The Armchair Skeptic

Civility is in the eye of the beholder

2011-08-08T21:00:00.000-07:00

civility: civilized conduct; especially: courtesy, politeness
(Merriam-Webster)

There's been quite a bit of discussion on the internet about Rebecca Watson's talk at the CFI Student Leadership Conference, and her "calling out" of Stef McGraw, who was in the audience at the conference. Apparently, there are many in the community who see nothing wrong with what Watson did, since she was "civil" while doing so.

I've been somewhat puzzled by this, but Mrs. A.S. has been particularly pained by this apparent lack of empathy - even more so now that the video has been posted. So she put together this little exercise and asked me to post it here.

Transcript of the Rebecca Watson talk at the CFI Leadership Conference 2011

2011-07-31T12:53:00.001-07:00

The Center for Inquiry has posted the video recording of Rebecca Watson's talk from the CFI Leadership Conference on 26 Jun 2011. If you have been following the "Elevatorgate" hubbub, you'll remember that this is the talk in which RW "called out" Stef McGraw.

After the jump, I've included a transcript of the introductory part of the talk (the first 17 and a half minutes or so). Warning: the transcript includes words that may be offensive to some people, and are definitely NSFW.

Rebecca Watson Engages in Demagoguery, Embarrasses Skeptics Everywhere

2011-05-21T11:47:00.001-07:00

Lawrence Krauss is a prominent physicist and skeptic who was raked over the coals by Rebecca Watson in April for standing up for what turned out to be a perfectly reasonable and rational opinion of the media circus that had developed around the Jeffrey Epstein affair. Krauss, who was initially quoted on the Daily Beast website, had remarked that despite the exaggerated claims being made in the press and by lawyers representing alleged victims, he had not seen any empirical evidence to support those claims.

The "New" Atheism: Real Progress or Trendy Political Fad?

2009-09-20T11:53:00.000-07:00

Mrs. A.S. and I will be going to the AAI 2009 convention at the beginning of October. We have never been to an atheists convention before, and after our experience with some local atheists, we've been somewhat apprehensive about what we'll find there. So to prepare ourselves, we bought a DVD of the AAI 2007 convention to watch.

Prominent Skeptics: People, Not Heroes

2009-07-30T05:23:00.000-07:00

Michael Shermer has blogged about politics again, triggering another raft of comments on whether that's an appropriate topic for skeptics. A comment from Jason Loxton warned about the damage that can be done to one's reputation as a skeptic by associating oneself with a particular political view. Jason was concerned about the fact that he was now skeptical of Shermer and Penn Jillette on certain topics because of their politics, whereas he once considered them "intellectual heroes." My first thought on reading that was, "So what?"

Half-Smart

2009-07-20T04:24:00.000-07:00

During a panel discussion on Skepticism and Magic at TAM7, the often-asked question came up yet again: should skeptics learn something about magic to help them in investigating paranormal claims? The response was the one I've heard many times before about how dangerous that can be: someone learns one way to do a particular trick, goes charging off to a psychic (or whatever) armed with this limited knowledge, then gets caught off-guard because there are other ways to do it that they don't know about. The term magicians use for this is "half-smart."

Nostalgia

2009-07-10T21:50:00.000-07:00

Ah, the good old days. Remember those? That's the time when just about everything was better than it is today: music, movies, food, the environment, people, culture, life generally. We didn't have the imminent destruction of the planet looming over our heads, caused by the excesses of modern living. We didn't have to worry about greedy corporations poisoning our food supply, hoarding all our wealth, and dumbing down our culture. Government was kinder and gentler, with leaders that we respected and admired. Family values weren't under constant threat, as they are today. People led happier lives, untainted by the decay brought on by today's societal ills.

Politics, Economics, and Social Issues

2009-06-28T07:07:00.000-07:00

Skeptics are generally united when it comes to applying critical thinking to questions about physical reality. Ask a group of skeptics about ESP, dowsing, or chi, and you'll typically find that they all agree that there is no plausible scientific explanation, and no reasonable evidence, to support the claims made about these subjects. Even when it comes to religion, any dispute among skeptics stems mainly from whether or not science can be used to investigate claims about gods. When it comes to political, economic, and social issues, however, skeptics are all over the map.

Morality, Ethics, and Religion

2009-06-17T05:04:00.000-07:00

One of the common arguments in favor of religion is that people need religion to be moral; without it, "anything goes." Of course, this is rubbish. There have been studies that show that there is little correlation between religious belief and ethical behavior. And there is some research that shows that ethical behavior has an evolutionary origin, with "reciprocal altruism" being a survival characteristic.

Why I Am Not An Atheist

2009-06-14T20:40:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid, I never really thought much about the existence or non-existence of supernatural things: gods, ghosts, aliens, etc. I wasn't skeptical, but I wasn't exactly a believer, either. My family wasn't overly religious; after my parents were divorced, my mom would occasionally try to find a church that she was comfortable going to, and would drag us kids along. But she would eventually find something about the church she didn't like, and we'd go back to sleeping in on Sundays. When I was a senior in high school, and Mom was into churchgoing again, it finally sunk in that I just couldn't believe in a god.