X-Message-Number: 19784
Date: Mon, 12 Aug 2002 12:08:46 -0500
From: Trent <>
Subject: #19735: Shermer, "skeptics", debunkers and odds. [George Smith]

At 09:00 8/10/02 +0000, you wrote:
>#19735: Shermer, "skeptics", debunkers and odds. [George Smith]...


I have seen this guy in Joplin, Missouri, speaking at the college there. He 
is a joke.

He is a good showman. He is a good speaker. He has some good points. But so 
would a 1,000 monkeys with a 1,000 typewriters...


What I did not like was his audience pandering, name calling, making fun, 
and humor. They all have a place in speaking; when you are at an 
"educational" speech about science, there is little place for them.

Some highlights:

Made fun of the physicist Brain Greene. Agree or disagree with him mocking 
him with funny voices and eye rolling really didn't answer my technical 
question. Mr. Shermer couldn't get any more detailed than that. Got 
everybody to laugh a lot, though. Haha.

Debunk UFO's by humorous antidotes about long trips. Belive or not, I would 
like some facts, not suppositions. FTL travel being possible or not I would 
guess that kids using the bathroom is the least of NASA (or space aliens) 
worries. His "fact" about propulsion was easily dispelled by a 6th grade 
newspaper article - NASA already uses / has viable plans for the "fantasy" 
propulsion he "debunked" as being 50 years in the future.

Doesn't belive in God. Very vehement on this. Believe or not, it wasn't the 
topic of conversation, so why bring it up? Oh, it will get people to 
talking and you can avoid "hard" questions (see 1st point above).

Although he doesn't seem to belive in God, he offers no explanation why no 
other planet anywhere has life, except that it doesn't. He has faith it 
doesn't; he just "knows". See above reference about having "faith" in things.



Upon arriving home I opened the mail; got a Scientific American; turn to 
100 years ago today, article about airships and how a panel of the most 
prominent scientists of the day explain how it is impossible for people to 
ever use them, using the same method Shermer does. Found that humorous...

Shermer is no better than the people he ridicules; many of them make their 
living promoting paranormal stuff, with little or no proof, and he says 
this is bad - they get paid to distort the truth and have no scientific 
proof. Yet, he makes his living the same way, only in the opposite belief 
system....

Trent

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