that they would even put Second hand smoke in the same mythical category as end of the world hysteria and alien abduction. I wonder how much Big Tobacco paid them to sell out like whores. I used to like them. Now I despise them. Imagine the karma they have acquired through this.
If I’m understanding the complaint correctly, you people are bitching because you naturally assumed that a couple of respected skeptics would only disbelieve things that you yourselves disbelieve. If you can’t handle the fact that skepticism applies to your own beliefs and you must dismiss differing views with the word ‘whore,’ go home and get a religion. Skepticism is a rope that will fit any neck.
Right, and this isn’t ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ either. If they don’t believe that second-hand smoke is harmful, it doesn’t mean the tobacco company ‘got to them’. There’s a lot of things P & T talk about that may not sit well with everyone, and might alienate their audience, such as religion. They chose to be vocal about the things they are skeptical about, and to point fingers at the tobacco company for this seems absurd to me.
Tobacco companies covering up the existence of extraterrestrials is a whole other story.
“Companies”
Not
“Company”
Sorry… sometimes I don’t picture them as sperate companies because they seem all bunched together by protesters.
You’re not understanding the complaint correctly.
Just to clarify my own position, I’m not looking to P&T as the final arbiter of anything. My beef is that you can’t debunk something by use of logical fallacy, and in large measure that’s what P&T did in this ep IMHO.
From their site:
http://sho.com/ptbs/community.cfm
Q: What makes you think you have ANY qualifications to do anything other than entertain us with whacky magic tricks? No doubt you will find considerable BS to expose in areas that are well known frauds. I wonder if you have the personal integrity let alone the mental capacity to do an accurate and fair job on such topics as alternative medicine.
Penn: Yup, that’s the way to attack us and it’s exactly right. If you’re looking for experts, we ain’t them. It’s as easy as that. But, we are people living in the USA trying hard to make sense out of the world. We use the expertise available to us and we try to tell the truth as we see it. If we’re wrong, that’s great – it can sure be proved that these things are true very very easily. Anything that’s true we’ll have no effect on. We could do a “Bullshit” on the speed of light, and it would mean nothing, it’s proven and it’s easy to show that the work is right. That doesn’t seem to be true with what we’ve done. On some of the upcoming shows our position is much more modest, “There isn’t evidence about second hand smoke” and “The environmental movement overstates some of it’s claims.” If we’re wrong – just prove it. That’s all, just give us information. All the things we’ve debunked so far, can be proven very very easily – why isn’t anyone doing it? It’s all-anecdotal and faith. Just prove us wrong – it should be easy, we’re cheesy Vegas magicians!
Teller: Magic is the art of creating false (but funny or beautiful) cause-and-effect relationships. That’s our area of expertise. When we do it on a stage, the audience is fooled, but only for the moment, only in the theater. They know they’re watching a show. They know it’s all tricks. They do not go home and try to float in the air or catch bullets in their teeth.
When we see scam artists peddling false cause-and-effect as reality; when we see the tools of theater and poetry used to victimize the vulnerable; when we sick people submitting to “medical procedures” that belong in a Three Stooges movie; all this enrages us.
That rage drives the show. But it would be irresponsible to make an informational show without checking the facts. So we have a very conscientious team that does research, and consults world-class professionals. The physicians and scientists who were interviewed on the alternative medicine show are not actors. They are respected experts in their field. They supply the “integrity and mental capacity” you think we lack.
If we are wrong, please prove it. We’ll welcome that. But to persuade us that we are wrong, you will have to present credible scientific evidence. If you want to be taken seriously, I suggest more facts and less sarcasm.
With all due respect, perhaps it isn’t rhetorically appropriate to reject an argument as a logical fallacy (appeal to authority) and commit your own (ad hominem) in the very same sentence.