no, no, go on, bring on the hate clicks

Over the weekend, my post about Nick Redfern’s theory of alien genetic engineering was given an unflattering write-up by news editors for The Anomalist, an alt-media franchise which, not all that surprisingly, published five of Redfern’s books. Like most unflattering write-ups of this kind, he centered on two of the standard cliches of paranormal writers defending themselves from a scientific criticism. The first is that their critic, whoever it is, didn’t engage with the arguments so there’s really no need to counter-argue. The second, is that whatever criticism was gives was a mere “copypasta” from derisively mocked and official sources in scare quotes, because science is apparently only interesting, relevant, or reliable when it provides an exploitable mystery for a paranormal outlet to explore. What annoys me isn’t so much being disagreed with — in pop sci blogging — it’s par for the course, but the lazy, snide, protecting-our-investment derision.

Really, when someone tells you that you didn’t engage with unnamed points, accuses of giving out your own theories when you’ve introduced none, and being a mouthpiece of some sort of a disinformation campaign for merely using detailed scientific sources, the only conclusion you’re going to make is that you hit a nerve and someone wants to preemptively dismiss you. Writing any real counterpoints would’ve just given me more targets and treating me with any respect is going to give their readers the impression that my criticism may be legitimate. That’s a textbook strategy pseudoscientists and paranormalists employ in self-defense against all skeptics: deride and evade. Like some fish puff out their chests to make themselves look bigger, those affected by a skeptical missive act as if defending their ideas to doubters is somehow beneath them and hide behind a wall of sound bites from eager followers who want their worldviews affirmed…