Recently, at a conference in New York known as NECSS,
the science journalist John Horgan gave a talk
in which he encouraged skeptics to go beyond their usual targets.
He said that skeptics were critical of -- and I'm going to quote here --
"God, ghosts, heaven,
ESP, astrology,
homeopathy and Bigfoot."
He also said skeptics go after global warming deniers
and vaccines deniers.
That's all well and good, he said,
but he called all of those things "soft" targets.
That's because he felt we were only preaching to our choir
when we did these things.
People outside our bubbles tended to ignore us.
He urged skeptics to, instead, go after the "hard" targets.
That included, "multiverses,
cancer tests, psychiatric drugs,
and war", the "hardest" target of all.
Now, I'm not opposed to fighting against bullshit in all of its forms, especially when faulty reasoning leads us to
silly wars or sham treatments.
But his whole argument seems to boil down to,
"I don't like your priorities; you should follow mine instead".
While Horgan's at it, why doesn't he just tell Lambda Legal to stop fighting for LGBT rights?
Because there are black people who are being discriminated against in places like Ferguson, Missouri.
Why not tell the NAACP that their focus is too narrow because there are lots of oppressed minorities out there?
Why not tell the ACLU to stop protecting the First Amendment because
in places like Syria, the people have no rights at all, and isn't that a bigger thing worth fighting for?
You can't solve every problem in the world.
We should consider ourselves lucky that there are people in this world willing to dedicate their lives
to fighting whatever injustices they see,
even if it may not be our personal pet projects.
We may not be able to solve the problem of war,
but we may be able to convince people not to give their money
over to self-proclaimed psychics.
We may not know enough to criticize string theory,
but we can proudly debunk the lies
that conservative Christians like to tell about LGBT people,
and science
and sex,
and God.
We may not care about “gene-whiz science”,
but we're passionate about our atheism, and we're damn good at responding to Christian apologists.
And by the way,
the people who criticize the so-called "soft" targets,
aren't necessarily silent about criticizing bad science or
our country's involvement in multiple wars.
They can criticize President Obama's use of drones,
just as they can down a bottle of homeopathic sleeping pills
to make a point that the media is going to pay attention to.
It's not one or the other.
It's a matter of what you are passionate about
and where you think you'll be successful.
And by the way,
religion, and pseudoscience, and the afterlife,
are by no means "soft" targets.
And damn near every skeptic who speaks about these topics publicly
will tell you that they have changed people's minds
beyond just our tribe.
And they know that because they have heard from those people.
We are not just living in an echo chamber.
And if you don't believe me, check the numbers.
The percentage of non-religious people in this country continues to go up.
And I think that's in large part because more of us are willing to criticize faith
and criticize irrational thinking in general.
We are helping people ask better questions,
challenge conventional wisdom
and think more rationally.
And all of these things, by the way,
will eventually help our society tackle these larger issues
that no one group can never solve on its own.
I am so glad that there are people out there willing to speak out against whatever forms of nonsense they see,
even if I wouldn't spend any time on it myself.
Especially, if I wouldn't spend any time on it myself.
The more people who do that,
the better off we all are.
The problem isn't that skeptics are tackling small issues,
the problem is that too many people
don't care enough to tackle any issues.
My name is Hemant Mehta and I write at FriendlyAtheist.com
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