Bernhard Muller writes:
You say: “Skeptics get a bad and undeserved press.” I submit that it depends on what one is skeptical of whether the bad press is undeserved, or even bad at all. There are, of course, evolution skeptics. But there are also global warming skeptics, immunization skeptics, fluoridation skeptics, man walking on the moon skeptics; and yoga skeptics, and acupuncture skeptics, and chiropractic skeptics. You might devote a column to the basis for skepticism and why some skepticism may be more valid than others.
Your wish is my command. The paragraph Bernhard refers to is:
…For some reason people who accept the most outrageous assumptions on faith are often valued while their colleagues who question the basis of that faith are held to be in a lower social status. This tendency goes all the way back to Socrates and beyond. Doubting Thomas was a proto-scientist, and Icarus was an enthusiastic test engineer. Everything we learn starts with a skeptical thought.
Bernhard and I seem to agree on the value of healthy skepticism. Even more important, we agree that the quality of being a skeptic is an analog parameter. Bernhard indicates this when he writes “more valid than…” In other words, skepticism comes in degrees. Remember that simple fact and don’t let people try to pigeonhole you into being either a believer or skeptic: that is a classic way of attempting to win debates. Instead of being suckered into thinking of skepticism as a digital parameter (yes or no) imagine a parameter that varies from abject unquestioning belief at one end to total rejection of anything that is not proven absolutely true for all times on the other. A healthy skeptic lives in a range somewhere on the disbelief side. A healthy skeptic moves back and forth on the scale for each idea and for each new bit of data gathered about each idea. This is in contrast to hardcore faithful who reject new data that does not support their beliefs and stubbornly cling to their end of the spectrum.
Many books have been written on faith, skepticism, scientific induction, and epistemology. Attempting to survey the whole field in this short note would not do justice to the topics. Those who want to follow up should visit this site or simply google on some key words. If you are interested in reading a book that attacks sloppy thought, try The Transcendental Temptation: a Critique of Religion and the Paranormal by Paul Kurtz. This book is rather dated now, but still interesting. Any book by him would probably be interesting. A more recent book with a different and more inflammatory thesis is Dawkins’ The God Delusion. Dawkins tells you where is coming from right up front.
I think that a reasonable skeptic’s position is to say that anyone is welcome to believe anything that happens in their head and stays there. But if you make statements about how things in your head affect the world and other people outside your head, then your ideas must submit to scrutiny for me to accept them. An internal revelation to you is hearsay to me. Your unsupported word that you have been talking to God and she is mad at me carries no authority, but might be fun.
The same applies to global warming, acupuncture, and the other topics Bernhard mentions. Skeptics have contributed positively to each topic. We have a better understanding of the causes and likely course of predicted global warming because we had a lively debate over it sparked by skeptics. I turned from suspended belief to believing based on reviewing the data. That debate will likely continue until the issue is tied down and understood as well as we understand evolution.
Skepticism, like any other tool used by humans, has a range of application where it is valuable. Attempting to use it in the wrong place is counterproductive. Alexander Pope says “Be not the first by whom the new is tried nor be the last to lay the old aside.” In a way, that captures the idea that new truths do not enter a society all at once, but grow like an organic thing. A good skeptic accepts nothing at first glance, but looks at it critically. If a reasonably firm decision cannot be supported by physical data, then a new idea must be held tentative until it is either supported or disproven. The difficulty is that false physical conjectures can often be disproven, but true ones can only be supported to some degree of probability. But that is another column.
In response to the interest my original tutorial generated, I have completely rewritten and expanded it. Check out the tutorial availability through Lockergnome. The new version is over 100 pages long with chapters that alternate between discussion of the theoretical aspects and puzzles just for the fun of it. Puzzle lovers will be glad to know that I included an answers section that includes discussions as to why the answer is correct and how it was obtained. Most of the material has appeared in these columns, but some is new. Most of the discussions are expanded compared to what they were in the original column format.
[tags]skepticism, skeptic, proof, faith, The Transcendental Temptation, The God Delusion, Socrates, Doubting Thomas, Icarus, global warming[/tags]