The skeptic's dilemma

For the skeptic, there is an ever-present dilemma. It is not enough to merely discern and rebut false claims. We must also seek to understand what causes people to believe weird things. If we understand the causes, we can better recognize it and halt its progress.

There are essentially two different ways of explaining a wrong belief. Either the person really does have a wrong belief, or is lying about it.

Yes, it's like the Liar, Lunatic, or Lord trilemma, only without Jesus. Also, "lunatic" is way too strong of a word when we really want something more like "mistaken".

There are two reasons the distinction is important. One is in how we treat the person. Most obviously, it's best to call a liar a liar, and an honest believer an honest believer. We're supposed to be the side that's concerned with factual accuracy, so we ought to call it like it is. I also believe that an honest believer should be given more respect than a liar. This is for the simple fact anyone can honestly have wrong beliefs. Even me. Even you.

The other reason the distinction is important is in how we prevent it. To prevent hoaxes from being perpetrated, there's always legal action. But in absence of that, we can target the kind of reasoning that leads people to believe the hoaxer. Always question authority, and ask for evidence. Beware of attempts to use scientific language in order to look authentic. To prevent people from fooling themselves, we must warn them of the dangers of cognitive biases. Anecdotal evidence is weaker than it seems. We often remember the hits and forget the misses. The brain is wired to recognize patterns even when there aren't any. And so on.

Which of the two, lying vs wrong belief, is most common? The answer is actually quite obvious. Wrong beliefs are most common. Given any of the factions that skeptics fight--9/11 truthers, psychics, antivaxxers, Scientologists, Intelligent Design, you name it--only a small fraction of the people could possibly be liars. That is, only the people on top. The people on bottom have nothing to gain from lying, and are often risking something for their beliefs. If there's no one on top, if it's structured without any sort of hierarchy, then obviously no one is lying. If there's no one on bottom, what is there to worry about?

But even among the leaders, I would still lean more towards honest belief rather than lies. But it must be decided on a case-by-case basis. So I'm going to go down a list of weird beliefs and comment on the leaders of each one. I am not particularly well informed about most of these topics, so feel free to disagree.

Psychics - It is entirely possible to honestly think oneself a psychic. A lot of it has to do with remembering hits and forgetting misses. It is also possible to use the cold reading technique without knowing it. Cold reading techniques involve educated guesswork, and using the subject's responses to help. This might be done intuitively, giving the impression of real psychic powers. On the other hand, hot reading (googling the subject beforehand) requires preparation and a conscious effort. Spoon bending too. That's how we know Uri Geller must be a liar.

Homeopathy - I'm guessing most homeopaths honestly believe it works. After all, the homeopaths themselves are subjected to many more anecdotes than their customers are. On the other hand, they stand to profit if they lie.

Physics crackpots - They are probably honest. It is not too hard to navigate the mess that is popularized science, and get hopelessly lost. Anyways, being a crackpot is a thankless job. Especially if you're one of those who spends decades perfecting a book because you fear the criticism you'll get in a scientific journal.

Water dowsing - You can sell to gullible people what is essentially a very expensive stick. Obviously, this business is extremely attractive to scammers. But it's certainly not impossible that the seller believes it too.

Holocaust denial - The root cause of holocaust denial is primarily anti-semitism. You might think that the leaders (people who publish "research" that questions various aspects of the holocaust) might be lying in order to serve their agenda, but I don't think that's how it works. It's much more likely that anti-semitism is biasing their judgment in pretty severe ways.

Scientology - L. Ron Hubbard was probably either a liar or literally insane, maybe both. I wouldn't be surprised if the same were true of Scientology's current leaders. Anyways, the church of Scientology is filthy, filthy rich, and runs like a business (did you know that the Cult Awareness Network is run by Scientology?). I bet corruption lurks in every corner.

Intelligent Design - Is the Discovery Institute rife with liars? We catch them in their lies all the time, but this is not necessarily purposeful. Maybe they're just incompetent, with huge gaping blind spots. Quote mining, for instance, might just be the result of really strong confirmation bias--seeing only what you want to see, and conveniently forgetting the context. I'm betting that they all at least honestly believe that Religion should come ahead in the culture war between Science and Religion. Do they lie in service of this agenda? I can't tell.

So now that we've had some practice, I encourage you all to try this on all weird beliefs you encounter. I can't say it's completely necessary to know who's lying and who's not, but it can be instructive.