The Greatest Show in the Universe

The Greatest Show in the Universe

Before we go any deeper into what being a good skeptic is all about, let’s make sure that one important point is perfectly clear. The kind of skepticism I am promoting in this book is positive, constructive, and optimistic. In my opinion, good skeptics gain far more than they lose. The kind of good skeptic that I hope you will consider becoming and encourage others to become doesn’t have to sacrifice excitement and accept a less thrilling life. Sure, believing in unproven claims such as the Bermuda Triangle, Bigfoot, UFOs, and psychics can be a fun ride. But those trips are dull dead-ends compared to what reality offers. Astrology can’t compete with astronomy. Not even close. One only has to give skepticism and science a chance to find out. Unproven ESP claims pale in comparison with some of the things that cutting-edge brain science is discovering and doing these days. While charlatans claim to bend spoons with their minds, science actually moves robotic limbs with brain impulses.[4] Looking up and hoping for a flying saucer full of aliens to fly by might be fun for a while, but the scientific search for extraterrestrial life gets more exciting with each passing year as technology improves and we discover more planets that might harbor life. Look back at history. What did magic and monsters achieve? Science and reality do something all those supernatural/paranormal promises never do. Science and reality deliver the goods.

Skepticism is negative? Ridiculous. If anyone near you suggests that, move away from them so you don’t catch whatever it is they are suffering from. Skepticism is the brain’s perfect diet. It trims away the fat and turns you into a lean thinking machine. It dumps unnecessary ballast and clears the way ahead so that you can get to all the good stuff out there waiting to be discovered. Skepticism frees us so we can dedicate ourselves to real things and real people. Anyone who tries to tell you that skeptics are pessimistic party poopers or that the scientific process is dull and takes the thrill out of life has no idea what they are talking about. Help them see the light if you can, just don’t let them drag you down.

The scientific process helps us to discover amazing things about the universe and ourselves every day. One can either be a good skeptic and appreciate science or stumble through life with closed eyes, missing the greatest show ever. This has never been more important than it is today because one risks missing out on more than all the people who ever lived before. Think about someone in the year 10,000 BCE who was determined to think magically and refused or had no interest in discovering much about the world and the universe as it really is. That person’s attitude wouldn’t have cost them much because relatively little knowledge was available anyway. Science as a formalized process didn’t even exist then. No microscopes, no telescopes, no books documenting and explaining centuries of scientific discovery. However, a person who ignores or rejects science in our time turns her back on a staggering amount of important and exciting information. So much is known and so much more is sure to be discovered in your lifetime. Don’t miss it because you were too distracted by a bunch of myths and fantasies masquerading as reality.

The deeper you dive into it, the more you realize that science is much more freaky, amazing, wonderful, and important than all that supernatural and paranormal stuff could ever be. Why settle for wild claims that are not supported by good evidence when science has already confirmed so many other wild ideas? Millions of people say that paranormal mind powers can move objects. Big deal; people can say anything. Let’s wait until someone gets around to proving it before we get excited. In the meantime, why not check out how nature moves entire continents? It’s called plate tectonics and scientists have plenty of evidence for it. You can follow the efforts of cryptozoologists with bated breath when they go looking for the Loch Ness monster or you can focus your attention on scientists who actually find new life-forms all the time. There are probably 100 million species out there waiting to be discovered and named. After that, we have to figure out what they do, how they do it, and where they fit into the big picture. There is work to be done, large and small. We have only just begun to scratch the surface of the universe and there is still much more to learn about the atom. Who has time for magic, myths, and lies?

Are you into ghosts? Do you think they are real and important enough to occupy some portion of your mental energy? If not, you probably know someone who is a ghost enthusiast. People who believe in floating, semitranslucent dead people certainly should be free to do so. But for their own sakes I wish they would give science a chance. I never tell people not to believe in things. For me, the old bait-and-switch technique is both gentle and effective. I don’t mind listening to someone’s ghost stories for a while. I might even share my own haunted house story (see chapter 3). But somewhere in the conversation, I’ll try my best to interest them in science and reality. Ideas about parallel universes can be fascinating, too, but they remain speculative; they are not established explanations for ghost reports. One can also stretch their brain a bit by learning the basics about the structure and behavior of atoms. Reality gets very, very strange at the atomic level. For example, thanks to science, we know that all matter—including us—is mostly empty space. We are far from the solid beings we naturally imagine ourselves to be. Hey, maybe we are the ghosts! The nucleus, at the center, accounts for almost all of an atom’s mass; it is not simply a tiny piece of ordinary solid material. But the nucleus is very tiny compared with the size of the entire atom. If one atom were enlarged to the size of an entire football stadium, for example, the nucleus would be about the size of a golf ball or a marble in the center of the field. The electron distribution would extend way out toward the cheap seats; electrons do not follow little planetary orbits. So, back to you, imagine concentrating your body’s mass at roughly nuclear density: the “new and condensed you” would be smaller than a grain of rice. This is a scale analogy, not something that could leave a functioning person intact. (Though it would be a very dense and heavy grain of rice). This means, of course, that the next time someone calls you an airhead, you shouldn’t be offended but should instead compliment them on their knowledge of atomic structure. But wait, we’re not finished. Scientists are now figuring out that all this empty space in us and throughout the universe may not be so empty after all. Turns out there seems to be something in nothing. See, not only does science answer questions better than anything else does, it also generates new questions better than anything else does.

Is it reasonable to conclude at this time that alien spaceships have visited the Earth? No, because, although it could be true, the best anyone has ever produced to back up this claim are unreliable eyewitness accounts, stories of close encounters, and questionable photos/videos of weird things in the sky. But being skeptical of UFO stories does not mean one can’t give serious thought to the possibility of intelligent extraterrestrial life existing somewhere out there. The scientific process has led us to understand how adaptive and persistent life can be here on our planet. That knowledge, coupled with the immense number of opportunities for life that exist in a very large universe, gives us reasonable cause for heightened interest, if not outright enthusiasm. The absence of good evidence means that believing in aliens down here doesn’t make sense, but thinking about aliens out there does.

The skeptical outlook is not a negative mind-set, as some who promote unproven claims would have you believe. Being a skeptic doesn’t mean never getting excited about extraordinary claims or dreaming of grand possibilities. Hoping and having wild dreams are natural and healthy. A good skeptic only tries to balance it all with logic and evidence. If I’m being interviewed on some radio show and alien abductions come up, my first reaction is not to snap at a host or caller for believing this unproven and unlikely claim. My immediate instinct is not to take away an unfounded belief from the brain of a bad skeptic. I’m more interested in giving them something better. So I quickly point out a few basic problems associated with the alien home-invasion claim and then go on to spend as much time as they will allow me to teach something about space exploration and the scientific search for extraterrestrial life. If they fall in love with that, maybe they won’t be so impressed with hollow stories.