[lbo-talk] a different kind of pseudoscience

[Tommy Kelly]

Jim Devine writes:
Bauer likes a lot of Shermer's work, but rejects his scientism, his
dogmatic rejection of all pseudoscience. Bauer sees what's normally
called "pseudoscience" as often being frontier science (and often
being hoaxes,etc.) He sees a lot of it as simply harmless (like
astrology columns in the newspaper), not something to be campaigned
against the way Shermer does. In general, he sees Shermer and
pseudoscientists as having a lot in common.

Although I cannot find the issue, the Skeptical Inquirer had an article
about Ronald and Nancy Reagan not only believing in astrology but using an
astrologer for important decisions.  It's situations like that, that make me
worry about the level of trust people have in it and other forms of
pseudoscience (e.g. Intelligent Design, flying saucers abducting people and
raping them in their labs on spaceships, etc.).  But since I'm not an
atheist anymore I tend to distance myself when some - but not all - of them
try to aim at religion which should be held in another section of
skepticism.  Unlike Michael Shermer's Skeptic magazine, the CSICOP wisely
divide the two areas into two magazines, one being Skeptical Inquirer, and
the other being Free Inquirer (which is not a bad magazine to read, it just
that I don't belong to that community anymore).