Enlighten the newb: Who are the SDMB woo-woos who argue WELL?

The BBQ Pit
1

I’ve not been on SDMB that long and in fact, am still in the process of being housebroken. :smiley:

I still have a lot of questions. One of them being, who are the resident SDMB woo-woos (religionists, mystics, creationists/IDers, conspiracy theorists, birthers, anti-vaxers, etc.) who actually argue WELL most of the time? :confused:

I have on several occasions witnessed a small handful of Dopers (who for the moment shall remain nameless, since I’ve already picked on them enough elsewhere) whose posts are absolute rhetorical train wrecks, and I just came from reading a thread in ATMB in which Peter Morris was flailing wildly about in trying to argue that the terms woo and woo-woo are in fact…“hate speech”. (I shit you not; this was his actual point.)

Anyway, please tell me that the SDMB’s Anti-Science League has some clean-up hitters whose argumentative average hovers somewhere at least above .200, and that I just haven’t observed them at bat yet. And who are they?

Thanks.

<superfluous, verbose background info>

I’m new to this board, but not to science/philosophy/religion forums in general. One thing I’ve consistently noticed, both on this forum and on other bulletin boards, in the past, is that there seems to be a positive correlation between skepticism of woo and a good grasp of argumentative logic and rhetoric.

IOW, in my subjective observation, skeptics are usually MUCH better at debate than are adherents of various kinds of anti-rationalism. I have my own hypotheses of why this is, but sharing those here would be getting too verbose and superfluous, even for me. :smiley:

</s,vbi>

2

Supposedly Bricker argues stupid points articulately, but I’ve never personally found him convincing.
Liberal, too.
Truth be told, the praise these guys occasionally get is as mysterious to me as moon-hoax claims.

3

:: yawn ::

So be honest, the entire reason you started this thread was to throw out a general fuck you to these “anti-science” people you are looking for and throwing down the gauntlet to see which of them will step forward to prove their arguing prowess?

So edgy to come to this board and pronounce your skeptical stance. Why not just start threads about this shit you want to argue about and sit back and wait for the people to come to you?

In short: your thread sucks already

4

Bricker can write quite well, even when he is just practicing his arguing skills. Same with John Mace. But neither are selling colon cleansing cures, UFO theories or the like. They both troll for shameless middle of the road there is nothing to see here you must be out of your mind.

I, on the other hand, have been known to state that it is my opinion that JFK, RFK and Martin Luther King, Jr. were assassinated by conspiracies. But not as fact, as there aren’t sufficient facts to back up such an argument. So I’ll go with conspiracy theories, just unconvincingly. Meaning I’ll entertain them.

5

We don’t have a very large Anti-Science League here and I’m not really sure what anti-rationalism is. Sounds made up. Didn’t you start this thread so that you could drop a few buzzwords and get in some cheap shots?

And yeah, Peter Morris is a fucking idiot.

6

What’s a religionist? If you just mean people who have a religion, those are quite common. If you mean they actually have to be arguing for their religion, then, not so much. Religion seems to be fairly isolated, and only affects religious reasoning.

I cannot say anything about the rest of the “woowoos.”

7

Yeah, this really is shit stirring.

Your OP boils down to “Let’s call out ‘articulate’ woo-wooers (whatever the hell that means) and have ourselves a Super Friends vs. Legion of Doom battle royale!”

This is nothing more than a call to rattling some cages, poking with a stick, get some folks all riled up so we can point and laff.

I mean this was your intent, right?

Methinks this won’t pan out as you had hoped.

8

And people call me a troll.

9

It’s pretty much a given that rational argument on behalf of irrationality is going to be rare to nonexistent.

It pretty much boils down to:

  • here are some really neat anecdotes
  • science was wrong before
  • they persecuted Galileo
  • what about the Tuskegee Experiment
  • you’re a meanie
  • lots of people believe this stuff
  • here are some cranks with degrees who believe it too
  • my critics are being paid off/part of the conspiracy
  • you can’t prove me wrong

This can go on indefinitely.

Here’s a viable debate topic: is it redundant to refer to woo-woo(s)? Do we need more than one woo? One might ask if we need any woo, but laughs are sometimes in short supply.

10

Jealousy is ugly.

11

You’re really digging not being a mod, aintcha? :wink:

12

Yes, but no one’s accused you of arguing well.

13

Depends what we are arguing about.

Go on, start one now and we’ll see how good you are.

14

Will this be a five minute argument, or the full half hour?

15

Excuse me, do you have an appointment?

16

Pretty much any John Woo film is redundant.

17

Yeesh, I don’t even get an honorable mention?

18

Troo woos are not self-aware about their condition, therefore you just flunked the test.

19

Religionist? Is that like a Jihadist or an Islamist?

I must admit, despite not being part of your list of alt-thinkers above, I love the phrase some much I’ve appropriated it for my personal title. I keep hearing it in a daffy duck voice.

That said, I suppose I have a somewhat checkered history in this regard. I’m a scientist, but I love other people’s religions, simply because they are so freaking bizarre. Similarly, I adore Forteana, and bigfoot and stuff like that, mostly because of the range of weirdness it brings along, not because I expect, or even hope, pr even wish, that any of it will ever pan out and be revealed as true. I have less tolerance for snake oil medicine because it does harm, and for UFOs because they’re really boring. So I like having woowoo people around, and I’m interested in what they have to say, even though I’m not buying any. I also don’t like being impolite to people when they talk about their beliefs if I can avoid it.

I ratted out Diogenes in the ghostly visitation thread, 'cause I thought he was thread shitting. I love the idea of helping Der Trihs and Clockwork’ try to kill an angry vengeful god. I participated in the ill-fated ‘ask the buddhist’ thread, but I got awful tired of Chief Pedant telling people what they think.

I really like the fact that this board is welcoming to atheists, and sometimes I wish it were more welcoming to other people. I’d prefer it if we could have a civil discussion, or even a fiery debate in GD, without having to go for blood whenever someone mentions religion or the supernatural in MPSIMS. I regret the loss of civility and interesting threads that this seems to entail.

Woo.

20

Isn’t this an example of the infamous ‘No True Woo’ fallacy?

:smiley: