinction-201606784.html

http://news.discovery.com/animals/endangered-species/unproven-chinese-medicine-killing-manta-rays-121022.htm

http://www.livescience.com/1768-alternative-medicine-threatens-beasts-extinction.html

6) The dangers of belief in demonic possession and exorcisms

http://news.discovery.com/human/psychology/when-exorcists-kill-120301.htm

http://www.livescience.com/27727-exorcism-facts-and-fiction.html

7) Anti-vaccination pseudoscience and campaigns

http://www.livescience.com/2845-autism-vaccines-bad-logic-trumps-science.html

http://www.livescience.com/15991-contagion-vaccine-deniers-infectious-diseases.html

http://news.discovery.com/human/health/anti-vaccine-doctor-planned-to-profit-from-scare.htm

Another theme I’ve noticed in my work is promoting religious tolerance. I’ve written several pieces about Islam, including addressing conspiracy claims about Obama being Muslim, and explaining Islamic practices including Ramadan; my purpose was to promote religious tolerance. Along similar lines I’ve often written about witchcraft (for example when Senate hopeful Christine O’Donnell was accused of being a witch in 2010); my aim was to improve the public’s understanding of Wicca and make it clear that modern witchcraft has nothing in common with Satanism. Some of my pieces have a public service message, for example reminding people of the dangers of ignoring official warnings to take shelter during public events.

Personal Interests

The news media, by its very nature, is inherently alarmist and systematically exaggerates the real threats of most crimes, tragedies, and disasters (a bias I discuss at length in my book Media Mythmakers: How Journalists, Activists, and Advertisers Mislead Us). I tend to try to explain to people why many of the things they fear, or are concerned about, are either fabricated or greatly exaggerated. Examples include vaccination fears, witchcraft and Satanism, stranger danger child abductions and attacks, shark attacks, terrorism, and so on.

Conversely, when the public tends to underestimate the true risk or danger of certain threats, I try to address that as well. Examples include sexual assaults and murders by friends and family members (far more children are killed, assaulted, and abducted by their parents than strangers); the dangers of alternative medicine; and belief in magic.

Like most people I tend to have a particular interest and concern in areas that I have some personal experience in; marine biologists, for example, are much more likely than the average person to be concerned about overfishing, and families of victims of bicycling accidents are more likely to campaign and fight for increased bicycle safety laws. People whose lives have been affected by breast cancer are much more likely to be better informed and more activist about preventing and trying to cure the disease than others.

There are many cases in which expertise has precisely the opposite effect, that of much less concern about widely-held or publicly perceived problems and threats precisely because knowledge of a field puts risks in perspective. Examples include GMOs, power lines, and MMR vaccinations-all of which many in the public fear because of misinformation or incomplete information. Other common examples include pilots who aren’t afraid to fly (knowing that statistically people are safer in the air than on the nation’s highways), and laypeople who become panicked upon waking up in bed apparently paralyzed, while a psychologist would recognize the experience as a harmless and common sleep-related phenomenon.

There are countless causes I support, including environmentalism, feminism, animal protection, social justice, exposing hypocrisy, and others. Yet there are only so many hours in the day, only so many dollars in my bank account. We can’t do everything, so we must pick and choose our causes. I also tend to pick smaller, lesser-known causes to support, those which seem to get less money and attention than high-profile causes. I’ve supported and donated to breast cancer research in the past, but I’m more likely to try to raise awareness of male breast cancer, partly because I feel it’s often overlooked, and partly because a (male) friend of mine died from it. This of course in no way detracts from the importance of female breast cancer-it’s not a zero-sum game-but is simply a way to remind people that a disease closely associated with women can also strike men.

Science Communication

Because skepticism and science are inextricably entertwined, there is a lot of crossover in my work. I see my job as a skeptic and also a science literacy communicator. I look for opportunities to not only provide a skeptical side to a given “paranormal” or “unexplained” topic (a side which is all too often ignored), but also to look for ways to teach my audience about important skeptical and scientific premises which they can hopefully use and apply to other situations. It’s that old “teach a man how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime” trope, but it’s true. For every news story a person sees that I provide a skeptical critique of, he or she encounters dozens or hundreds of others that have no skeptical or scientific commentary at all. My hope is that someone will take something I explained-maybe it’s as simple as knowing that correlation does not imply causation, or that eyewitness testimony is unreliable, or why a double-blind study is important, or how the placebo effect can make a treatment seem effective when it is not-and apply it to the next “mystery” or “weird news” story they see.

