John Seward wasn’t hampered by his disbelief, nor was he dogmatic. He returned with Van Helsing on multiple excursions into the graveyard to let Van Helsing prove his ideas, even though he was unconvinced the first time around. Is that the behavior of a dogmatist?

Also the book doesn’t really go into Van Helsing’s path of believing based on evidence; he at one point mentions in passing that he doubted at first and was convinced by evidence but no detail or attention is giving. He also mentions a couple times that the superstitions about vampire weaknesses may not be true, but superstition is all they have to go on, but I don’t think it had the vibe of “inquiry and testing theories” as “relying on any ideas they could and hoping they worked”. And all of them did work. It would’ve been better for this article’s case if some of the superstitions proved false and others true. But with every superstition proving valid and their potential faultiness just mentioned in passing once or twice, a better case could be made that it sends the message superstitions can be faithfully relied upon than what the author’s trying to get it.

Not to mention, Van Helsing himself describes “science” as “it wants to explain all, and if it explain not, then it says there is nothing to explain”, which is silly, as we can all think of mysteries, not even related to the paranormal or religious, that science freely admits ignorance to, such as the exact navigation method of pigeons.

That said, I’m not faulting Stoker for his portrayal of superstitions as valid, since it is fiction and that’s what fiction is supposed to do. It was a novel worth a read, and I enjoyed it. I just don’t think what the author of this article saw in it is really there.

Though I do agree that supernatural fiction can promote skepticism. In fact I credit my own skepticism in part to TV shows in the style of the Twilight Zone. The style I am speaking of is one that gnaws at one of the fundamental biases in pseudoscience; the attribution of strange events to sentient minds. In the Twilight Zone, bizarre things often occur not because they were planned by special supernatural creature. They happen “naturally”. In the episode “Mind over the Matter” psychic powers are gained and lost by sheer probability and natural forces in the universe, just as a coin lands on its edge. Often things happen and the show doesn’t succumb to the need to have them be perfectly explained or caused by some being. Some episodes are blatantly pro-reason such as the classic “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street” as well as one of my favorites; “The Nick of Time”, in which a man is roped into depending on a fortune telling machine until his wife finally persuades him that only he is in charge of his destiny.

As for some skeptics feeling guilty about enjoying supernatural fiction, I think the most hardcore skeptics and atheists should feel free to enjoy and even be scared by The Exorcist. If supernatural fiction encourages supernatural belief, that’s more the fault of the viewers than the writers. People need to understand; we put things in fiction because said things are the we like to view the world; they are portrayals of our fantasies, our hopes and our fears. When something appears in fiction; it’s put there exactly because it can’t be found in reality. So sit back all, suspend disbelief and enjoy.

As for pseudo-documentaries that try to pass off the supernatural as objective recordings of factual events, they are a different story altogether.

As an athiest I have to ask, Do you have any examples to support your claim:

“I believe that atheists are prone to superstition over long durations. It is so hard to not believe in something that they end up falling for anything and many other things besides.”

I believe that atheists are prone to superstition over long durations. It is so hard to not believe in something that they end up falling for anything and many other things besides.

On the flip side of this, I’m not truly an unbeliever. I call myself a spiritual agnostic. I believe there is something beyond this plane that we do not yet understand, but I’m not arrogant enough to say I know what it is. As a widowed self-described sexy senior citizen, I keep praying for an alluring succubus to visit me on occasion, but to date my prayers have not been answered, so perhaps I am wrong after all. A good friend died just before Christmas. He was declared terminal the day he was admitted to hospital and died eight days later. On about the fourth day, he told me religious people had been in to see him to “sign me up at the last minute. I pretended to be asleep.” Right on, buddy.

They are selling snake oil and I take extreme exception to that. Every reasonable critical thinking person should be deeply offended by what they are doing IMHO. They are ripping people off on a number of levels.

One might infer from this imbalance, some alleged skeptics are on the payroll of the pharmaceutical industry and the AMA.

If only Skeptic Magazine would be as broad-minded in its choice of subject matter. I would like to see more skepticism regarding mainstream science. In particular, modern medicine, in my experience, covers the whole spectrum from the sublime to the ridiculous. It has been my good fortune not to require the sublime parts as yet, but I have experienced a few of the ridiculous ones. Skepticism has helped me to avoid counter-productive treatment.

Apropos of nothing, when I was a kid I used to turn my transistor radio to the end of the dial at night and listen to a train rolling through the night. It was great for producing cool images, but I never actually believed I was listening to a train.

Colavito has made some good points here and some of the readers, alas, have not seen fit to appreciate them. While I might quibble with Jason’s historical perspective about the Romantics rebelling against the emergence of naturalistic thinking during the early enlightenment, it’s true that many saw the early empiricists as attacking aesthetics but recall, Shelley who was an archduke of the Romantic period wrote extensively on being an atheist.

The other point Sr. Colavito makes is that the horror genre is part of our mythic tradition, a point I would have liked to have seen him develop further. As an anthropologist and linguist interested in the relationship between linguistic, mythic and brain structure, the gothic tradition plays an important role in our literature, music and visual art. Colavito’s appeal for looking at this genre with the same reasoning we use to we assess other issues makes sense to me. Nowhere did I see him declare that there is not a lot of crap out there and not everything produced commercially is good.

Look gang. We skeptics have a hard row to hoe. Kids of mystics, religionists and true believers are going to be raised with that tripe. Some will find out for themselves that it’s all so much fiction. Most won’t. The children of skeptics have a better chance to develop critical thinking skills and most will. But, the bitter fact is that the True Believers are out producing us skeptics and that leaves us with a decided Darwinian disadvantage. Sr. Jason Colavito is advocating looking at a genre that has been marginalized with an open mind. What’s wrong with that?

Bob Carroll is the _author_ of The Skeptic’s Dictionary; I am the editor and agree strongly with him on this matter. We must discriminate between harmless entertainments like _Frankenstein_ and cruel exploitations like _Psychic Kids_ or free advertising for delusional psychics/frauds like Alison DuBois and John Edward. KenC at 20 provides data that should give us all pause.

Still, “his book” bears no resemblance to what you are ranting about.

Did you READ the article?

And what is “Colavio’s book” anyway? I didn’t see any reference to a book by him anywhere.

[kurt]