Bullshit

[flexibeast]

i had got the impression from around the traps that Penn and Teller's tv show Bullshit was a great show debunking various myths. Well, i recently saw a substantial portion of their episode on the animal rights movement (e.g. PETA), and the start of their episode on the environmental movement . . . . and i call Bullshit.

The animal rights episode not only appeared to be trying to conflate the views of PETA and groups like the ALF, it offered little substantive philosophical arguments against the notion of animal rights. The major argument seemed to be "Well, obviously we should care more about humans than animals! Comparing the mass killing of animals for food to the Holocaust is just ludicrous!" The problem is, humans have often justified oppressing each other through claims that the privileged group 'obviously' should have more rights than the unprivileged group; and more interestingly, by putting unprivileged groups in the 'animal' category (e.g. "Negroes are little more than animals"). But in any event, although the philosophy behind the animal rights movement may or may not be tenable, i feel that (having done a reasonable amount of reading on the philosophy in question) its refutation requires a more comprehensive philosophical response than the "Pfft, what rubbish!" response of Penn and Teller.

i managed to sit through between five and ten minutes of the episode on the environmental movement before i changed channels in disgust.

There were two basic claims being made that i had an issue with:

• Firstly, that the environmental movement is being 'alarmist' and that really things aren't as bad as them greenies are making out. Part of this involved having a go at a guy who said something like "Global warming, deforestation, glacial melting - there's no debate that these things are happening." P&T's response was "Bullshit: there's always debate." Well, technically, yes, but then, don't we have to look at the quality of the debate? Take Wallace and Darwin's theory of Natural Selection, which nowadays forms part of a broader theory called the 'synthetic' theory. Yes, technically, there is debate, between Creationists on the one hand and evolutionists on the other (i'm not even going to include 'Intelligent Design' here, because as far as i'm aware, it offers no falsifiable hypotheses to make it a valid scientific theory). There is a mass of evidence, however, to support the evolutionists, and very little to support the Creationists, who tend to rely on one or more of (a) people's misunderstandings of what Natural Selection is about; (b) ignoring/omitting substantial research data; (c) misunderstandings of physics; or (d) fabricating evidence. So the 'debate' in this instance is rather one-sided. (i would actually suggest that the debates over evolutionary rates are probably more significant.)
  
  Similarly, the evidence for global warming, deforestation etc. is rather strong: New evidence shows Antarctica has warmed in last 150 years, World's Glaciers Slowly Disappearing, Arctic ice meltdown continues with significantly reduced winter ice cover, Ice cores reveal historic heights of CO₂, Environmental damage highlighted by Google Earth, to cite just a few examples. It seems to me that the debate is less about whether global warming etc. is actually occurring and more about whether it's natural, or a result of human activity, or both (for example, recent research suggests that an increase in the sun's energy output is not a likely cause of global warming). But P&T didn't mention this.


• Secondly, that the environmental movement is basically anti-corporate = anti-capitalist = socialist. Suggesting that all these notions are equivalent and interchangeable is, to put it simply, wrong. Anti-corporatism is not inherently anti-capitalist; it can actually be part of a conservative perspective. i have read a tirade by a conservative owner of an SMB against corporations because they are run by people who aren't actually liable (or have only limited liability) for the actions of the organisation, and who are therefore cowards evading personal responsibility - one of conservatism's treasured tenets. Further, hostility to capitalism does not automatically imply the advocacy of socialism; anarchism is another option (albeit one that can contain socialistic/communistic ideas), amongst others.

Personally, i expect debunkings to have a reasonable degree of intellectural rigor - and from what i've seen, Bullshit fails in this regard. Perhaps Penn and Teller should stick to playing Rebo and Zooty. :-/
 

Comments

[trinityva.livejournal.com]

I do call bullshit on comparing the mass killing of animals to the Holocaust.

But that's because I call bullshit on comparing ANYTHING to the Holocaust. Do people not see how incredibly disrespectful it is to fling Holocaust comparisons around? People treat it as some sort of Genocide Trump Card they can pull out whenever they want, and that's twelve kinds of stupid and disgusting.