This is why, in my opinion, skepticism is not really about debunking this UFO video, or that ghost sighting. It’s about the process of investigation and applying critical thinking to the topic. I wrote my book Scientific Paranormal Investigation for exactly that reason, to try to explain the approaches and techniques that I and others use to solve real-world mysteries. In a real way, my goal is to democratize and demystify the process, to show that these things can be solved through hard work, persistence, good scholarship, and critical thinking (and, sometimes, a bit of luck).

“Bigfoot Skeptics”

Occasionally, people who know only a little about skepticism make dismissive comments about “Bigfoot skeptics,” as if that phrase somehow represents a fool’s errand and time wasted on frivolous claims (like Bigfoot) too silly to contemplate.

Yet this is wrongheaded, for several reasons. The most obvious is that, whether Bigfoot, ghosts, angels, and other such “silliness” exist or not is rather beside the point. What matters is that a significant number of people do believe in them, and often make decisions based upon those beliefs-from selling their home because they think it’s haunted to marrying a suitor because a psychic said it was a good idea.

I address a more important point in the final chapter of my book Tracking the Chupacabra: The Vampire Beast in Fact, Fiction, and Folklore, as a response to those who suggest that my research into an unknown monster was a waste of time. It’s not about the monster; it’s about psychology, journalism, folklore, misunderstandings, cognitive misperceptions, pop culture, and the human condition: “My research is not really about the chupacabra, for the vampiric beast almost certainly cannot and does not exist. This book is about folklore made ‘real,’ how ancient superstitions inherent in the human mind gave the European vampire a fearsome new face at the end of the twentieth century. It is about how sincere, respected eyewitnesses who claim to have seen monsters can be completely wrong. It is about how careful investigation and science can solve mysteries created by rumor, speculation, and sloppy research. It is about how rumor combined with sensationalized news reports and an anti-intellectual disdain for experts helped create a monster. It is about how the chupacabra label fills the gap between what laypeople guess and what scientists know.” This is the value in “Bigfoot skepticism.”

Other Skeptical Activism

Other forms of my skeptical activism are more direct-such as the Convicted Felon Sylvia Browne welcome banner I created, and which has greeted fake psychic Browne on her tours in about a half-dozen cities so far-and donating auction items for skeptical fundraisers like Bob Blaskiewicz’s recent efforts against childhood cancer quack doctor Burzynski. In addition to my skepticism, over the years, as opportunity and finances allow, I’ve also held fundraisers donating all profits from sales of my board game Playing Gods to various causes. For example I raised $300 for Doctors Without Borders and S.H.A.R.E. (Secular Humanist Aid & Relief Effort) for victims of the Haiti earthquake in 2010; $150 last year for Acid Survivors Trust International, a group helping women who have been victims of domestic violence and acid attacks in Pakistan, India, and the Middle East; and so on. There are many ways to participate as a skeptic, from investigations to supporting organizations to joining local groups, and we can use all the help we can get.

In Part 2 of this piece, which I hope to finish in a week or two, I will go into more depth about what I see as the proper and practical scope of skepticism and skeptical activism. I conclude here with another comment from Daniel Loxton: “Whatever it is that you value, please do your own good work-the work that moves and inspires you, the work that makes the world better according to the priorities of your conscience-whatever that work is, and wherever you feel called to contribute.”

Oz the Great and Powerful, a prequel to the 1939 classic The Wizard of Oz, tells the story of how the titular wizard came to find his way down the yellow brick road. Apparently he was a low-rent carnival magician and scamp named Oz (James Franco) before taking off in a hot air balloon and being sucked into the Technicolor world of Oz through a tornado. There he immediately meets a fetching witch (played by Mila Kunis), who apparently falls in love with him for reasons that are not at all clear, and takes him to a kingdom where he is told he must fulfill a prophecy by seeking out and destroying an evil witch.

He sets out on this quest, and after some rigmarole whose main function is to provide two “cute” sidekicks, Oz finally encounters who he believes is the evil witch, but before he can kill her (or steal the magic wand she carelessly leaves lying around for no particular reason) she informs him she’s actually the good witch. He accepts this turnabout immediately, with a shrug and an almost audible “oh, okay.” It doesn’t seem to occur to him that an evil witch might pretend to be a good witch to use him for her own purposes-despite the fact that such a situation had just happened.

