Not Too 'Bright'

[cactuswatcher]

I subscribe to the magazine Skeptical Inquirer, and for a while now I've been wondering why I bother. It used to be a fun, thick little magazine filled with genuine scientific articles about claims of the paranormal. Con men hated it, in fact, hated so much that the magazine got drug into court a number of times for defamation of character. It didn't matter that the magazine always won the cases in the end. The cost of continually fighting legal battles got to be too much. So the magazine stopped printing original scientific articles about specific cases of claims of the paranormal particularly those with connections to living individuals.

A number of years ago the magazine switched to a normal-sized slick-cover magazine format which the magazine staff touted as being saleable "like Psychology Today." Unfortunately for me, pretty much all of the interesting scientific articles disappeared. They were replaced by vaguer essays on similar but not exactly the same subjects. Very quickly the tone of the magazine changed from one of detached investigation with no particular agenda to one with a very specific world view namely humanism. Suffice it to say the humanist brand of reasoning and philosophy doesn't impress me very much and further it bores me to tears. I don't have any problem with humansts per se, but I think the promoters of humanism (as opposed to your every day humanist) more than anyone tend to lead people to say that atheism is its own religion, which is certainly not a true statement.

Part of the problem of being a true skeptic is that you have to be skeptical of everything even your own wisdom. Otherwise you fall into the trap that leads people to put the nasty label "debunkers" on skeptics. If you go into a situation, in which you automatically assume the other person is a sucker or a con man you can't look at what's going on scienticifically, and that's what's the problem with Skeptical Inquirer these days. Many of the contributors don't have the proper objectivity about what they are doing anymore, and mostly these people are professional scientists!

For example the latest issue (a special on 'science and religion') contains an article titled "Secularization: Europe - Yes, United States - No" Now while the essay is mostly dry fact gleaned from other sources, the attitude of the author about the subject is pretty clear, namely, "Religion - Bad" and "Europe -Good, United States - Bad" Another article has the title "The Case of the Holy Fraudster." Not only is this presumptive of guilt (albeit deserved) but it's not an original article. Instead, it's a rehash of something printed in more complete form somewhere else.

So once again I'm thinking of just letting my subscription expire. But, what's the last article in this issue of the usual humanist droning? Lo and behold, an article entitled "Not too 'Bright'" criticizing the leaders of the 'Bright' movement for taking themselves a bit too seriously and of trying to twist the English language to fit their own image of themselves. The Bright movement for those who don't know, is an attempt by a few people including one of the leading lights of the Skeptical Inquirer to have atheists, agnostics and humanists refer to themselves as Brights a word they have conviently chosen to redefine and now want others to respect. The article is very much a breath of fresh air in what has become a very stale magazine. While the article is not currently available on line the essential arguments on both sides can be found at www.the-brights.net/npr_&_response.htm.

Comments

[dherblay.livejournal.com]

As an atheist/agnostic/skeptical non-theist/"free-thinker"/what-have-you (but definitely not a "humanist," as I think the opportunity to claim that title pretty much passed with Erasmus), I found the whole "Bright" movement perplexing, largely because one of the joys of being an atheist is, for me, not having to be part of any movement, and also because the name has certain resonances with "Clear" and the whole Manichaean association of "The Light" with salvation. I was under the impression that one read skepticism about New Age spirituality so one could achieve a certain pleasurable superiority over those who might call themselves something like "Bright," not so one could become one.