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I belong to a mailing list that was recently invaded by a [Alex] Jones disciple, and his behavior was extraordinary. He considered himself a champion of skepticism and derided us for lacking “true skepticism” because we didn’t believe his PCT [i.e., Paranoid Conspiracy Theory] claims unquestioningly. “True skepticism” is only that which is directed toward government claims; claims in opposition to the official story are worthy of belief simply because they are in opposition.

—Martin Wagner

Pseudoscience just has a distinctive tone and structure. If this were a debate about something I know nothing at all about, like the metrical structure of Tang Dynasty Chinese poetry, I’d be able to tell in ten minutes who were the real scholars and who were the charlatans. Real scholars look at the totality of the data; charlatans rely on anecdotal evidence and isolated anomalies. Real scholars know what constitutes being an expert, and rely on the findings of experts. Charlatans cite people with irrelevant credentials, or marginal credentials (master’s degrees, even graduate students) as if they were on a par with the real experts on the other side. Charlatans pile on accusations that they were being unfairly treated and complain that important questions are not being addressed when even a cursory examination of the scholarly literature shows that they are.

—Steven Dutch

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I think it is likely that many PCTs in the West are initiated into their peculiar way of thinking by their religious training, in particular by their study of the Bible. They have been taught or they assume that everything happens for a purpose and that God ultimately has a reason for every event occurring just as it does. As it becomes more and more difficult to see this world as designed for anything, the theories get more and more preposterous to keep the teleological delusion alive. The war on evolution and homosexuality—encouraging the abandonment of science and stimulating murderous assaults—so obviously disproportionate by any rational standard, is difficult to explain without seeing the militant fundamentalists as beyond the last stages of desperation. The intense campaigns to expose possible alien abductions, UFOs, and mind-control is likewise preposterously disproportionate to any rational standard. It is becoming nearly impossible to account for the events on this planet with the assumption of a Divine Creator who has a plan and a rationale for everything. The systems of thought that must be created in order to maintain Divine Providence get more insane by the minute….

It is a very natural trait to try to make sense out of the world. The PCTs are trying desperately to make sense out of a world they can no longer relate to. The world is too complicated, too mean, too cold, too unsatisfying for them. In the real world, they are considered nothing and despair of ever being anything but on the outside looking in. They see science as telling them they are an accident and their lives are without meaning. In their alternative world, they rule and are hopeful. Everything is in its place or will be put in its place. There is order and meaning. Life is significant.

—Robert Carroll