Skepticism Takes on All Comers

SKEPTICISM TAKES ON ALL COMERS

I hope that it is encouraging, for young people in particular, to recognize that one doesn’t have to read a thousand books or spend ten years in graduate school in order to become a razor-sharp skeptic who is not easily fooled by false claims and inane ideas. Learning relevant facts and having a general understanding of how the universe works can help explain away many bogus beliefs, of course. But far more important than reading, research, and schooling is committing to the skeptical attitude in the first place. It’s about having the will to ask the necessary questions and the courage to walk away if the answers don’t measure up. It’s about withholding belief until you know. The process of skeptical thinking works very well even when you don’t know much or anything at all about the particular claim. For example, there are so many weird alternative medicine products and weight-loss gadgets on the market today that I can’t keep up with them. But it doesn’t matter. If someone approaches me later today with something I’ve never heard of—let’s call it the “Beejeepers Pill” that is “guaranteed to prevent and cure cancer”—I already know what to ask and what to look out for because I’m a good skeptic. I don’t have to become an expert on the Beejeepers Pill and understand everything about its chemical makeup and specific history in order to approach the claim in a sensible manner. Here is how it would most likely go down from my side of the conversation alone:

Prevent and cure cancer? Wow, that must be an amazing pill you have there. By the way, I’m curious, what are your credentials in the medical field?

How exciting this must be for you! If your pill works, it means you will be responsible for saving millions of lives each year. You will become one of the richest and most famous people in the world, one of the greatest scientists in history. A Nobel Prize in medicine is guaranteed. You must have been so excited when the test results came in.

You did do scientific, double-blind tests on the pill, right? [Double-blind test, or trial, means neither the researchers nor the patients know which test subjects get the real Beejeepers Pill and which ones get sugar pills. This helps to prevent the results from being contaminated by bias.] And surely you published the results in a respected medical journal, right?

But I don’t understand; why haven’t you done proper testing of the pill or published anything in a journal? Don’t you think you need to do that before you start selling it to people? How will anyone know if it really works or if it’s just more medical quackery?

Hold on, my friend. You are changing the subject. Why are you suddenly telling me random stories about people who you say took this pill and got better? Of course you know that mere stories about a few people don’t prove anything, right? Even the worst, most ineffective rip-off medicines in the world have stories like that to back them up.

Hey, wait. Why are you leaving? Well, okay, it’s been nice talking to you. Please get back to me when you can prove that your pill works.

The ability of a good skeptic to mount a respectable challenge to virtually any unusual claim that comes along is amazing when you think about it. One does not need to be an expert on the particular subject to at least put up a sound skeptical defense against empty claims and unlikely beliefs. I’m just one guy, but I do pretty well in discussions/debates with the endless parade of people who try to convince me that weird things are true. I don’t have to be smarter than them or even more informed on the specific topic in question. I just have to be a good skeptic. I am frequently a guest on call-in radio shows, for example, and I never know what will come up next. Callers have asked me about everything from UFOs and the Moon-landing hoax to Laetrile and the lost continent of Atlantis. But I feel that I’ve managed to field every challenge to date very well. A strong skeptic core enables one to take on all comers and do very well in the wild, dark forest of extraordinary and unproven claims. Although knowledge is important, skepticism is not a body of knowledge. It’s a way of thinking. It’s less about something you know and more about something you do.