Renkon Root
Versatile Receiver
17,575 Points
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Lots of people seem to have forgotten what a skeptic really is, they are not people who don't believe in the supernatural... rather they are people who ask questions. What the modern skeptic tends to forget is, even the conclusions that they draw need to be questioned. A skeptic is not one that says "That's ridiculous, I don't believe you!" but instead "Have you evidence to support your claim?"
Most "supernatural" phenomena can be explained by otherwise normal circumstances; swamp gas can look like UFOs, the canines of a corpse will sometimes protrude like fangs, etc. A skeptic is a person who examines all possible explanations instead of jumping to the conclusion that "the wizard did it".
A More Definitive Definition of 'Skeptic'
skeptic |ˈskeptik| ( Brit. sceptic)
noun
1 a person inclined to question or doubt all accepted opinions.
• a person who doubts the truth of Christianity and other religions; an atheist or agnostic.
2 Philosophy an ancient or modern philosopher who denies the possibility of knowledge, or even rational belief, in some sphere.
DERIVATIVES
skepticism |ˈskeptəˌsizəm| |ˈskɛptəˈsɪzəm| |-sɪz(ə)m| ( Brit. scepticism) noun
noun
1 a person inclined to question or doubt all accepted opinions.
• a person who doubts the truth of Christianity and other religions; an atheist or agnostic.
2 Philosophy an ancient or modern philosopher who denies the possibility of knowledge, or even rational belief, in some sphere.
DERIVATIVES
skepticism |ˈskeptəˌsizəm| |ˈskɛptəˈsɪzəm| |-sɪz(ə)m| ( Brit. scepticism) noun
Index:
1.) First Post/Intro
2.) The "Old" Thread
3.) Poll Results & Data Discussion
4.) Note-Worthy Threads
5.) Reserved Post
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"Good" Evidence vs. "Bad" Evidence
In ordinary speech we appeal to all kinds of evidence: “I heard it on the news”; “I saw it with my own eyes”; “In tests, eight out of ten cats say their owners preferred it”.
The problem is, of course, that not all evidence is good evidence. What makes good evidence is a big issue, but the key general principal is that evidence is stronger if it is available to inspection by more people on repeated occasions; and worse if it is confined to the testimonies of a small number of people on limited occasions. We can see how this principal works by considering two extreme examples. The evidence that water freezes at zero degrees centigrade is an example of the best kind of evidence. In principal, anyone can test this out at any time for themselves and each test makes the evidence more compelling.
Now consider the other extreme, often called anecdotal evidence because it relies on the testimony of a single person relating to one incident. Someone claims that they saw their dog spontaneously combust right before their very eyes. Is this good evidence for the existence of spontaneous canine combustion? Not at all, for many reasons. First, as the Scottish philosopher David Hume pointed out, the evidence has to be balanced against the much larger amount of evidence that don’t just burst into flames. Hume’s point is not that testimony of this one person isn’t evidence at all. It is rather that it is insignificant when we compare it to all the other evidence we have that spontaneous canine combustion does not take place.
A second reason why it is not good evidence is that, sadly, human beings are not very good at interpreting their experiences, especially unusual ones. Take as a simple example the experience of seeing an illusionist who pretends to have real powers bending a metal spoon without excreting any apparent physical force. You will hear people persuaded by such experiments to say that they “saw the person bend the spoon with their thoughts.” Of course, they saw no such thing, not least because they could not see the illusionist’s thoughts, which means they couldn’t have seen the thoughts bend the metal. What they saw was a spoon bend, while they did not see any physical force being exerted upon it, that is all. Everything else is just interpretation.
To say this is not to call the witness a liar or fool. They are neither. They did not lie, they were just mistaken, and they are not fools but victims of a clever trick.
We can see how the merits of these two extremes of evidence compare by considering how we show anecdotal evidence to be weak. In the case of spontaneous canine combustion, the failure of the episode to ever be repeated is one reason why we take the anecdotal evidence for its occurrence to be weak. If dogs did burs into flames for no apparent reason regularly, the the evidence would be stronger: stronger because it is available to inspection to more people in repeated occasions.
We can be similarly skeptical about the strength of evidence for spoon-bending because when the “powers” of the spoon-bender are tested in a situation in which the phenomenon can be observed in laboratory conditions, no such powers are displayed. Again, it seems that the evidence is such that it is not open to the kind of ordinary inspection that the freezing of water is.
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Providing Evidence
A Helpful and Informative Thread
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3 Guide-lines of Skepticism
FlamingCanine
1. If you are told someone is usually a skeptic, but this had them convinced, they aren't a skeptic.
FlamingCanine
2. Opening ones mind does not mean suspending critical thinking or skepticism. It means comparing the validity of new ideas
FlamingCanine
3. Skepticism isn't a plain "I don't believe in it" it is instead, more of a "I evaluate statements based on their validity and supporting facts, instead of on faith and belief of myself and others"
