Falsifiability and the Skeptics
Geplaatst door
Titus Rivas (publicatiedatum: 15 August, 2011)
Samenvatting
The real debunker truly feels no affinity whatsoever with falsifiability. It is a principle that is incompatible with the debunker's a priori unfalsifable, in practice 100% immunized skeptical ideology.
Falsifiability and the Skeptics
by Titus Rivas
Debunkers simply refuse to acknowledge any defeat, no matter how strong the arguments.
So-called skeptics who are really debunkers really think high of themselves. In their view, they are the rationalists and freethinkers par excellence. Like sentinels of orthodox science they look down upon heterodox scholars. Character assassination and a misleading representation of heresies are important parts of their weaponry. No less important is their abuse of respectable principles from the philosophy of science such as parsimony. By definition, a heretic needs to be deterred or exiled from the scientific community, regardless of the strength of the heretic's argumentation. If possible, the humiliation should be so great that it will prevent a second heretic action. Counter arguments need to immediately rebound against the skeptic's armor and any complaint about dishonorable behaviour needs to be neutralised as deriving from mere "prejudice" or amounting to nothing more than a pathetic flood of abuse.
A dazzling example of the manner in which skeptics serve science as a whole, concerns their treatment of the principle of falsifiability. Opponents, such as parapsychologists, ensure that their theories are falsifiable almost without exception, but this fact is simply ignored or denied by skeptics. Also, any theory that does not match the skeptics' own scientific views is almost by definition unfalsifiable, or so they seem to think. The facts really do not matter if you wish to silence your opponent. The most peculiar aspect about their supposed veneration of the falsifiability requirement, is that their own dealing with mainstream theorizing seems incompatible with it. Skepticism, in the naturalistic and materialistic sense, can only maintain itself by aborting any falsifiability of orthodoxy as soon as it threatens to arise.
In other words, the real debunker truly feels no affinity whatsoever with falsifiability. It is a principle that is incompatible with the debunker's a priori unfalsifable, in practice 100% immunized skeptical ideology.
By the way, this is not the only example in which the debunker defends a principle while continuously violating it.
For instance, the skeptic adheres to the value of empirical research, but denies that very value as soon as research yields results that clash with the debunker's world view. The debunker claims to be rational, but rejects rational ontological argumentation as "irrelevant" whenever they threaten the ontological basis of materialistic skepticism. He purports to be open-minded and keeps all the doors shut. The debunker's skepticism is a magician's pride. Skilled in tricks as they are, they still manage to fool the masses with their illusions.
Titus Rivas, August 2011.
Free translation from the Dutch.
Contact: titusrivas@hotmail.com