I had a really interesting experience recently that illustrated the importance of sharpening your skeptical tools.

The setting was a long table at a brewery. A person I had just been introduced to was describing her involvement in a project using “californium muriaticum” to treat AIDS patients in Africa. I was confused. What is californium muriaticum? It turns out that it is the same as californium chloride. But people who believe in homeopathy use archaic names for the same compounds for some reason, perhaps to add a bit of woo (dressing an idea in the trappings of science).

It feels good

AIDS already has an effective treatment: antiretrovirals. And since these drugs reduce the blood and body fluid viral load, they also constitute prevention. But this does not matter to the homeopath. A homeopath thinks: if it feels good, do it. And extolling “californium muriaticum” certainly feels good. She made sure to provide irrelevant details as well such as, “Chlorine is a halogen, do you know what a halogen is?”

Interesting contrast

The thing that made it interesting was the contrast between the two ends of the table. At one end was a conversation about relatives who were building a human breast milk bank in Minnesota. This is an effort grounded in quality science. At the other end of the table pure quackery was being aired. Yet to someone standing nearby they both would seem like science-based conversations.

This is why bullshit can be so dangerous. The purveyors of bullshit do not know they are bullshiting and they certainly don’t think they are doing harm. They are also unlikely to be contradicted in a friendly setting like that. And who is going to call them out when their aim is the ever-sympathetic goal of “helping AIDS patients in Africa?”

Eventually I tuned this person out. But I noticed she had selected another subject for her lengthy exposition of pseudoscience. She even dropped the term “major histocompatibility complex” at one point. Again, painting on a veneer of legitimacy while the poor guy nodded politely.

Be skeptical

What a tricky situation! In my left ear is science. In my right ear is bullshit. Yet both sides appear at first glance to be equally articulate and informed. It struck me that this mixing of truth and falsehood happens all the time in life, and sorting it out is effortful and imprecise.

This all served as a reminder of my commitment to skepticism. Skepticism as the withholding of assent until someone does the work needed to convince me. Skepticism not as a stance, but as a set of tools for separating the true from the false. Skepticism as a bullshit detector.​​