I’ve recently encountered one of more real-life believers of the following woo lies: homeopathic “medicine“, acupuncture, colon cleansing, raw food diets, organic-only diets, detox diets, vitamin C and echinacea for colds, cupping, “The Secret“, psychic powers, ghosts, 9/11 conspiracies, astrology, and various gods (to name only a few).
I know how to handle these sorts of people online — a) ignore them (best option), b) ridicule them (more entertaining option), c) attempt to reason with them (complete waste of time). In person, however, I’m usually at a bit of a loss. How ought I to respond to someone who brings any of these things up in the course of normal conversation?
My first instinct is to hijack the small-talk and start a conversation about science, logic, common sense, and how they person involved has managed to avoid all of these. I don’t usually mean to do it. I think my “mistake” is to reply to them with a phrase like “homeopathic medicine doesn’t work” as opposed to “I don’t believe in homeopathic medicine”. Ugh.
Well, actually. Reply #1 leads to an argument. Reply #2 leads to the response “well it works for me, and it’s better for you than that stuff with all the chemicals in it”, which leads to my brain exploding, and reply #1 escaping my mouth anyway. This just gets me labelled as a know-it-all. A know-it-all who is perceived to be wrong, in fact — the most annoying sort!
Taking homeopathy as an example, most people I run into who believe in it don’t even know what it is! Many of them seem to assume that it is a synonym for “natural” or “organic”, and have been led to believe that both of these are synonyms for “healthy”. Clearly, since healthy is good, homeopathy is win!
Trying to unravel the layers and layers of BS that got someone to the point of believing in something as completely nutty as homeopathy is practically impossible, especially since people don’t like to be wrong, and will usually get angry or demand to change the subject before any reason leaks into their brain.
Should I just brush off subjects like these when they come up, and go insane slowly and silently from having to endure woo quietly, when every neuron in my brain wants to attack it, or should I continue to be the know-it-all bitch. Is there some third option I’ve missed? Getting together every rational person I can find, and evacuating us to another planet, say?
I usually go with option #1 and attempt to calmly make a case. It helps to use the Socratic method and have the other person hang himself with the acceptance of clear facts. If that individual rejects those facts, then he just shot himself in the foot and you can latch on to that to discredit the entire premise. Of course, this doesn’t make for good friendly dinner conversation. So you’re still left with the dillemma: friends an quackery or aggrevation and truth? I figure I’m going to be aggrevated anyway, might as well do my part and help chip away some of the bullshit in the world.
I usually go with option #1 and attempt to calmly make a case. It helps to use the Socratic method and have the other person hang himself with the acceptance of clear facts. If that individual rejects those facts, then he just shot himself in the foot and you can latch on to that to discredit the entire premise. Of course, this doesn’t make for good friendly dinner conversation. So you’re still left with the dillemma: friends an quackery or aggrevation and truth? I figure I’m going to be aggrevated anyway, might as well do my part and help chip away some of the bullshit in the world.
That’s the problem. Most of the time they won’t accept the facts, or are immune to reason. They usually respond with one or several of these. That list already has over 100 ways they can avoid the truth, and I don’t see it ending any time soon. Once in a while I find someone who will listen and learn, but in those cases, it’s usually someone who is generally pretty rational, and had something slip under their radar. I’ll admit, it occasionally happens to me, too. When I’m eventually confronted with the truth, however, I’m typically thankful, rather than defensive or argumentative (although I’m usually also quite embarrassed).
That’s the problem. Most of the time they won’t accept the facts, or are immune to reason. They usually respond with one or several of these. That list already has over 100 ways they can avoid the truth, and I don’t see it ending any time soon. Once in a while I find someone who will listen and learn, but in those cases, it’s usually someone who is generally pretty rational, and had something slip under their radar. I’ll admit, it occasionally happens to me, too. When I’m eventually confronted with the truth, however, I’m typically thankful, rather than defensive or argumentative (although I’m usually also quite embarrassed).
Tell them to lick your woo-woo.
Tell them to lick your woo-woo.
Could be tricky, since I’d likely be the first one to use the term “woo-woo” and they’d have to repeat it — but you’ve been helpful nonetheless, because I will now be more careful lest I give someone an opening to use this one on me!
Could be tricky, since I’d likely be the first one to use the term “woo-woo” and they’d have to repeat it — but you’ve been helpful nonetheless, because I will now be more careful lest I give someone an opening to use this one on me!