At first I thought that Oz was either stupid or incredibly gullible, but then I realized that it was the screenwriters who assumed the audience is either stupid or incredibly gullible. Jessica Rabbit famously stated that she wasn’t really bad—she was just drawn that way; in Oz the Great and Powerful, Oz isn’t really stupid, he’s just written that way. He takes everything at face value, in a place where clearly nothing can be taken at face value-not the winged baboons, nor the animated porcelain dolls. It is supposed to be an important turning point in the film, when the heroes and villains become established, but it seems so arbitrary that the scene loses its power. Oz appears completely disinterested in the wonder and magic of his new home, as well as the politics of his situation.

At a reported cost of $200 million to make, Oz the Great and Powerful is a much better exercise in direction and production design than screenwriting. Director Sam Raimi does his best, but the film often tumbles into a garish mess. James Franco is simply not up to the task as an actor; he exudes-and has only rarely been able to adequately overcome-a certain frat-boy smarm. We are reminded repeatedly that this is a morality tale-that the initially irascible Oz will be redeemed in the end, finding the goodness buried deep within, and all that trite shit-but we don’t see it in Franco’s performance. Other actors were originally considered for the role, including Johnny Depp and Robert Downey, Jr.; either could have likely pulled it off, but Franco flounders.

There are other problems with the script as well. The storyline involving The Wicked Witch of the West rings hollow: Despite considerable effort by the talented Mila Kunis, nothing about her character rings true, from the first moment we encounter her in ruby-red lipstick and donning runway-ready jodhpurs, a red riding jacket, black leather pants, and feathered chapeau in the middle of the forest. The plot demands that she flies into a jealous, scorned rage at the sight of his walking with another witch woman (bland blonde beauty Michelle Williams) despite the fact that they have just met and exchanged a single kiss. There’s more than a hint of sexism as the female characters fight for the real and imagined affections of this transplanted circus huckster.

The main problem is not that the film is missing stronger links to the Warner Bros.-copyrighted (and thus conspicuously absent) Wizard of Oz characters and elements; instead, the real problem is that Oz the Great and Powerful, like the Tin Man, needs a heart.

I first heard about the Native Skeptic from Desiree Schell, the host of the Skeptically Speaking podcast. She mentioned a writer named Noah Nez who blogged about skepticism within the Native American community. In my roles with the Skeptical Inquirer magazine and the Skeptical Briefs, I have often tried to give voice to minority voices and perspectives in the skeptical community, and I was intrigued by Nez’s writings on his Web site, http://nativeskeptic.blogspot.com.

I contacted him to find out more about his work. Nez has been a columnist for the Skeptical Briefs, examining a variety of issues at the crossroads between science, skepticism, and Native American belief and cultures.

Skeptical Briefs: What’s your background, both personal and cultural?

Noah Nez: I was born on the Fort Apache reservation in a little town named Whiteriver, located in the White Mountains of eastern Arizona. However, I am a member of the San Carlos Apache tribe. I have grown up mostly in the city of Phoenix, while I spent most of my school days in the valley of the sun, I graduated my last year from the same high school both of my parents did back in our hometown, Chief Alchesay High School. My cultural background is rather diverse because of the different influences from my parents. My mother side consisted of the Hopi tribe, while my father’s side was made up of the Navajo and Apache tribes. The religious diversity that I encountered growing up was mostly Lutheranism, Roman Catholicism, and Mormonism. But we would still hold our uniquely distinct tribal beliefs. As far as I can remember, this complexity of belief systems contradicted in how the world and reality itself was to be perceived. These beliefs never really corresponded to my own personal kind of analytical thinking, even at a young age. I’ve never been afraid to question things.

What does it mean to be a “Native Skeptic”?

The term “Native Skeptic” was initially meant to be a play on words describing the perspective of looking at subjects surrounding Native American culture through the eyes of a skeptic, as a way to bridge the scientific-skeptic community with the tribal communities. It was also used to describe how I saw myself amongst the skeptical community, a fellow native of skepticism. I was hoping to get people questioning what they thought this meant, take a double take, and eventually define it in their own terms.

How did you become involved with organized skepticism?

Philosophy, Socrates, and the socratic method, planted a seed with a question, “What is knowledge?” If you can’t define that for yourself, then how can you maintain the claim that you truly “know” anything? I wanted to know how we as the collective human race compiled all of the scientific understandings of such things like Einstein’s theory of relativity or how we know certain things about the nature of subatomic particles. The Large Hadron Collider at CERN really ignited my interest in getting to the bottom of how man could even postulate such a machine. The process of how science works became clear only after I became more familiar with the history of science, and finally I had the standard for knowledge that I was looking for: scientific knowledge.

