Cryptohedonology

Penn & Teller’s Bullshit – Holier Than Thou With Christopher Hitchens (Google Video, 25min)

This was originally brought to my attention on the Richard Dawkins video logs site.

Penn and Teller are great entertainers and, to the degree they get people questioning basic assumptions about their lives, I think they are doing a great service. I do love the show Bullshit! and watch it whenever possible. Also be sure and see their epic stage show at the Rio in Las Vegas. But Bullshit!, viewed beyond a form of “skeptically-minded entertainment” (e.g. if used as a source of actual information), is overrated. In this context, they have a clear ego-driven agenda and frequently come across as embarrassingly bombastic and ill-informed.

In some ways, they are like the Michael Moores of the libertarian skeptics movement. They ask the right questions, but essentially preach to the converted and reach conclusions through a series of argumentative fallacies and manipulations to make their point. Sometimes they are right, sometimes not. Both are entertaining, but Michael Moore isn’t the one claiming to champion reason and clear thinking.

As an example, take Penn’s quote (about Richard Dawkins recent book The God Delusions, on the right sidebar of RD’s website) “If this book doesn’t change the world — we’re all screwed.” The comment is funny and witty (especially if you enjoyed TGD). But Penn’s comment highlights this Michael Moore-like thinking. The statement is manipulative and essentially nonsensical to a rationalist. As a bit of reasoning, it is a fallacy, representing a false dichotomy. Sure, it makes for a funny blurb on a website advertising a book, but my point is that their entire Bullshit! show is built off of such quips.

I recall at The Amazing Meeting 2007 how Penn sheepishly admitted that the message of their second-hand smoke episode was incorrect (i.e. second hand smoke isn’t harmless). But to see them present the material on Bullshit!, you would think that to disagree with them on this issue was an assault on the very foundations of reason and free will.

In some sense, they are a classic reminder of how easy it is to misframe information. How ambition, ego, and just the desire to be right (or the desire for the other guy to be wrong), distorts the thinking of even the best intentioned and hardened rationalists.

All that said, I found this episode wonderfully iconolclasic.

But as another example of this questionable reasoning, take “the letter’ talked about in the start of the episode (that kicks off the whole “other cultures” bit). They say the letter is written by Michael Goudeau. The whole setup is done tongue-and-cheek and perhaps it is no surprise that Goudeau is a co-Executive producer on the show. To say that it came from a “letter from a viewer” is probably true, since Goudeau undoubtedly watches the show. Take as a little in-joke, it is quite amusing (and the picture of someone, probably Goudeau, flipping them off, is also funny). Is it misleading? Hard to say. I wonder how many people (including skeptics watching the show) took in good faith that the letter was not from an insider on the show. Also, one might argue by doing such tricks, they are encouraging you to think for yourself and ask things like “who is this Michael Goudeau guy, and why did they just say this poor bastard’s name on TV!” If taken unquestioningly, the message might be to get people to think “I’m not writing to complain to P&T if they are going to say my name!”

My point is that the “letter” tactic is in a grey area. It is funny, entertaining, and breeds a cool “in-joke” quality to the presentation. It is also honest in some weird way: the information is all out there (Goudeau’s name appears moments later in the credits, so if you are paying attention you can be in on the joke within moments). But it is also manipulative. It is embracing rationality while exploiting it. Of course, this is what stage magicians do for a living — and it makes for wonderful stage shows. But it is annoying to see in the context of a show trying to act in an informative capacity.