Skepticism

Skepticism is a method of intellectual caution, suspended judgment, and pursuing knowledge through systematic doubt and continual testing.

Quotes

• I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I'll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be.
  • Isaac Asimov (1997) The Roving Mind. Prometheus Books. p.349

• History is replete with examples of what happens when any group of authorities do not have to answer to empirical evidence but are free to define truth as they see fit. None of the examples has a happy ending. Why should it be otherwise with therapy?
  • Robert Todd Carroll, The Skeptic's Dictionary, entry on "repressed memory therapy (RMT)"

• Scepticism is the first step towards truth.
  • Denis Diderot, Pensées Philosophiques (1746)

• Hodge: Ah, so it's a test you're looking for. We don't do tests!
  Tyrian: No, of course not. They never do tests. Not many real deeds either. Oh, conversation with your grandmother's shade in a darkened room, the odd love potion or two, but comes a doubter, why, then it's the wrong day, the planets are not in line, the entrails are not favorable, "we don't do tests!"
  • Dragonslayer (1981)

• There is no harm in doubt and skepticism, for it is through these that new discoveries are made.
  • Richard Feynman, in a letter to Armando Garcia J, December 11, 1985

• A danger sign of the lapse from true skepticism into dogmatism is an inability to respect those who disagree.
  • Dr. Leonard George

• The function of the lawyer is to preserve a sceptical relativism in a society hell-bent for absolutes. The worse the society, the more law there will be. In Hell there will be nothing but law and due process will be meticulously observed.
  • Grant Gilmore, The Ages of American Law (1977), p. 110

• THE SKEPTIC'S HOROSCOPE for Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces, Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, and Sagittarius (Jan 1, 2007 – Dec 31, 2007):
  The coming year is likely to present challenges; these trials are when your true character will show. Trusted friends can provide assistance in particularly pressing situations. Make use of the skills you have to compensate for ones you lack. Your reputation in the future depends on your honesty and integrity this year. Monetary investments will prove risky; inform yourself as much as possible. On the positive side, your chances of winning the lottery have never been greater!
  • Tim Harrod, in "Universal Horoscope" (5 January 2005)

• Rabid suspicion has nothing in it of skepticism. The suspicious mind believes more than it doubts. It believes in a formidable and ineradicable evil lurking in every person.
  • Eric Hoffer, in The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955), Section 184

• I am too much of a sceptic to deny the possibility of anything — especially as I am now so much occupied with theology — but I don't see my way to your conclusion.
  • Thomas Henry Huxley, in a letter to Herbert Spencer (22 March 1886); this is often quoted with a variant spelling as: I am too much of a skeptic to deny the possibility of anything.

• To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient truths; both dispense with the necessity of reflection.
  • Henri Poincaré in: Harold Chapman Brown (1914) "The Work of Henri Poincare" in: The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods. Vol 11. p.9. p. 225-236

• It seems to me what is called for is an exquisite balance between two conflicting needs: the most skeptical scrutiny of all hypotheses that are served up to us and at the same time a great openness to ideas. If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you. You become a crotchety old person convinced that nonsense is ruling the world. (There is, of course, much data to support you.) But every now and then, a new idea turns out to be on the mark, valid and wonderful. If you are too much in the habit of being skeptical about everything, you are going to miss or resent it, and either way you will be standing in the way of understanding and progress. On the other hand, if you are open to the point of gullibility and have not an ounce of skeptical sense in you, then you cannot distinguish useful ideas from the worthless ones.
  • Carl Sagan, in "The Burden of Skepticism" (1987)

• You can get into a habit of thought in which you enjoy making fun of all those other people who don't see things as clearly as you do. We have to guard carefully against it.
  • Carl Sagan, in "The Burden of Skepticism" (1987) on pseudoskepticism.

• The chief deficiency I see in the skeptical movement is its polarization: Us vs. Them — the sense that we have a monopoly on the truth; that those other people who believe in all these stupid doctrines are morons; that if you're sensible, you'll listen to us; and if not, to hell with you. This is nonconstructive. It does not get our message across. It condemns us to permanent minority status.
  • Carl Sagan, in The Demon-Haunted World : Science as a Candle in the Dark (1996), p. 300

• Profound skepticism is favorable to conventions, because it doubts that the criticism of conventions is any truer than they are.
  • George Santayana, in "On My Friendly Critics", in Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies (1922)

• Skepticism, like chastity, should not be relinquished too readily.
  • George Santayana, as quoted in Quotations for Our Time (1977) edited by Laurence J. Peter

• In science, the burden of proof falls upon the claimant; and the more extraordinary a claim, the heavier is the burden of proof demanded. The true skeptic takes an agnostic position, one that says the claim is not proved rather than disproved. He asserts that the claimant has not borne the burden of proof and that science must continue to build its cognitive map of reality without incorporating the extraordinary claim as a new "fact." Since the true skeptic does not assert a claim, he has no burden to prove anything. He just goes on using the established theories of "conventional science" as usual. But if a critic asserts that there is evidence for disproof, that he has a negative hypothesis — saying, for instance, that a seeming psi result was actually due to an artifact — he is making a claim and therefore also has to bear a burden of proof.
  • Marcello Truzzi, "On Pseudo-Skepticism" in Zetetic Scholar 12/13 (1987), p. 3

• Absolute relativism, which is neither more nor less than skepticism, in the most modern sense of the term, is the supreme triumph of the reasoning reason.
  • Miguel de Unamuno, in The Tragic Sense of Life (1913) as translated by J. E. Crawford Flitch (1921)

External links

• Pseudoskepticism