After becoming engulfed in this newfound obsession for everything science related, it was only a matter of time before I came across the Skeptics Guide to the Universe. Simply listening to the SGU let me know that there was this community out there and that really helped sharpen my critical thinking skills while establishing a deep-seeded root to be more actively involved in skepticism. I wanted to help others follow along those lines and discover how enlightening and empowering science can be through its relevance to everything.

What are some of the biggest misperceptions that non-Natives have about American Indians in general?

Aside from the more obscure stereotypes (such as the idea that all natives are well off and don’t need to seek employment because of the obscene money collected from casinos), one of the more general misconceptions is the notion that Native people posses some inherent resistance to skeptical thinking, or science in general. While I understand where this idea may come from, the tribal beliefs from the majority of tribes throughout the world share a common thread that is not widely expressed or understood.

People have always turned to nature for answers to the realities of day-to-day life, so the uncertainties that nature can bring in the form of weather or other natural disasters is often considered and represented by some form of ritual or ceremonial practices. Paradoxical thought or notions of chaos like those commonly found in Eastern philosophy are quite present. For example, the Apache tribal beliefs use a thunder bolt splitting in two directions to represent the good and bad, a representation closely congruent to the Taoist symbols of yin and yang. All cultures look to nature for the answers to questions about life and reality. Native Americans have stories and tradition of ceremony that are used as the testimonial evidence of nature. There is an ever-present concept of using methodology to seek guidance from “Mother Earth” about the truths in our lives and reality. This is why as scientific thinkers, we can say that we are somewhat free of personal bias because we let nature tell us what is real and this defines what it means to be a “free-thinker.” So scientific understanding and skeptical thought are not actually novel to Native Americans. In fact I’ve found that the representation of the Clown (or Trickster) in tribal philosophies is a reminder to always be aware of certain blind spots in humans understanding of nature and they acknowledge that ignorance by questioning their perceptions of reality.

How do you think that skepticism can benefit Native American communities?

Everything in this world has to experience and adapt alongside with the unpredictable nature of change. American Indians are no exception to this rule, for they too have had to adapt, and will continue to endure some transformation as they evolve with the changing times. Social movements such as skepticism are the exception to the common notion of people generally being resistant to change. Social groups aim to change a part of society that has been neglected or is without representation by bringing attention to them and finding support to bureaucratically transform the public perception. Since I consider skepticism to be a social group along those lines, I also think that the skeptics movement can offer Native American communities hope for a future of tribal sovereignty by offering tools of critical thought to develop a deeper understanding of various issues and how to apply that analytical thought process to the situations that people face on reservations.

How do you think that skepticism can help non-Natives understand Native American communities and issues?

If skeptics are seeking to inspire change of the worldview into a world with more scientific understanding, then people should become familiar with what a social group actually is, so that we can more effectively inspire change to that part of society which has been neglected or unrepresentative, and bring the attention to these issues to help find the support to transform the public’s perception.

I feel that the only way a person will have that urge to be proactive in helping others is through relating themselves with others. Simply bringing awareness to the discrimination that most people tend to neglect, and ignore, can be considered as some sort of success because the acknowledgment that there is a problem is the first step to identifying a need for change. However, skepticism can help anyone by providing science literacy and critical thinking to better ensure protection from all forms of nonsense and pseudoscience.

Do many Native Americans find that skepticism is incompatible with traditional beliefs? If so, how do you reconcile that?

While I do find that this notion of skepticism being incompatible with traditional beliefs to be prevalent among certain older generations, I feel that teaching others what the ancestors did practice and where those beliefs actually come from, along with some tools of critical thought, can help younger generations develop that understanding for themselves. The most influential people in my life taught through their actions, so I plan to leave my own trail of bread crumbs through sharing my personal journey to skepticism for those to follow. 

A longer version of this interview originally appeared in the Skeptical Briefs newsletter, Volume 21.3, Fall 2011

In the first part I explicitly stated that I agreed with Ensler’s goals (“I support her goals of reducing rape and other forms of violence against women”), but that I had reservations about Ensler’s use of statistics, and whether or not encouraging people to dance would actually do any good. In the second part I wrote a poem, using the same title, the same structure, and some of the same lines-echoing, expanding on, and supporting many of Ensler’s sentiments. The poem was clearly supporting and agreeing with Ensler on many topics, and I added other topics which I felt had been largely left out in the discussion (such as the issue of male rape, and the epidemic of sexual assault in Native American communities).