There's all kinds of ways PETA could make its point without flourishing The Holocaust Card in such a callous way. (Or anything else -- their ads also have a disturbing tendency to be sexist as well. And some of the ads they direct toward kids, like the "Your Mommy KIlls Bunnies" ads, are just really not an appropriate way to bring up the issue to very young children. If kids aren't abused or mistreated, kids idolize their parents. Telling kids their parents are murderers is just too much of a mindjob. Telling kids "Your mommy isn't mindful of how these bunnies are treated! Maybe you should let her know!" might work better -- though I'm not sure what I think of them targeting young children at all anyway.)

[flexibeast.livejournal.com]

I do call bullshit on comparing the mass killing of animals to the Holocaust. But that's because I call bullshit on comparing ANYTHING to the Holocaust.

*nod* Definitely.

Re. PETA's ads - yeah, i've come across numerous instances of PETA's dodginess in this regard, and i was actually expecting P&T to focus on that stuff more than they did . . . .

[trinityva.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that would have actually been entertaining.

from wikipedia

[happyevilslosh.livejournal.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit%21
Many critics accuse Penn and Teller of being biased in their approach to debunking their opponent's arguments.

Chaz Miller, who was interviewed for the "Recycling" episode, said that Bullshit! attempts to exclude certain information if it does not favor the show's position. [3]

During an episode dedicated to questioning the factual accuracy of the Bible, Penn Jillette said that Bullshit!'s approach is support for viewpoints which they feel are honest and well-educated.

In the episode "Family Values" Penn said:

"...we're fair and we never take people out of context. We're biased as fuck. But, we try to be honest." [4]

Still, some critics sympathetic with the duo's over-arching message have expressed regret that they can occasionally slip into the same sensationalism as their targets, including validating their points with pundits that possess dubious qualifications, such as controversial rock star Ted Nugent. This was summed up in a review by Slate which stated: "One of the unwritten rules for winning an argument against an inflammatory, irrational opponent is to calmly adhere to a loftier set of rhetorical standards. Penn and Teller showily throw this notion out the window." [5]

While Penn and Teller are self-professed as skeptics, critics have been quick to note that Bullshit! is not dedicated to fact-based debunking or inquiry. An otherwise favorable review by The Onion AV Club noted:

Bullshit! isn't journalism, exactly. The show is one-sided by design: P&T's field interviewers rarely confront their subjects with the evidence against them, preferring to let the crackpots ramble on so that Jillette's voiceover rejoinders can score points without inciting a real argument. [6]




Also I'm not sure how qualified you are to judge the whole episode if you didn't even watch half of it. :P

Re: from wikipedia

[flexibeast.livejournal.com]

Yes, the Wikipedia entry makes a lot of good points.

I'm not sure how qualified you are to judge the whole episode if you didn't even watch half of it. :P

*nod* Fair point. i guess, after seeing so much rubbish on the animal rights movement episode, that when i saw the same sort of thing happening on the environmental movement episode i went all inductive and thought "Great, i guess i can expect the same rubbish again."

Having said that, the episode got the fundamentals wrong - the fundamentals which were being used as a basis for later aspects of the show (that i observed). By way of analogy, if you went to a lecture on set theory which started out by asserting that there are debates about the true usefulness of set theory in mathematics, and that classes are synonymous with sets, would you consider the rest of the lecture to be likely to be worth listening to? Even if it did later convey interesting and accurate information (which is doubtful given its basic premises), i'm not sure that it makes up for the sheer intellectual dishonesty of the opening section.

As noted in the Wikipedia article:

This was summed up in a review by Slate which stated: "One of the unwritten rules for winning an argument against an inflammatory, irrational opponent is to calmly adhere to a loftier set of rhetorical standards. Penn and Teller showily throw this notion out the window."

Presumably the reviewer has seen more of P&T than i have, and yet still comes to the same conclusion that i have: that P&T, despite clearly trying to claim the moral high ground, are no better than their opponents.