http://www.wikisynergy.com/~wikisyne/w/index.php?title=Pseudoskepticism

Note: the the blog article title is spelt ““psuedoskepticism”, but should be ““pseudoskepticism”.

An embarrassing mistake, but thanks for catching it! My spell checker didn’t have “pseudoskepticism” in it (until I recently added it), so I kept making the typo without catching it.

Thank you for your comment as well. I think, however, the important connotation of the term is when evaluating claims by denialists of global-warming, Holocaust, the Moon-landing, and the like. Or for those who take on the persona of the skeptic when they attempt to evaluate a scientific position on evolution, genetic manipulation of crops, health effects of smoking, the availability of oil as a natural resource, etc.

In these instances, this “skeptical persona” is one with an agenda to discredit science (or any rational conclusion) while supporting a conclusion to the contrary or a conclusion that is inconsistent with a rational/scientific one.

That, I believe, is the best place to apply the term “pseudoskeptical,” since the intent isn’t to be a true skeptic who evaluates all the data to arrive at a conclusion. Rather, the “pseudoskeptic” has a conclusion for which the data are sought to support.

That’s not to say that there aren’t bad skeptics who doubt for the wrong reasons. I think these would be appropriately called “bad skeptics” just as someone who does science badly would be a “bad scientist.” Certainly there are fine lines delineating both of the terms in each of these categories (skepticism and science), but I think they’re separate nonetheless.

Just like the word “pseudoscience”, the word “Psuedoskepticism” is not scientifically defined. And that presents problems: we all interpret the definitions loosely.

For this reason we generally don’t see scientists using the words, especially in scientific articles, because by themselves, and with no context, the words are no more than insults that convey no useful information.

Most claims of pseudoscience I read are pseudoskeptical because they provide insufficient information to ascertain why something has been so labelled.

Even when “woos” (as you call them) counter with the pseudoskeptical label, being a “woo” does not necessarily invalidate the label, but conversely, even an expert’s description of someone as pseudoskeptical does not validate it.

I think that many skeptics use pseudoskeptical arguments, which does not necessarily make them pseudoskeptics.

Likewise, I suspect that many who have had their work labeled pseudoscience, are lax, rather than deliberately pretending their work is scientific, when it is not.