I find it ironic and very sad that after decades of fighting off postmodernist attempts to undermine the authority of science in claiming science to be chiefly driven by political, economic, social and religious opinions that those very political and religious opinions now threaten to tear the movement I have come to love limb from limb. I am certain that I am not alone in having felt that I was in the minority, over the years, on subjects such as: climate change, second-hand-smoke and the precautionary principle with regards to environmental protection. Nowhere was this more apparent than at this years Amaz!ng Meeting which culminated in this statement by magician, comedian and prominent skeptic Penn Jillette which, distorted and out of context or not, resulted in some very bad press for the skeptical movement.
Truth to be told, Al Gore’s film and book contained countless embelishments and quite a few outright distortions of fact. I, for one, am not entirely confident that popular science sources are doing the environmental movement any great favors in attempting to spin or sanitize the facts regarding Al Gore’s alarmism. At the same time, Penn & Teller’s Bullshit! program routinely engages in extreme polemics and has taken several shortcuts in sourcing. Which, I can only describe as dangerous! Why you ask? You will see in a minute.
Penn & Tellers program, in my opinion, spends a great deal more time promoting a very radical –anarcholibertarian--political agenda than they do promoting critical thinking. It is true that Penn & Teller no longer stand behind many of the statements made in Season 1 Episode 5 regarding second hand smoke. And it is probably not helpful to take persons to task for statements that they have since retracted or clarified.
Certainly Penn & Teller were not the only ones drawn in by pseudoskeptics such as Junk science’s Steven Milloy. At the same time Season 3 Episode 8 on the merits (or lack there of) of gun control really did start with a cry for citizens to stockpile firearms for the purpose of overthrowing the government: "in this show we consider the violent overthrow of the United States Government …" A disquieting and terribly unrealistic vision of America. It strikes me as odd that anyone devoted to critical thinking would suggest that the most powerful military the world has ever known could be defeated by a gaggle of right-wing rednecks brandishing weaponry designed for hunting vermin and protecting farm-animals from wildlife. Pardon my injecting my opinion but I found this particular statement to be outrageous on almost every level.
I suppose that I should cut to the quick with regards to Penn & Teller: the presentation of distorted facts (and/or facts which have not been vetted properly) is an error every human being has made, all of us hold some personal opinions that would be seen as abhorrent or ridiculous and most of us do so without the added pressure of having to produce a weekly TV program devoted to manufacturing controversy. However, what is one to think when one encounters prominent and well respected skeptics, persons who have been put forward as spokespersons for the skeptical movement engaging in the very tactics and utilizing the very sources which we as skeptics have devoted ourselves to debunking? Unfortunately, that was my reaction to Season 3 Episode 1 of Penn & Teller’s Bullshit program on the, extremely sensitive topic of circumcision. At the outset I would like to say that the wisdom of the medical procedure examined in that episode is not something I have given a great deal of thought to. Being childless I have never made the decision for myself and not being a licensed medical practitioner I am in no way qualified to give medical advice. Additionally, aside from obvious frauds like homeopathy, the current state of medical science is well beyond the scope of this blog which is focused primarily on the paranormal and the bizarre. The objections I am about to state are to the tactics and sources used to promote the opinions expressed on the episode in question of the TV program in question and not upon the opinions themselves.
While there are undoubtedly video clips of Bullshit! Season 3 Episode 1 available on the intertubes I have no interest in reproducing any such clips here in the interest of good taste and, frankly, settled stomaches . The program contains several gruesome clips of bloody babies crying as they are subjected to the, relatively minor and quite common surgical procedure, primarily in an attempt to induce guilt in the minds of the vast majority of parents who have had their male children circumcised. While this was reminiscent of some of the tactics used by antivaccination activists (actually worse because the antiimmunization folks weren’t showing blood or private parts … Not to mention bloody private parts) that was, by no means, the worst transgression of the episode. At this date I have been unable to find any sort of retraction or clarification by anyone associated with the program so I do feel free to vent my scorn and rage at this point. If such a clarification has been tendered please forward it to me and I will be happy to update this blog accordingly.
