How To Debunk Just About Anything

1. Debunkery: General Principles:- Portray science not as a universally beneficial processof discovery but as a holy war against the infidels ofpseudoscience. Since in war the ends justify the means, you mayfudge, stretch or violate scientific method, or even omit itentirely, in the name of defending scientific method.105- Choose the turf. Remember that all else being equal,whoever gets to choose the battleground usually wins thebattle. For the defender of the status quo the most sympatheticarena in which to debunk just about anything is the popularmedia, since they tend to offer little or no opportunity forintelligent analysis or reasoned debate. As an added bonus, TVstudio audiences may generally be counted on to support theconventional view of things, or to be easily swayed in thatdirection. As presently constituted, the media assume that thepublic has a short attention span, faulty memory, littlepatience for details and blind faith in authority, and that itcan not be trusted with the truth. This is ideal soil for theseeds of debunkery.- Put on the right face. Cultivate a patronizing, Wm. F.Buckley-ish air that suggests that your personal opinions arebacked by the full faith and credit of God.- Worm your way into the hearts and minds of the people.Take emotional control of your audience by cracking a few jokesabout Elvis, little men from Mars and so forth. Once you haveaccomplished this they will predictably respond with snickers,giggles and knowing glances if you do no more than report thefacts straight.- Avoid the evidence. The more abstract and theoreticalyou keep your arguments, the less easily people will noticethat you haven't examined the actual evidence. Not examiningthe evidence allows you to say with impunity, "I have seenabsolutely no evidence to support such a claim." If examiningthe evidence becomes unavoidable, report back that "there isnothing new here." If confronted by a watertight body ofevidence that has survived the most rigorous tests' simplydismiss it as being "too pat!"- Call the kettle black. While maintaining absolute faithin the ability of the current scientific paradigm to explaineverything, accuse your opponents of being "true believers."State categorically that the unconventional arises exclusivelyfrom the "will to believe" and may be dismissed as, at best, anhonest misinterpretation of the conventional. In this way youcan camouflage your evangelical hellfire and brimstone under afacade of cool impartiality.- Convince your audience of your sincerity by reassuringthem that you yourself would "love to believe" in thesefantastic phenomena. Carefully sidestep the fact that scienceis not about believing, but about finding out.- Imply that your opponents are zealots. Suggest that inorder to investigate the existence of something one must firstbelieve in it absolutely.- Similarly, always act as if your opponents have intendedthe extreme of any position they've taken. Repeated oftenenough, this procedure may literally drive them bananas.- Practice debunkery-by-association. Lump together allphenomena popularly deemed paranormal and suggest that theirproponents and researchers speak with a single voice. In thisway you can indiscriminately drag material across disciplinarylines or from one case to another to support your views asneeded.- Deliberately confuse the process of science with thecontent of science. Do this by implying that a scientist'sprocedural integrity somehow hinges on his or her choice ofsubject matter. In other words, reinforce the popular notionthat certain subjects are inherently unscientific orpseudoscientific. If someone points out that only theinvestigative process can be scientific or unscientific andthat science is properly blind to subject matter, dismiss suchobjections using a method employed successfully by generationsof politicians: simply reassure your audience that ('there is nocontradiction here.)'- Employ vague, subjective, dismissive terms such as"ridiculous" or "trivial" in a manner that suggests they havethe full force of scientific authority.- Ridicule, ridicule, ridicule. It is far and away thesingle most effective weapon in the war against discovery andinnovation. Ridicule has the unique ability to make people ofvirtually any persuasion go completely unconscious in atwinkling. It fails to sway only those who are of sufficientlyindependent mind not to need the kind of emotional consensusthat ridicule provides. Fortunately there are few enough suchpeople in this world that they may be safely disregarded.- Do your best to convince your audience (although not inas many words) that ridicule constitutes an essential featureof scientific method and can raise the level of objectivity,integrity and dispassionateness with which any investigation ispursued.