Peterson, Priestcraft, Profits and the Paranormal

[Everybody Wang Chung]

"some pretty nasty notes" which no one (except the Afore) can see. So I guess we have to take his word for it? It's remarkable how intolerant they are over there--how unable they are to absorb even pretty gentle criticism. As for Axel Being Civil--my goodness, the poor guy has to bend over backwards, constantly reassuring the faithful that he's extra-super-nice, and doesn't think anything even remotely bad or negative about any of their fragile beliefs.

Well, now that the Afore has successfully driven off Axelbeingcivil, another sad chapter in the Afore's blog closes. Between the chronic plagiarism, the constant recycling of uninteresting posts, and insecure trigger-happy banning, the blog has finally evolved into what it always aspired to be, an echo chamber visited only by a tiny claque of unhinged zealots. Proving, yet again, that folks, you really can't make this stuff up.

[drumdude]

"some pretty nasty notes" which no one (except the Afore) can see. So I guess we have to take his word for it? It's remarkable how intolerant they are over there--how unable they are to absorb even pretty gentle criticism. As for Axel Being Civil--my goodness, the poor guy has to bend over backwards, constantly reassuring the faithful that he's extra-super-nice, and doesn't think anything even remotely bad or negative about any of their fragile beliefs.

Well, now that the Afore has successfully driven off Axelbeingcivil, another sad chapter in the Afore's blog closes. Between the chronic plagiarism, the constant recycling of uninteresting posts, and insecure trigger-happy banning, the blog has finally evolved into what it always aspired to be, an echo chamber visited only by a tiny claque of unhinged zealots. Proving, yet again, that folks, you really can't make this stuff up.

ABC is still there. He treats Dan with kid gloves which is the only way even the lightest hints of criticism can stay up on the blog.

[Marcus]

I note that Peterson in his blog post parallels Smith’s remote viewing nonsense with Michael Faraday, James Clerk Maxwell, and even, Sir Isaac Newton. He is going out of his way to “big up” Smith’s own-branded snake oil. However, Peterson still refuses to declare to his audience, upon whom he is sustaining a barrage of marketing on behalf of Smith’s remote viewing con job, if he has put his own money where his mouth is. Has Peterson paid a few thousand dollars of his own money for one or more of Smith’s courses? Yes or no?

On a side note, DCP introduces that entry thus:

Below, I offer some notes from Carlo Rovelli, Reality Is Not What It Seems: The Journey to Quantum Gravity, translated by Simon Carnell and Erica Segre (Penguin, 2017), mingled with some comments of my own.

"Mingled with." You don't have to read further to know that Peterson is once again plagiarizing someone else's work.

[Doctor Scratch]

It's pretty obvious what's going on: the whole thing with "Remote Viewing" is, for the Afore, just a stunt to show his readers how "open minded" he actually is. But this is a pretty poor thing to use for that purpose, because *of course* he's open to the idea of remote viewing being true. He lays out his basic view here:

I’m quite interested in the subject, though not deeply committed to the truth of such psi capability. If remote viewing proves to be illusory, nothing in my worldview is threatened. On the other hand, if there is something real in it, that would seem to suggest that strict naturalistic materialism is unlikely to be true.

In other words, just about anything that might suggest that "strict naturalistic materialism is unlikely to be true" is something that he's going to be interested in. But when you think about it, this doesn't speak to "open-mindedness" at all: it's really just a (quite lame) attempt to shore up his faith and reinforce his already nearly zealot-level, unbending beliefs.

If he *really* wanted to prove his open-mindedness, he could (e.g.) bring in someone who challenges "strict naturalistic materialism" in a far more uncomfortable way. For example, why not invite an occultist, or a follower of Alastair Crowley onto his blog? Is he open-minded enough to entertain the idea that witchcraft, or Satan worship could puncture the bubble of "strict naturalistic materialism"? The very real existence of demons, or possession, or hauntings, or ghosts would also support the idea that rigid "naturalistic materialism" fails to tell the whole story. But you don't see him courageously dealing with these topics, do you.

Or, let him prove his open-mindedness in other ways. Why not practice Islam for a few months? Or ditch the Church for a year, so that he can say that he's now seen both sides? He seems to believe that watching 80 episodes of the Brigham Young project is something that a "fair-minded" person ought to do when forming an opinion about Mormonism. Why doesn't he watch the equivalent amount of films produced by the Watchtower, or Scientology? Next time he's in the L.A. area, why doesn't he head on over to the big blue building for a complimentary auditing session, and he can report on it to his loyal readers at SeN? It would say, "Hey, I'm open-minded and gave it a shot, but for me, Mormonism wins out in the end!" Staying firmly entrenched without ever taking any authentic risks or trying anything that's legitimately new is not convincing in the slightest.