Taken in context, this is what I saw. Penn Jillette makes the (demestrably false) claim “we have never been wrong before” and then proceeds to bring on well-known quack and convicted felon Paul Fleiss to articulate their anticircumcision position. That’s right, the scurge of competent doctors across the world was put forward as an expert on a program devoted to scientific skepticism. This program aired on April 25, 2005, on May 15 of that same year a patient in Dr. Fleiss’ care, 3-year-old Eliza Jane Scovill died of pneumocystis pneumonia in the setting of advanced AIDS for which she had not been treated by Dr. Fleiss because her mother, prominate AIDS Denialist - Christine Maggiore had refused to get the child tested for HIV, breastfed the child and bore the child without taking antiretroviral drugs under the conviction that HIV does no cause AIDs and that AIDs is not contagious. Eliza Jane also had not received any of the standard childhood immunizations in spite of being under the care of a physician which Penn & Teller felt was competent enough articulate the skeptic’s position on an extremely sensitive medical issue. On October 8, 2007 Dr. Fleiss’s medical license was revoked (latter reinstated on a probationary basis] for “failure to test Eliza Jane for HIV (or to document her parents' refusal of testing), a failure to counsel Maggiore to avoid breast-feeding at any time during the three years Maggiore breast-fed her daughter, given the risk of transmitting HIV, and similar violations of standard medical practice in Fleiss' care of a second HIV-positive child.” This is not someone I would like to see advising “Mr. and Mrs. America out there in TV land” on childhood medical issues.
In summary: Penn & Teller’s judgment is questionable at best, the tactics and methods used on the Bullshit TV program run far astray of those generally accepted to constitute scientific skepticism and their political views are too far outside the mainstream for any skeptic to want to branded with them. Furthermore, whether it be: Michael Shermer’s newfound love of trickle-down econimics (cleverly disguised in the paradigm of the evolution/creation debate), Christopher Hitchens support of the Iraq War (in the guise of religious skepticism) or Sam Harris’ juvenile and culturally bigoted hissyfits, this skeptic has no desire to belong to an exclusively right-wing political organization. With all of the objectivist clammer in recent years it is easy to forget that scientific skepticism really developed out of secular humanism. The founders of this movement in the early days of CSICOP were generally people who hated injustice and had precious little time for Reganomics. I cannot imagine what Isaac Asimov would say about Fleiss' participation on the Bullshit television program in light of the fact that his own death in 1992 stands as a testiment to the deadlyness of HIV.
I must admit there was a time in very recent memory when paranoia had gotten the better of me. I began to suspect that I had been hornswaggled into supporting a political movement which, frankly, stood against nearly everything I stood for. At the very minimum it seemed that, in an effort to woo the sympathies of those on the political right prominent skeptics were inadvertently subjecting more traditional skeptics like myself to rather uncalled for verbal abuse. It seemed to me as if right-wing skeptics were free express some pretty outrageous opinions and (the parable of the prodigal son comes to mind here) the bulk of us who were “skeptical” that tax cuts for the ultrawealthy or relaxation of environmental protections were truly in our best interest were consistently being told, rather rudely, by the likes of Penn & Teller to SHUT THE FUCK UP!
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1 comments:
Paul Fleiss is not the only doctor opposed to circumcision, and his conviction and other lapses have nothing to do with circumcision, so you are leaning towards guilt by association and argument ad hominem. P&T may have shown bad judgement in using him, but that is hardly an argument against what he or they say.
Your objections on the ground of taste, etc. are one way the subject stays undiscussed and uncriticised. (The programme rather oddly never once showed its subject matter, an intact penis.)
Since the vast majority of newborn boys have perfectly healthy genitals, it is debatable at the outset whether neonatal circumcision qualifies as a "medical procedure" (or is just an ingrained custom like holding him by the feet and smacking his bum, or turning the teapot round three times before pouring the tea). It is certainly unique as the only surgery that may be commissioned on neonates at parental whim. The anthropology of male circumcision is extraordinary. Here is a list of reasons it has been done or advocated.
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