📋 What Skepticism Reveals About Science
Science and skepticism have a strange and sometimes strained relationship to each other. Science is in a way born of skepticism, the stubborn willingness to ask difficult questions and look at things from a new angle, to not simply take things on authority, to constantly ask for evidence and then to try to shoot holes in that evidence. But skepticism tends to take on a momentum of its own and threatens to undermine whatever firmly grounded knowledge even the best science claims to establish. If science often advances by calling into question old established “truths,” with what right do we ever have to say that science also makes legitimate claims to truth. We’ll be circling around these issues throughout the course, but the following article on science and skepticism by Michael Shermer, editor of Skeptic Magazine, is a good place to start.
What Skepticism Reveals about Science
I thought the brief description before the article was really interesting. The idea that skepticism aids the knowledge process by motivating us to look deeper and ask questions. However, there are many instances in which skepticism goes too far and ends up harming the pursuit of knowledge by giving way to conspiracies and false information. This was an interesting way to look at the scientific process that I had never considered in the past.
I agree that the description at the beginning was really interesting and especially on how they described skepticsm. over all I found the article to be very interstin and I agree with Rdb1038 desciption of the article.
I also agree that the brief description before the article was very interesting because I didn’t know that skepticism aids the knowledge process, and I also liked that they explained what skepticism is. Overall I thought that the article was very interesting in the fact that it talked about how skepticism is revealed in science.
After reading the article, I thought it was incredibly interesting that scientists treat the ~God~ question as a separate question from those being asked by the Show-Me sate. I think it’s a good angle and especially since many are skeptical to believe things until they see it and then form an opinion on believing said phenomenon.
Towards the end of the article it’s stated that, the human race would be considered arrogant to think that we know enough about the universe to not know everything. It basically boils down to your decision on how much you want to believe and I think thats an interesting take.
Skepticism I think can get to peoples heads and causes them to question every word that comes out of a scientists mouth or someone that works closely with science like a doctor. I think we have seen this a lot through COVID. There is always going to be someone who is “arrogant” about science or what they may or may not think is true. People are entitled to their own opinion but at the same time these are professionals who are following protocols and have knowledge. They are coming to conclusions on things based on observations and graphs and studies for long periods of time. I think a big part of skepticism is doing your own research as well.
This article was interesting to think about, it made me think about things such as ghosts and psychics/mediums. Although they are both science based things, there is no real scientific proof to back them up. On another hand there’s something about them that you just can’t argue. Such as when you people talk to the dead and things come through that a complete stranger would never know otherwise. It makes me realize that not all things need to be backed up although it may make things easier, but sometimes you simply just need to believe.
I agree while reading this article it really made me think about the skepticism about ghosts and the whole supernatural world. It is all really about what you believe.
I really thought the article emphasized how skepticism can steer ones belief and look ‘deeper’ into a question presented before them. The author mentioned the principle of ‘positive evidence’ and how it can make people believe that certain claims are just a reliable and truthful as a laboratory experiment. I liked the way he described skeptics as people from Missouri known as the ‘Show Me’ state which basically means that this group of individuals want to disprove certain things by being presented physically clear evidence.
This was a very interesting article due to the reality of it. Some people base things off of what they want to believe rather than the cold hard facts. The author quoted “I do not want to believe but because I want to know”. This really stands out to me because we get scenarios like this in our everyday lives, whether it be wanting to know who walked the dog or wanting to know who cooked dinner. People rather have the factual evidence than believing.
skepticism is a very important aspect of science, being that all science isn’t always going to be true and because of that being skeptical of science offers a better insight on certain topics. Without getting to in-depth in the article, the types of things skeptical ideas brought up for more non fiction type things we can certainly prove currently are non fiction as we know for now so being skeptical of things helps disprove these type of no fiction things.
Skepticism is a double edges sword. sometimes it can lead to new discoveries in science and technologies that help us better improve our daily life. other times it leads to a deep black hole of danger and chaos where only uncertainty lies.
This is a great article and made me question my own beliefs in some regard. The article compares and contrasts skepticism and science and at times the way it’s presented makes you question the true meaning of each one. I find it interesting when it talks about how science needs to prove something versus skepticism not having the burden of proof. The other element this article made me think about was how do we know science is the absolute truth when its proven that countless scientific explanations have also been changed or disproved over the years. There was a prehistoric fish known as Coelacanths that science told us was extinct since the end of the Cretaceous period, then off the coast of South Africa the fish was found. Here is an example that science and all of his proofed methods was incorrect because we “scientifically believed” that it was extinct, yet it was and continues to live today. So to me, this article makes me really question whether scientific explanations can be trusted or believed. Science appears to be theory based, but what really distinguishes skepticism from science? When I read this article I think science bleeds more into a form of skepticism.
I really enjoyed the article and the explanations it had for both skepticism and science. Science needs to prove something in order for it to be effective meanwhile skepticism takes up a theory or statement and does not prove it or disprove it. I do believe that both are necessary for the other to live on though. Usually most theories and studies in science begin with someone being skeptical and wanting answers. One thing I can say I thought of immediately were all the different things that were being said about the virus in the beginning of the pandemic and how people in power made some people question the validity of doctors and scientists explaining the advantage of using masks and social distancing.
Skepticism is the only way that we advance any science. If someone wasn’t questioning everything said to them then we would never advance in anything or learn anything. We would just be sheep and believe what we are told.
I found this article to be very interesting. How it discussed the scientific process and the allure or skepticism that has brought about the scientific process in general. However the allure os skepticism can also lead to misconstrued facts or evidence. The line between claims and causal can become a very blurred line. Although with the effective theories and scientific measurements, we have found ways to find more reliable and valid evidence of fact and fiction. The last sentence from the article, Shermer closes with “Which one you choose depends on your tolerance for ambiguity and how much you want to believe. For me, I remain in sublime awe of the great Unknown.” I enjoyed this endnote because brings attention to the matter that though we may have discovered ways of learning about the universe, science, and the matters around us – there is still at the same time so much that we do not know. And what we think we may know, may not actually be the truth. With that, as humans we all have our ways of perceiving the world around us. Some choose faith, some choose science, and some choose nothing at all.
The relationship between science and skepticism is very interesting, I would have thought about it like that before. now that I’m thinking about it it makes sense that everything proven by science was born from skepticism. kind of like a “is that a fact if it is let’s prove it” type of thing.