I just listened to DJ Grothy’s interview of Richard Dawkins on JREF‘s official podcast, For Good Reason. One thing they discussed was the hierarchy of skepticism, that is what topics are of more or less importance to challenge and/or debunk. So I’m going to weigh in with my ranking.
- God belief is first and foremost because it’s the delusion that impacts public policy and education more than anything else. Besides, it’s the most rampant.
- Homeopathy is dangerous because people are selling placebos as medicines. Real medicine goes through a rigorous set of clinical trails to prove it’s safe and effective and it’s heavily regulated and inspected to ensure it’s purity, potency, and compliance with good manufacturing practices. Nobody regulates homeopathic remedies because they’re harmless sugar pills, harmless unless taken instead of real life saving medication, then it’s deadly.
- All of the rest of so called complementary and alternative medicine including, but not limited to chiropractic, naturopathy, faith healing, reiki, reflexology, healing touch, etc. I separate these from homeopathy because in some cases they do actually do something. Natural remedies might have active ingredients in them, even if they aren’t of set purity and potency (see above). A good massage does feel good, as would many of the other touch based “treatments,” this might help with symptoms, even without treating the underlying condition. Faith healing, when it involves consenting adults is their right to “try”, I just hope they see a doctor when they don’t get better if its for something serious.
- Magical crap like psychics, mediums, dowsing rods, and “Power Balance” bracelets are rip offs, but they tend to be little more than a tax on credulity. Besides, they aren’t likely to do physical harm to people or infringe on the rights of those who aren’t stupid enough to waste their money on them.
- Rounding up the list are all the other BS ideas out there like conspiracy theories, UFOs, ghosts, big foot, and the chupacabra. They’re ideas that can’t do physical harm and are unlikely to do any financial harm, they also aren’t likely to influence policy. They’re stupid, but if people want to waste their time on these things then it doesn’t harm me or anybody else.
Just because I see that as the hierarchy, that doesn’t mean that I think everyone should only be focusing on the most important topics. For example, if someone wants to have a blog that focuses on debunking conspiracy theories, then someone researching one of them might stumble upon a good rational blog post and it could reduce that person’s credulity and if the blogger enjoys the topic then that’s awesome.
The same applies to groups. One of the local atheist/skeptic groups I’m a part of and help run, Cosmos Coffee Club, focuses on scientific topics and if someone gets too far off topic on religion or spirituality, either for or against, we have to bring them back in line with the focus of the group. There are groups where those ideas and discussions are welcome, that group just isn’t one of them.
It just so happens that the topics I spend my effort debunking on the blog, religion, homeopathy, and CAM (in that order), are not only the ones I see as the biggest issues but the ones I know the most about, after all my degree is in theology and I work in pharmaceuticals. While I am likely biased, I think the ideas with the greatest potential for widespread or physical harm are more important than ones with little to no risk. Fortunately there are a lot of skeptics out there, enough that I’m sure every topic gets at least some coverage and they all deserve the attention.