CAM proponents tend to use the same bad arguments over and over again. They have no choice (other than deciding not to be CAM proponents) – if a treatment were backed by solid logic and evidence it would not be CAM, it would just be medicine. As SBM’s fourth year comes to a close I thought I would round up the most common bad arguments that CAM proponents put forward to defend their position. Like creationists, pointing out the errors in their facts and logic will not stop them from continuing to use these arguments. But this lack of imagination on their part makes it somewhat easy to counter their arguments, since the same ones will come up again and again.
The Argument from Antiquity This is a common claim – that some CAM modalities have been around for centuries, or even thousands of years, and so they must work. The Argument from Popularity We are constantly being told that CAM is popular and that its popularity is growing. This argument is used to justify incorporation of CAM into academia, spending research funds on CAM, and licensing CAM practitioners. False Choice If there are deficiencies in science-based medicine, then CAM is an appropriate “alternative.” Tu Quoque A similar strategy to the false choice is to justify the failings of CAM by pointing out the failings in mainstream medicine – the tu quoque logical fallacy.
From fashion to fad-diets, medicine to super foods, and the environment to allergies, at Sense About Science we continue to monitor the science claims made each year by the influential and the famous. Scientists and members of the public send us the claims they have seen – about products, lifestyle choices and campaigns – that appear to make little scientific sense. We ask scientists to respond so that we can help celebrities realise where they were going wrong and encourage public discussion about sound science.
Nothing is more infuriating than celebrities that promote causes or "science" based on misinformation. Too many people are far to easily influenced by what they have to say and believe it blindly. Oprah seems to the worst for this.
With a doctorate in Mediterranean studies from Brandeis University, and having taught at Miami University for more than thirty-five years, Edwin Yamauchi has been called "a scholar's scholar." As on admiring colleague put it, he has "dug archaeologically,taught brilliantly,read voraciously,researched meticulously, and published endlessly."
Yamauchi has studied twenty-two lanuages, including Akkadian,Aramic,Greek,Hebrew,Chinese,Comanche,Copt ic,Egyptian,Mandaic,Syriac, and Ugaritic. He has recieved eight fellowships from Brandeis,Rutgers,and elsewhere;delivered eighty-eight papers on Mithraism,Gnosticism,and other topics at scholarly societies;published nearly two hundred articles and reviews in professional journals;lectured at more than a hundred collages and universities;including Cornell.Princeton,Temple,Yale,and the University of Chicago;and participated in archeological expeditions,including the first excavation of the Herodian temple in Jerusalem.
Yamauchi's seventeen books include the 578-page authoritative tome Persia and the Bible,which includes his findings in Mithraism,as well as Greece and Babylon,Gnostic ethics and Mandean Origins,The Stones and the Scriptures,Pre-Christian Gnosticism,The Archaeology of The New Testament,The World of First Christians and Africa and the Bible. In 1975 he was invited to deliver a paper at the Second International Congress of Mithraic Studies in Tehran, a conference hosted by the then-empress of Iran.
Born into a Japanese Buddhist family but a Christian since 1952, Yamauchi has a sterling reputation in the academic world. One book called him "a scholar known for his extreme care and sober judgement with historical texts." Award-winning historian Paul Maier said Yamauchi wields "crystal logic and hard,potent evidence,"adding:
No one in the academic world today can better sniff out sensationalism in place of sense,excesses beyond the evidence,and speculation instead of scholarship.Whatever historical or theological fad might come along-and so many have!-one brilliant article by Yamaauchi supplies the evidence to skewer any bloated pretensions against the cause of truth
-Lee Strobel
"I don't think anyone can make a convincing case that the virgin birth of Jesus was derived from any pagan sources."
-E.Yamauchi
So what do we have here? Our legends are better than your legends.
I'd be more impressed if he could produce evidence that a virgin birth has actually occurred in a human without the help of modern science (eg. in vitro).
At least we know that other apologists are a fan of his.
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"Teach a man to reason, and he'll think for a lifetime"
The basic structure of such arguments is as follows: Professor X believes A, Professor X speaks from authority, therefore A is true. Often this argument is implied by emphasizing the many years of experience, or the formal degrees held by the individual making a specific claim.
The basic structure of such arguments is as follows: Professor X believes A, Professor X speaks from authority, therefore A is true. Often this argument is implied by emphasizing the many years of experience, or the formal degrees held by the individual making a specific claim.
I don't understand what the argument is he is making, though. Is he arguing with himself? I feel like I'm missing context here.
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"An adherent of homeopathy has no brain. They have skull water with the memory of a brain."
