Pseudoskepticism and the radical fallacy.

[Free Trade is managed by the invisible hand.]

Awhile ago some one on this forum created something they termed the Radical Fallacy which basically meant "something isn't inherently good simply because it is perceived to be anti-status quo". This a simple,but an important observation because it reminds us that the question of "what is good?" is always an open question. The synthesis of Pseudoskepticism and the radical fallacy reminds me of how sometimes an individual, and political movements will sometimes embrace the radical fallacy while pretending to come off as simply skeptical. I think this is done because appearing to be skeptical, while cherry picking information to support your cause is a sneaky way in which a person can subvert the truth in order to gain support for their own agenda. This agenda can either help or hurt the status quo, but the establishment can use it as a means to reinforce an already disproved position.

For example as a pseudo-skeptic I could claim that the CRA caused the financial crisis, and simply point out that my detractors have a past history of supporting the pro-establishment regulation. This is because the pesudoskeptic can simply claim that the establishment is "more government", and thus anyone arguing against deregulation is merely an agent of the status quo. In short the Pseudo-skeptic has adopted the radical fallacy in order to further his/her agenda of getting rid of the CRA.

Thus my question is "what political ideology is more prone to pseudoskepticism, and how does the status quo use the radical fallacy in order to gain support"?


In science, the burden of proof falls upon the claimant; and the more extraordinary a claim, the heavier is the burden of proof demanded. The true skeptic takes an agnostic position, one that says the claim is not proved rather than disproved. He asserts that the claimant has not borne the burden of proof and that science must continue to build its cognitive map of reality without incorporating the extraordinary claim as a new "fact." Since the true skeptic does not assert a claim, he has no burden to prove anything. He just goes on using the established theories of "conventional science" as usual. But if a critic asserts that there is evidence for disproof, that he has a negative hypothesis—saying, for instance, that a seeming psi result was actually due to an artifact—he is making a claim and therefore also has to bear a burden of proof.

– Marcello Truzz

[Free Trade is managed by the invisible hand.]

I guess the best example of Pseudoskepticism would be climate change deniers who use small sample sizes, or simply cite one month to debunk climate change. Unfortunately they may feel that they are skeptical of climate change, but what they are really doing is cherry picking information and thus conforming to their own belief system. Thus they are simply being rigid and are going at great lengths to confirm their own bias.

In the end the best thing to do in my opinion is to take two opposite positions and arrive at your own conclusion by simply creating a synthesis of the anti-thesis and thesis.