- Charm your audience and disarm your opponents with pithyaphorisms and clever remarks. For example, "I've always beenstrongly in favor of open-mindedness -- as long as your mindisn't so open that your brains fall out!" But take care neverto specify just how much openmindedness is too much; this keepsyour views outside the realm of rational debate. As long as youkeep things vague nobody will notice the absurdity of your gemsof wit and wisdom.- Use "smoke and mirrors." Never forget that a slipperymixture of fact, opinion, innuendo and out-of-contextinformation will fool most of the people most of the time. Aslittle as one part fact to ten parts B.S. will usually do thetrick. (Some veteran debunkers use homeopathic dilutions offact with remarkable success!) Cultivate the art of slippingback and forth between fact and fiction so undetectably thatthe grain of truth appears to underlie and support the entireedifice of opinion.- Keep a repertory of avoidance techniques at hand in caseyou get cornered. Examples include changing the subject,attacking your opponent's personal habits, distraction withhumorous irrelevancies, lengthy storytelling and so forth.Remember that the main point of such diversionary tactics is toconsume precious air time.- Arrange to have your message delivered or echoed bypersons of authority. The degree to which you can stretch thetruth is directly proportional to the perceived level ofauthority of your messenger.- If you can't attack the case, attack the people. Ad-hominem arguments, or personality attacks, are one of the mostpowerful ways of swaying thoughtless people and avoiding theissue. Insist that if a witness has ever been accused ofstretching the truth in any way, to any degree, for any reason,his or her testimony about anything is, always was, and alwayswill be, worthless. Employ similar tactics if the claimant isknown ever to have had a brush with the law (whatever itsoutcome), has ever entered into any kind of psychologicalcounseling or can be shown to have unusual personal habits orpredilections. If you can determine that your opponents haveprofited financially from activities connected with theirresearch, accuse them of "profiting financially from activitiesconnected with their research!" If their research, publishing,speaking tours and so forth, constitute their normal line ofwork or sole means of support, hold that fact as "conclusiveproof that income is being realized from such activities"' Ifyour opponents have labored to achieve public recognition fortheir work, you may safely characterize them as "publicityseekers."- Employ "TCP": Technically Correct Pseudo-rebuttal. Forexample, if your opponent remarks that all great truths beganas blasphemies, respond immediately that not all blasphemieshave become great truths. Because your response was technicallycorrect, no one will notice that it did not really refute oreven contradict the original remark.- Trivialize the case by trivializing the entire field inquestion. Characterize the study of orthodox phenomena as deepand time-consuming, while deeming that of unorthodox phenomenaso insubstantial as to demand nothing more than a scan of thetabloids. If pressed, simply say "but there's nothing there tostudy!" Characterize any investigator of the unorthodox as"self-styled" -- the media's favorite code-word for "bogus."- Deny any subject by denying that rational discourseabout it is possible.- Condemn the entire field by generalizing from carefullyselected data. For example, declare that all of ufology must benothing more than an evolving system of paranoia because someof its founders and practitioners suffered from childhoodtrauma. (If this seems at all far-fetched, please refer to thepiece by Martin Kottmeyer in UFO Magazine, Vol.7, No.3, May,1992.)- Confine the game to your preferred end of the playingfield. One way to do this is to limit the permissible rules ofdiscovery to those of certain physical sciences. Deny thatcourt procedures, which admit human testimony in matters oflife and death, are objective enough to have any valuewhatsoever in determining the truth of anything at all.- Employ time reversal. Demand that your opponents knowall the answers to their most puzzling questions in full,certain detail ahead of time. A variation on this approach isto deny the existence of something on grounds that we cannotyet explain how it might work.- Accuse your opponents of believing in "invisible forcesand extrasensory realities." If they should point out that thephysical sciences have always dealt primarily with invisibleforces and extrasensory realities, respond with a patronizingchuckle that is "a naive interpretation."-\-\-\- -\-\-\- -\-\-\-posted for educational purposes only-\-\-\- -\-\-\- -\-\-\-How To Debunk Just About Anything