This post is completely out of left field, who exactly are you addressing and about what? Since this is the only thing of your own you actually posted I'm not sure what your argument is. Not to mention you seem to be addressing two different arguments. First that the Jesus myth was derived from pagan sources and second that some chess champion with a PH.D in chemistry is a creationist, which I guess is an attempt to lend creationism some legitimacy?
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Originally Posted by HPLovecraft
I don't understand what the argument is he is making, though. Is he arguing with himself? I feel like I'm missing context here.
Edwin M. Yamauchi and "Christianity's Beliefs about Jesus Were Copied from Pagan Religions". He's one of the founders of the Oxford Bible Fellowship. So, this guy has his own church. Anyway, OBF are "[d]oing everything we can by faith through the living Word of God and in the power of the Spirit to equip this next generation in the love of Christ for a lifetime of service throughout all the world."
The argument Yamauchi uses is that Judaism was impervious to Hellenism, to sum it up. Or, in the case of Mithraism, Christianity predated the "mystery cult" of Mithraism, making a bizarre distinction between the "mystery cult" Mithraism and the Mithraism practiced by the people of, uh, Tarsus. The same Tarsus the apostle Paul came from. That Mithraism wasn't a mystery cult at the time (or, at least, the nature of the religion was uncertain because Cilician pirates aren't known for their exact records) is taken by Yamauchi to prove that there was no way that it could have influenced Christianity. And the rest of the Hellenic, Persian, Egyptian, Babylonian, etc., religions that surrounded the area and resembled Christianity's narrative of execution, resurrection and redemption had nothing to do with Christianity because the Jews were immune to that kind of thing - after all, their religion was true as opposed to those false religions, right? The imperviousness to the Jewish religion to outside influence is taken as a given by most religious historians, unsurprisingly.
It's good to have a religious experience but how come these religious followers have to swallow the whole lame story, hook, line and sinker and than declare it's the only way?
Yay our humanist group just secured PZ Meyers to speak in Iceland in May, although not my first choice, it will still be fun to meet him and see what he's like in real life, his online persona is so aggressive and to the point and I hear in real life he's quite the nice guy.
Yay our humanist group just secured PZ Meyers to speak in Iceland in May, although not my first choice, it will still be fun to meet him and see what he's like in real life, his online persona is so aggressive and to the point and I hear in real life he's quite the nice guy.
humanist group? is your national day Festivus?
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A guilty pleasure of mine: heaping well-deserved scorn and ridicule on the con men peddling "freeman-on-the-land" nonsense:
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Freeman on the land
Freeman on the land or freeman is a form of pseudolegal woo in various English-speaking countries. Freemen believe they can opt out of being governed, and that what normal people understand to be "laws" only represent a form of "contract" which only apply if people consent to them. In consequence Freemen believe they are only bound by their own bizarre version of common law, and they will often assert that the law doesn't apply to them as they have not consented to a contract with the state, even going so far as to claim they have a lawful right to refuse arrest if they do not consent. Essentially, they're hilarious and somewhat less threatening sovereign citizens.
Freemen believe they can declare themselves independent of government jurisdiction using the concept of "lawful rebellion": that all statute law is contractual and therefore only applicable if an individual consents to it. They believe the only "true" law is their own definition of common law. Other aspects include insisting that the government is a corporation, an obsession with maritime law, and calling themselves such things as "John of the family Smith."
No freeman arguments have ever been recognised in court; some have even explicitly ruled that the term "freeman on the land" has no legal significance.[1] This won't stop freemen from claiming they work.
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Here's a topic I wouldn't mind picking some brains about. I'm told on a regular basis that a skeptical mindset is "just being negative". Allegedly, all I do is tear ideas down and pop balloons. I try very hard not to be antagonistic or rude, but I feel like whenever someone's ideas are questioned, rather than take part in the debate it is much easier to simply castigate the source of their discomfort. It's particularly discomfiting when the conversations are with close friends and loved ones. How do you fellow skeptics deal with this?
At the same time, I'm told to "keep an open mind", despite the same respect not being paid toward my thoughts and opinions.
I find that sometimes quite hard, online you can be quite forward and come off as even rude, but in real life I have to bite my tongue a lot and just let people talk about nonsense.. I find this happens way more with women than men, all kinds of nonsense diet fads, their tendency to believe in astrology and alternative medicine.
Its tough because the skeptic in me wants them to challenge those ideas, because they put a lot of stock into it.. But nobody wants to be 'that' guy and certainly not around the ladies.
So for me I might bring up a point or two without coming across negative but usually I try not to get into a debate unless its with close friends or family or someone actively asks me what I think.
