As I wrote yesterday about skeptics’ failing to get involved in matters such as the 20-weeks abortion ban bill passed by the US house, I got some negative comments about skepticism’s involvement in politics, and the negative effect it can have on the movement. I happen not to share this concern. Because if the goal of skepticism is to stay clear of politics, there are large numbers of issues that it cannot touch, and hence it turns into “selective skepticism”. If skeptics apply critical thinking to one set of issues but not others, how do you tell skeptics apart from anyone else? After all, someone who doesn’t apply the scientific method to tarot/dowsing rods/etc. maybe doing the exact same thing: being selective. Maybe skeptics have to make their mind: you can be a skeptic, or you can be apolitical. You can’t always be both.
Case in point: the same bill. The “scientific evidence” used to justify it is beyond idiotic; it is stunning. If this counts as science, then the Onion is a scientific journal. Not that the Onion humorists can ever be remotely as hilarious as US congressmen, though.
“Watch a sonogram of a 15-week baby, and they have movements that are purposeful,” said Burgess, a former OB/GYN. “They stroke their face. If they’re a male baby, they may have their hand between their legs. If they feel pleasure, why is it so hard to believe that they could feel pain?”
http://youtu.be/kdoGGk59gaI
So, there you have it. The good “doctor” sees fetal motions on ultrasound, some of them touching their legs and some touching their skin elsewhere, and somehow this convinces him that they are “feeling pleasure”. If this is not something a skeptic can, and should, tear to pieces, then frankly I don’t see the point of a skeptic movement.