[Physics Guy]

They give out phds for writing summaries of work others have already done? Are you sure it wasn't a senior dissertation, I've heard they do that at some colleges. Does he have a new idea? What I'm really curious about is how this "helps" his case for remote viewing?

There are some chapters of argument besides the parapsychology summary chapters, but on the whole it didn't seem like what I was expecting from a philosophy dissertation. I'm not sure what I should have expected, but I felt as though quotations from a bunch of philosophers had been cherry-picked from their sources and then scattered before the reader. I didn't get either a complete overview of the range of ideas or a clear appreciation of how each alternative viewpoint held together. I didn't get the impression that any substantial original contribution would remain in the thesis if you didn't accept all it claimed about the parapsychology results.

Maybe that's normal in this kind of work. You don't have to be Einstein to get a doctorate in physics, and you shouldn't have to be Kant to get one in philosophy. The only course in philosophy I ever took was a junior-year seminar in philosophy of science, so I can't really judge. I couldn't help wondering, though, whether maybe Smith got his degree in philosophy because the philosophers just assumed that his parapsychology was all that he said it was, and now he's basing his claim to authority in parapsychology on his degree in philosophy.

Besides the philosophers, Smith's dissertation committee did include a UC Irvine statistician who became a champion of parapsychology, as well as one of the founders of remote viewing, Harold Puthoff.

[Physics Guy]

Peterson is just blithely assuming that rejection of remote viewing can only be due to unwillingness to examine radical ideas. How tolerant and respectful would he be of the radical idea that Arabic script is not really a language at all, but only a bunch of squiggly pictograms to illustrate stories about worms, eels, and snakes?

It might or might not be true, and I'm not going to become a Muslim just because Arabic does turn out to be a real language, if it does. I'm interested* in the Arabic-snake-stories theory, though, because if it is true, then I definitely won't have to worry about the Quran being a real divine revelation. And I can point to some studies of so-called "Arabic calligraphy" in which the so-called "letters" are found to go up and down and around on the page, and even get large and small, without any regard to the order of letters in words. So that's some serious evidence that deserves consideration, right?

*No, I'm not actually interested at all in this theory, even though I cannot read Arabic, because I somehow have the idea that there is more to Arabic literature than I personally happen to know. If Peterson were to dismiss the Arabic-snake-stories theory, and even call people foolish for entertaining it, I would not be quoting Clerk Maxwell against him.

[drumdude]

I don't grant the "strict demands of falsifiability." The notion of falsifiability has gained a kind of false-god status in the skeptical community. Popper himself sometimes struggled with it as an absolute criterion of scientific validity, and there are at least some domains where it sounds an uncertain trumpet at best. Popper rightly pointed out that psychoanalysis (and Marxism!) was unfalsifiable and therefore met his criterion for being "pseudoscientific." Yet there are accepted facts in biological evolution and cosmological theories that are eminently non-falsifiable. Popper at first agreed that this made Evolution a non-scientific theory, then went back on it when he realized the implications of lumping Evolution under "pseudoscience." In the case you are requiring it here, falsifiability doesn't necessarily apply. Requiring a "single empirical trial" as a vehicle to establish unfalsifiability would be laughed at in many hard-science disciplines. Nevertheless, I plan to discuss independently-verifiable research designs---and successful experiments based on them---when I get to whichever of my topics it is appropriate to

About a year ago, they took a group of flat earthers to the pole to watch the sun rotate 360 degrees around them. Despite the evidence viewed with their own eyes, many of them continue to believe in flat earth. Either as true believers or as trolls to get attention.

Nothing will change this RV nutjob's mind. Either because he is trolling, is making money off it, or is just an incredibly credulous true believer.

[Gadianton]

That's an interesting quote given the review of his book Marcus quoted earlier. His criticisms of Morehouse and Dames suggest he does believe remote viewing is falsifiable.

[Gadianton]

Speaking of falsifiability, this quote offered by Scratch is hilarious:

I’m quite interested in the subject, though not deeply committed to the truth of such psi capability. If remote viewing proves to be illusory, nothing in my worldview is threatened. On the other hand, if there is something real in it, that would seem to suggest that strict naturalistic materialism is unlikely to be true.

Isn't this typical of the Afore? Popper said for science to advance it must "stick its neck out" and take risks. Notice how the Afore so often goes full ostrich. Does he carry a portable box of sand with him such that he's never caught unable to bury his head?

He famously frames his positions exactly in this way, such that he's never at risk of being wrong about anything. He's spent his "career" as such making Mopologetics unfalsifiable. Well, more than that, his most serious care is to make sure that he himself is never at risk of being wrong about something.

I also agree that he doesn't show true open mindedness about anything, only opportunistically to advance his own prejudices or beliefs. Along with a an occultist he should invite a Calvinist to share their non-naturalist views.