H
Hysterical
Guest
When I visit a site devoted to, say, UFOs or pyramidology, I make it my practice to look around for what the site's owner is selling -- and I always find it. Trace any of these fringe beliefs back very far toward its source and you come to some huckster with a product to flog. No surprise in that; there's always been money in exploiting the gullible, and if these shuck artists were only hoaxing the rich, I wouldn't object very loudly. But I fear that most of their junk (CDs, tapes, books, videos, T-shirts, pseudo-medical paraphernalia) is being sold to poor, aging, ignorant, confused people whose lives are difficult enough already. Folks like that really shouldn't be going hungry to buy the latest shocking new truth about Roswell, or Bigfoot, or whatever it may be. I think that aggressive skeptics (and I hope I'm one) should devote more time and effort to exposing con men, rather than arguing with the fringe-believing faithful (a task rather like washing a bar of soap) or agreeing with each other in web forums. I don't want to sound sanctimonious, I just want to urge fed-up skeptics (and I hope that includes some of you) to confront the profiteers who're making big bucks out of people who are, for whatever reason, effectively helpless.