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user-inactivated · 2887 days ago · link · · parent · post: Dear "Skeptics," Bash Homeopathy and Bigfoot Less, Mammograms and War More
Ramsey Dukes argues that people are going to engage in magical thinking regardless of how often we shake our fingers at them, so attacking the openly irrational just drives them to become pseudoscientists instead. We're better off with astrologers who are obviously not doing science so if you seek them out you know what you're getting than homeopaths who are only obviously not doing science if you know some chemistry and take the time to look into how they claim their water works. Dukes is an occultist and not a skeptic, but I become more sympathetic to his point of view the more arguments I get in with singularity kooks. The world really would be a better place with more Alan Moores and fewer Eliezer Yudkowskys.