I disagreed with Ensler in some places, for example her characterization of “a good rape,” which I found offensive, and her focus on the media and culture as a source of rape (instead of rapists). In the third section I added two notes dealing with rape statistics, including from two-time Pulitzer nominee Steven Pinker’s new book, which (for those who bothered to look up the reference) explicitly addresses the problem of rape underreporting that some people brought up. If people think Pinker’s data about the 80% drop in rapes over the past 30 years is wrong, they should contact him directly.

I did not say or suggest that people should not participate in the One Billion Rising events, or that they were stupid for doing so; in fact I wrote “If people want to do the dance, that’s great.” I just said that I, personally, see no value in it and will not be participating. (I have a general skepticism about the effectiveness of countless “awareness raising” campaigns-is anyone really unaware of rape, or bullying, or child abuse, or drunk driving, or the dangers of obesity, or any other common social problem?)

So why the anger and venom? Why would anyone get enraged and morally indignant because I think women dancing is a waste of time and not actually helping decrease the incidence of physical and sexual assault?

The piece was completely feminist, pro-women, anti-rape, and pro-activism. Even the parts that questioned Ensler’s statistics explained why those misleading statistics actually harm women. The argument was not for an end to anti-rape activism, instead it was quite the opposite: it was for effective anti-rape activism, informed by valid statistics.

The phrase “I’m over rape” does not say or suggest that either I or Eve Ensler (who originated the phrase) is tired of hearing about rape, or that anyone should be quiet about it or not speak out. I used (and repeated) Ensler’s phrase exactly as she meant it: I am “over rape” in exactly the same way that Ensler is “over rape”: It is time for it to end, and as I wrote, “I am over rape. I join mothers, sisters, fathers, brothers, and lovers in condemning rape and all manner of violence against women. All rape is bad. It is never deserved, nor asked for, nor good; it is always bad and wrong. Always.”

The words and intent were repeated, crystal clear, and written without a trace of irony or sarcasm but instead a heartfelt passion that “Women deserve better; they deserve real answers and real help-not faux activism, ineffective e-petitions, or dancing flash mobs.”

Is it possible to somehow interpret this as supporting rape in some way? I didn’t think so, yet over the past week I have been criticized and vilified, painted as a misogynist, “rape apologist” and even “anti-feminist” by a few people who either didn’t read my piece, or didn’t understand it.

Addressing Criticisms

I have mostly avoided looking at the comments because very few of them actually address the content of what I wrote. PZ Myers, somewhat predictably, jumped at the chance to dress me down for my perceived sexism in a blog titled, “You Don’t Get to Be ‘Over’ Rape” -an obvious dig at the poems by Ensler and myself.

Myers admits that I’m technically correct that Ensler’s statistics are not exactly right, but claims I’m being “hyperskeptical,” and states that “One billion women have been victims of ‘homicide, intimate partner abuse, psychological abuse, dating violence, same-sex violence, elder abuse, sexual assault, date rape, acquaintance rape, marital rape, stranger rape and economic abuse,’ confirmed by statistics that Radford cites. One billion women. Radford’s hyperskepticism is so fierce that he objects to Ensler using 3 general words - raped, beaten, violated - instead of 26 more specific words, but is willing to overlook the horrific truth that she is correct and one billion women will suffer for their sex in their lifetime.”

Except that I didn’t; Myers misread it. I actually didn’t write the “one billion” figure that Myers misquotes me as saying; that was Ensler’s number. What I actually wrote (check it yourself) was that “one-third of women [have been victims of] homicide, intimate partner abuse, psychological abuse, dating violence, same-sex violence, elder abuse, sexual assault, date rape, acquaintance rape, marital rape, stranger rape and economic abuse.” (One in three women is not the same as one billion if you do the math, though perhaps that’s just my hyperskepticism.)

Furthermore Myers apparently didn’t read the list very carefully, or he might have noticed that many of these “specific words” (as the phrase he uses) aren’t really comparable to being “raped, beaten, or violated.” We can start with homicide, which is clearly not the same as (and in fact is much worse than) being “raped, beaten, or violated.” Psychological abuse, which can include anything from controlling behavior to verbal insults to bullying and suicide threats, is not necessarily the same as being “raped, beaten, or violated.” Same-sex violence could certainly be included as potentially akin to being “raped, beaten, or violated,” though Ensler focuses on male-perpetrated, opposite-sex rape. Elder abuse, also, may include anything from theft of personal property to insults, physical abuse, and abandonment (and is not gender-specific); these, also, are not necessarily the same thing as being “raped, beaten, or violated.” Then there’s economic abuse, which can include anything from preventing a person from taking a certain job to running up unauthorized bills on another’s credit card to unlawful eviction to bank fraud; these, too, are not quite the same as being “raped, beaten, or violated.” (Nor, for that matter, are all these examples of “women suffer[ing] for their sex.”)

