I sit here now, fueled by a lot of coffee and inspired by the latest podcast of Skepticality, attempting to compose a Doubting Florence column on the future of what I like to term as "personal skepticism." I define that as skepticism towards stuff that you feel the strongest about- stuff that chaps your butt more than most pseudoscientific subjects. This is a heavy post, so I am gonna break it down into two parts. This is part one, entitled "Motivation."
For those of you who do not know, Jr. Skeptic editor Daniel Loxton has edited a 70 page PDF as a follow-up to his spectacular "Where Do We Go From Here," entitled "What Do I Do Next?" I haven't read the PDF yet (I plan to, and trust me, I will blog about it here if no other Richmond Skeptic wants to tackle it), but from what it sounds like, "What Do I Do Next?," is less a disertation and more like a supercozy literary skeptical think tank featuring such notable merry mischief makers as The Skeptic's Guide Jay Novella, Skepticality's Swoopy, Dr. Karen "Skepbitch" Stolznow, Skeptoid Guru Brian Dunning, JREF's Jeff Wagg, Aussie Skeptic Spitfire Kylie Sturgess, Loxton and other s discuss how they use skeptical activism in their lives to correct the tripe of pseudoscience, to promote good science and critical thinking, and to expose frauds associated with such pseudosciences (pseudoscience and fraud appear to be bastard twins). I just got through listening to Skepticality #098- a dialogue between "What Do I Do Now?" collaboraters Daniel Loxton and Swoopy, which has peaked my interest to become a bit more of a skeptical activist.
Sometimes it's hard to be a skeptical activist. People get RULLLLLY testy when you question their gris-gries and beliefs. It's certainly no fun at parties when you're the skeptical one, listening as your friends and loved ones rile on blissfully about "insert pseudoscience-du-jour here" as being the bee's knees. It's a no-win situation- subjecting your friends to a powerful well-intentioned skeptical rebuttal can cast you as the wanka' who tinkled in everyone's peteunia bed; staying silent makes you feel lousy and like a skeptical sell-out. It's even worse here in cyberland. There's always going to be someone who could wander in to your world, and despite your beautifully worded and brilliantly factual blogposts, will declare you and all you associate with as stuffy intolerable group of pee pants...or worse, attempt to hijack discussion threads and launch into verbally cruel and abusive ad hominem attacks. It's happened to skeptical sites I admire and like to visit- Skepchick gets a Cold Prickley on a rather frequent basis, and it seems like it's a daily occurance on Science Based Medicine. It's such a turn-off for me when I run into these folks online. I handle a disrespectful so-and-so by ignoring them and leaving them to stew in their own venom, so sometimes I miss out on a lot of cool stuff because I want to avoid jerks. It's something I'm working on- a sort of cyber-agoraphobia, one could say. I have a lot of opinions on those who appear to sadistically enjoy this type of harassment, but the goal here is to stay positive and tell you how I try to keep my skeptical chin up during these difficult times, and, to get back to Loxton's premise, what I plan to do next.
Getting back on the subject of personal skepticism, the things that chap my big butt mainly involve pseudoscience in nursing. Bad Astronomer Phil Plait once said that the universe is cool enough without having to make crap up about it. Although he was addressing pseudoscience in astronomy, I feel his idea also could be applied to nursing and medicine. One only has to flip through Gray's Anatomy to see that the human body's coolness factor is high. It doesn't need B.S. like chakras or invisible pathways or snake oil or magic beans or whatever. Anyone who has studied pathophysiology (the study of how the bod works) will tell you it's a mother of a class that is chock full of scientific parts and processes. The pancreatic functions are fascinating enough to fill a PBS miniseries! And the wonderful thing is, most of the good science can be found in extremely inexpensive situations- local college libraries (especially those universities known for their science and medical department) are bursting with volumes of wonderful stuff that would keep most anatomy buffs like yours truly happy for hours. Real medicine and nursing is cool enough without having to make crap up about it. Being a skeptic helps me fall in love with nursing over and over again as new discoveries are being made. Looking at something you adore with a critical eye can be therapeutic as well as practical. The constant change that I see and adapt to my practice- new procedures, equipment and so on, helps me become a better nurse and smarter advocate for my patients. It's also hard to burnout when you've got so much exciting stuff to discover, examine, pull apart and discuss with others who share your zeal. It's freakin' awesome!
This is the end of Part Une. Don't worry. "Part Deux: Intervention" is in the works and coming up very soon (maybe in the next day or so!!)
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