Skeptical blogging brainstorm #1
I said in an earlier post that I planned to do a bit of brainstorming on what we as skeptical and/or atheist bloggers ought to be doing with our time, if we’re not rehashing the old skeptical and/or atheist classics. (Forgive me if I conflate atheism and skepticism a bit in this post. In my experience around the blogosphere, the two respective groups of bloggers overlap quite a lot, and their overall objectives are very closely aligned, so for all intents and purposes of this entry they are the same.) Here is what I’ve thought of since then.
My primary inclination is to suggest that we include a larger range of issues within the skeptical canon. Instead of just writing about alternative medicine or alien sightings, we can find some other aspects of life to be skeptical about as well. We can question claims made in advertising, or critique the methods in academic papers. We can point out when politicians promote blatantly false ideas. Anything with facts is worthy of a skeptic’s attention. If you’re writing a skeptical blog, rather than just being a skeptic while blogging, I understand an inclination to stick with the standard sorts of debunking. As for the rest of us, though, there are topics we can shift towards so as not to be quite as redundant.
Straight-up activism is certainly a good idea as well. If we assume, as seems to be the case, that most people reading skeptical or atheist blogs are themselves skeptics or atheists, this could be a very effective way of organizing. Hemant Mehta at Friendly Atheist has recently tapped into this on behalf of Kay Hagan, a candidate for North Carolina state senate who got attacked for planning to meet with an atheist organization. There are lots of ways that a skeptical or atheist viewpoint is relevant to politics, and if you want to create real change in society in the direction of that viewpoint, you should work to elect people you believe represent it and vote out of office those who are counterproductive. In addition to just blogging about John McCain’s comments about a link between vaccines and autism, we should be protesting about it at his speaking events. (Maybe use your blog to assemble protesters.) In addition to just writing about false advertising claims made for alternative medicine, call on your local district attorney to prosecute chiropractors and crystal healers and homeopaths in your area when they make unsubstantiated claims of healing. (Maybe use your blog to distribute a template letter to send to the DA’s office.) There’s plenty of work to be done.
Finally, there’s the question of unity as a group. There’s a lot of talk about the “atheist community” or the “skeptical movement” and what its goals are. It’s difficult to have a movement or a coherent set of group goals without some infrastructure. As much as I’m wary of the election of an atheist pope or some such central authority of a group based on thinking for yourself, I think these organizations have a place at least insofar as lobbying and publicity are concerned. Rather than have people seeing one dude here or there interviewed on the local news, or have a legislator receiving an occasional letter from individual constituents, we want to present a stronger message. A spokesperson on TV saying he represents so many millions of people looks a lot more compelling. Many groups of this sort already exist, such as Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, the National Center for Science Education, the Skeptics Society, and the Secular Coalition for America. (There are of course many others; this is just a sampling.) Joining and/or donating to these groups will make them more effective at publicizing skeptical and secular perspectives.
That’s all I’ve got for now, but not forever. I have a few other ideas still percolating, and I’ll post again about them soon. In the meantime, let me know what you think about these ideas — if they’re good, crazy, infeasible, irrelevant… whatever.
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6 Responses to “Skeptical blogging brainstorm #1”
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I realize that is just a sample list, but I think the Center for Inquiry can’t be left out. They sponsor a lot of activism, scepticism and basically all of what you just talked about. They even launched Edger for campus secularists to blog on.
Great post though and I full-heartedly support your suggestions. This is especially pertinent as Canada and the USA are now facing key elections.
Great post. I cannot count the number of sites I’ve taken off my feed reader because they just stayed on the same old topics, mocked the credulous, or used their skepticism as a bludgeon.
Critical thinking is about daily life, and bigfoot and UFOs don’t figure too prominently in my daily life.
Keep up the good fight!
[...] as PodBlack and The SkepBitch and blogging superstars The Bad Astronomer and Orac there are a large number of other very talented writers, in whose company I feel privileged. So get over there. « [...]
Well, my site actually heads in a different direction:
http://podblack.com/?page_id=330
Skepticism and Education; Skepticism and Gender; Skepticism and Communication are the headings I use to break up my ‘top posts’ that continually get hits or are resources in themselves. There’s a book list, parent/teacher education ideas, a scam-watch database…
Which includes the activism and a broad range of topics that we can apply skepticism to. Especially when making it appealing to the younger years.
Although my main interest is superstition, I usually tap into current research on literacy, in order to see how teaching can help with not only critical thinking skills, but improving a love of reading.
A lot of this is parent/teacher centered, as you can see by the first few posts on that ‘essays’ page, but I hope it’s of use to others.
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