But Myers knows that.

He knows that not all the dozen or so specific categories included under the umbrella term “violence against women” (as defined by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the DOJ) are the same as being “raped, beaten, or violated.” It is Myers, not me, who wants to split hairs; I explicitly stated that “all these are serious, legitimate problems” even if they are not equivalent to rape. No matter how you slice it, Ensler’s statistic is flawed, and does not say what she says it does. If the number is really one in four, or one in five that doesn’t imply that rape is not a real problem, as I stated in the original piece. But addressing social problems requires good data—and this point has nothing to do with feminism or rape; I discuss this problem of exaggerated statistics being used in “stranger danger” and child abductions at length in my Media Mythmakers book. Instead of acknowledging that flawed numbers shouldn’t be used to support important causes, Myers chose to suggest that questioning the statistic is somehow an effort to minimize rape. It only takes a few seconds of thought or a few minutes of web searches to see that I’m correct about the varied, non-beating, non-rape (yet often no less serious) types of abuses under “violence against women.”

Oh, it also takes one other thing that Myers and his ilk lack: it’s called charity.

Charity

It means giving someone the benefit of the doubt, trying to see things from another point of view instead of searching for ways to misunderstand, misinterpret, and mischaracterize another’s position.

Steve Novella recently commented on this in the context of recent, similar attacks on Harriet Hall regarding gender and sexism: “I think we all should remember the principle of charity, something which is often missing in these internal fights. When considering another’s argument it helps to give it the most charitable interpretation, to argue against the best possible argument on the “other side.” This is the antidote to the straw man fallacy. If you are not charitable then it is likely that you will waste time arguing against a position that was never articulated. Find common ground and be charitable… My problem with so many of the exchanges that are fueling internal strife is that they are maximally uncharitable to the target of their criticism. This is very counterproductive.”

Indeed, I brought up that very issue last year-ironically in the context of Novella’s Skeptics Guide to the Universe co-host Rebecca Watson’s vitriolic and largely misguided criticism of a piece I wrote:

It’s often the case that outrage and insults substitute for truth and accuracy; it’s easier to call someone stupid than it is to engage them respectfully. It’s easier to have knee-jerk, facepalming reactions than it is to thoughtfully see if there’s some misunderstanding on someone’s part-or, god forbid, even some common ground. For my part, I take my cues from Ray Hyman, one of my heroes and one of the founders of both CSCIOP and the modern skeptical movement.
If you haven’t read Ray’s piece “Proper Criticism,” you should; it’s what guides editorial policy in Skeptical Inquirer. It’s a short piece explaining how best to deal with people and claims you disagree with. I’ll quote a few short sections: “Many well-intentioned critics have jumped into the fray without carefully thinking through the various implications of their statements. They have sometimes displayed more emotion than logic, made sweeping charges beyond what they can reasonably support, failed to adequately document their assertions, and, in general, failed to do the homework necessary to make their challenges credible. The principle of charity implies that, whenever there is doubt or ambiguity about a claim, we should try to resolve the ambiguity in favor of the claimant until we acquire strong reasons for not doing so. In this respect, we should…convey the opponent’s position in a fair, objective, and non-emotional manner. We should avoid using loaded and prejudicial words in our criticisms.”

I’m a big boy. I’m used to hate mail and nasty, anonymous comments and criticisms, both founded and unfounded. It’s part of the job, both as a writer and as a skeptic. But the sad part is that I strongly suspect that I am often on the same side of an issue and share the same goals as many of my most vitriolic critics. But they don’t notice because they’re shouting at me.

I will close with a few wise comments from Harriet Hall:

• Please read what I say, not what you choose to imagine I meant to say.
• Please don’t try to argue about statements I never made.
• Please try to understand that “I like to do it my way” does not equate to “I’m accusing you of being wrong for doing it your way.”
• I don’t think I deserve your contempt and hostility.

Why PZ Myers (or anyone else) would presume to criticize an anti-rape poem (of all things) by a prominent feminist is beyond me, but at least one of us is terribly, terribly confused.