Comments on: So, it turns out it is called “Counterknowledge” https://gregladen.com/blog/2008/01/27/so-it-turns-out-it-is-called-c/ Mon, 28 Jan 2008 07:27:18 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.8 By: Greg Laden https://gregladen.com/blog/2008/01/27/so-it-turns-out-it-is-called-c/#comment-550787 Mon, 28 Jan 2008 07:27:18 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2008/01/27/so-it-turns-out-it-is-called-c/#comment-550787 I think what you’all are touching on, very wisely and clearly with more than a little experience thinking about this, is the fact that ignorance, bullshit, irrationality, etc. etc. is pretty complex. Interestingly, it may be more complex than truth by an order of magnitude.

]]> By: Mike O'Risal https://gregladen.com/blog/2008/01/27/so-it-turns-out-it-is-called-c/#comment-550786 Mon, 28 Jan 2008 06:11:05 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2008/01/27/so-it-turns-out-it-is-called-c/#comment-550786 Sounds like one I’d like to read. Like RNB, thuogh, I’m not so sure about this term “counterknowledge.” It makes it sounds like there is something that counters knowledge itself. Bullshit’s a good term for it; I also adopted “disenlightenment” some time ago (e.g., the abandoning of reason in favor of superstition). I forget who coined the term.

I don’t like the reviewers “rational nihilism” bit at all; nihilism isn’t any more rational than superstitiously assigning meaning to every coincidence. If anything, reason is a tool by which we are more likely to properly ascribe significance and so take charge of our own existence instead of abandoning the responsibility we have to ourselves to do so. “Rational nihilism” smacks of the whiny rhetorical question that anti-reason religious types like to ask: “If you don’t believe in Jehovah, how can life be meaningful to you?”

]]> By: John McKay https://gregladen.com/blog/2008/01/27/so-it-turns-out-it-is-called-c/#comment-550785 Sun, 27 Jan 2008 19:03:36 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2008/01/27/so-it-turns-out-it-is-called-c/#comment-550785 I find it stunning that he uses a pharmacologist as an example of harmlessness with the simple dismissal, “my drugs will work or not work.” Or they might poison people. And even if his drugs are harmlessly inert, how much damage is caused by his patients allowing their condition to worsen as they forgo better care because of their faith in his snake oil? How much financial harm is inflicted on the patient’s family while they buy you snake oil? The credulous are far more likely to be poor and unable to afford whimsical expenditures for non-functional medicine. When Bywater mentions “recent polemical anti-irrationalism” he implies that he is familiar with this literature, but if he was, he would know that bad medicine is a standard example of how unconventional beliefs can hurt so common that it borders on cliche.

]]> By: Peter McGrath https://gregladen.com/blog/2008/01/27/so-it-turns-out-it-is-called-c/#comment-550784 Sun, 27 Jan 2008 17:22:57 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2008/01/27/so-it-turns-out-it-is-called-c/#comment-550784 I like Counterknowledge, too. Damian Thompson, however writes the Holy Smoke blog for the UK newspaper The Daily Telegraph (a journal of a Conservative bent, although possibly not by US standards):

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/ukcorrespondents/holysmoke/

He also edits a Catholic newspaper (I worked on one, in a previous life) and as a Roman Catholic, presumably believes in and propagates a fair amount of quackery and counterknowledgeable stuff himself.

Holy Smoke is a good read, though.

]]> By: R N B https://gregladen.com/blog/2008/01/27/so-it-turns-out-it-is-called-c/#comment-550783 Sun, 27 Jan 2008 16:21:56 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2008/01/27/so-it-turns-out-it-is-called-c/#comment-550783 I appreciate the sentiment of Thompson, the synopsis makes it clear what he thinks of those views. And I can understand the need to come up with an “original” name for it – particularly as the title for a new book.

But “counterknowledge” is perhaps not the best word to choose. Not just for allowing you to drop in the diner joke. Because it implies a sort of knowledge that is counter to common knowledge. That might imply a valid skeptical scientific view.

But what he really means is bulls…

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