This somewhat tongue-in-cheek article from Mark Stevenson at the UK's New Statesman proposes a novel approach: taxation
New Statesman - Could pseudo-science fund cancer research?.
This then is where science and critical thinking skills come in -- a framework of checks and balances, putting some filters around our bug-ridden brains so that what eventually dribbles out is something approaching the truth. And let's be honest, science has been astonishingly successful at curbing our in-built nuttiness. One can only admire how this cognitive safety harness has continually come up trumps for its nutty creators.
But is there a middle ground to be found in the snake oil wars? One that admits we all choose which irrationalities we'll indulge in (and allows us to practice them) while admitting they may be harmful?
Here's a suggestion. I call it the "pseudo science and quackery emissions trading scheme". It works in a very similar fashion to carbon trading, where a cost is put on your CO2 emissions. In these schemes you can continue to emit CO2 but there is a financial consequence. The more you emit, the more you pay.
Why not then set up a similar scheme for emissions of pseudo-science? So, as a homeopath you can continue pushing your placebos, but if you claim them to be anything more you will be sent a bill at the end of each quarter calculated against a number of evidence abusing criteria -- the size of your customer base, how many times you appropriate sayings from eastern philosophy without understanding them much, and your client-facing hours. The money would then be given to, say, a medical research charity.
Everyone wins. Crystal healers can carry on trading but they at least know there is now an actual financial cost to peddling nonsense (a tax that would have to be itemised on any client's bill). Some rationalists might even begin to see practicing quacks as good thing -- generating a much needed extra revenue stream for genuine medical research. And homeopaths, faith healers and crystal wizards could legitimately claim that they were now doing something to fight cancer.
Comments