Talk:Abuses of skepticism

merge with ignorance
most (examples) of this article is about "ignorance cloaked as scepticism", but scepticism is different from the ignorance of tobbaco and oil industries, it DEMANDS TESTING to find truth... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ollj (talk • contribs).


 * I suggest it would be better to merge this with Pathological skepticism (if that article survives AfD, in which case it is likely to be renamed). For one thing, that article would benefit from working some material from Chris Mooney's article into it. (Side note: I slightly refactored this page and signed both previous edits). Cheers, CWC (talk) 12:57, 27 October 2006 (UTC)


 * It has not only survived, but also been renamed Pseudoskepticism. I support the idea of merging this article with that one. The merge tag should be changed. -- Fyslee 17:07, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I removed
This section. There is no indication that anybody thinks that these represent an "abuse" of skepticism. Please provide a reference supporting it:


 * === Overly skeptical towards new ideas ===
 * An oft used example is the slow acceptance of Alfred Wegener's ideas on continental drift. Defenders state this slow acceptance was justified as he lacked sufficient evidence. Another is Fred Hoyle's dismissal of the Big Bang, in part by naming it the Big Bang theory, years after the idea had become mainstream.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by ScienceApologist (talk • contribs).

Oil company reference
The refrence to the oil companies and global warming is not an abuse of skepticism without citations. The reference to tobbaco companies is also without citations and really ought to have some. but the oil company reference is worse because the whole concept of global warming in the general sphere is relatively new, If notable people (meaning experts) have stated that there are abuses by skeptics in pay of the oil companies (which there no doubt are) then they should be referenced. The reference to the tobacco companies should have citations as well, but there is a whole body of evidence that is general knowledge that the Tobacco companies spent large sums of money to muddy the evidence of harm. (how much harm tobacco does is debatable. But the companies involved clearly did try to make people believe, at least early on, that tobacco had no long term health effects) but there isn't a body of evidence on the oil companies that most people are aware of to justify in the same way the lack of citations on the subject. Without citations its just a spurious argument. ie: the oil companies produce fossil fuels that when burned create greenhouse gasses which create global warming, this is true in the opinion of most scientists and by itself it could be left without references for a while (though that statement should ideally be referenced as well, as should all statements on WP, ideally). But the statement goes further than that, stating that there are people in pay of the oil companies who are abusing legitamate skepticism to further there agenda on whether or not greenhouse gasses cause global warming. Since this point has no references and isn't general knowledge it seems to be a NPOV issue rather than a weasel word issue, there are articles on wikipedia that discuss the issue and theory's, but this just isn't a clear cut case of an abuse of skepticism and is a poor example for this article (until it gets some citations whereas its a fine case, in theory, of an abuse of skepticism). But without citations or it being general knowledge its just a pet theory. Colin 8 21:10, 25 March 2007 (UTC)