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Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on The Correct Contrarian Cluster - Less Wrong
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Comments (228)
Short heuristic:
If you disagree with James Randi on many things about which he is outspoken, you're probably crazy. ;)
Why James Randi is not on my list.
Maybe Joe Nickell is a better representative of the skeptic community, then?
Maybe we could agree that belief in too many of these probably means you're crazy? ;)
The community currently going under the name "skeptics" usually attacks easy targets that are already unpopular with the intelligentsia, like homeopathy. Let's see what Joe Nickell thinks about many-worlds first. Shermer and Penn & Teller have failed similar tests.
EDIT: Being a skeptic is just as easy (in fact, the opposite) of being a contrarian, and the test of whether a skeptic's cognition provides bayes-fuel is whether they fail to critique contrarian theories that are correct. This deserves a post which I might or might not have time to do.
I think Richard Dawkins passes the many-worlds test (8:36), at least if you allow for characteristic British understatement and a lack of training in physics.
Good for him!
Actually, this considerably increases my respect for Dawkins as a general rationalist and causes me to considerably bump the probability that someone from SIAI should try contacting him. I'll forward your comment to Vassar.
Already in progress.
I'd be interested in knowing how you go about contacting and communicating with someone like Richard Dawkins, i.e. a good rationalist whose only knowledge of the Singularity probably comes from listening to one of Kurzweil's talks. Actually, I'd like to read your e-mail to him, but that may be asking too much. :)
So how did this work out?
A couple years of 'yes' without firm commitments. Not holding my breath.
If being a skeptic is the opposite of being a contrarian, your three "slam dunks" won't distinguish very well - unless you're assuming we've already established the person is a contrarian? Many-worlds seems to be pretty mainstream these days. And as for atheism and P-zombies, doesn't naturalism/materialism generally go along with skepticism? I think this forces the question of just who you're talking about being contrary to.
It's so hard to find good slam-dunks these days.
This is an old thread, so I probably won't get a response, but I'm just curious: could you clarify what issues you think Shermer and P&T got wrong? Are you just referring to the cryonics thing with the latter? Or something else too?
I see it lists memetics, hypnosis and subliminal perception as pseudoscience. I'd put >50% on each of these being a real phenomenon.
I think for areas like these we should distinguish between believing a popular myth (eg. Hypnotized assassins, James Vicary's "Eat Popcorn") versus believing the phenomenon exists at all.
Well, that's why I added the qualifier "too many".
I defy the data, and raise you one counter-argument.
I'm not saying I believe in the Mars effect, I'm saying that it looks to me like CSICOP found it more important to refute the enemy position than to behave cleanly throughout. Is that data worth defiance?
Jim Lippard reviewed the whole affair and concluded that CSICOP had transgressed; I found the review convincing.