From: dabbott@augean.eleceng.adelaide.edu.AU (Derek Abbott)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: The Psychology of Skepticism (Was Re: Faith and sceptics.)
Date: 12 Oct 92 07:49:59 GMT
Organization: Electrical and Electronic Eng., University of Adelaide

In article <1992Oct5.030613.7050@netcom.com> payner@netcom.com (Rich Payne) writes:
>In article <BvLI5u.Brx@bunyip.cc.uq.oz.au> fernee@newton.physics.uq.oz.au (Mark Fernee) writes:
>
>[all gone...]
>[
>>While sceptics retard the advancement of knowledge, let's try not be too
>>gullible either.
>
>This caught my eye. Do you know of any cases where a skeptic has retarded
>the advancement of knowledge? Does anyone? But even if a few cases are
>brought up, I think that as a generalization, it is wrong.


I think I have some empathy with what Mark is trying to say.

Based on some of his other posts, I understand that he talking about
extreme skepticism.

The scientific discipline of skepticism, where a large volume of junk
information has to be filtered out, unless `proof' is offered, is very
practical. No problem. It can be healthy.

There are two instances where extremism can become a problem:

(a) When the `proof' is overdogmatised, and made almost religious.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but scientific skeptics necessarily are
Objectivists in that they believe in reason, objective reality etc.
Therefore they must subscribe to the thesis (a la objective guru Karl Popper)
that science CANNOT prove anything true, but it can prove things false.
Therefore we more closely approximate towards scientific truth, as we refine our
models by falsifying bits that are wrong. As we chuck out the junk, we fine tune
towards the truth.

Notice, that this clashes with skepticism which out of economy likes
to prove that one thing is `true' rather than having to debunk 100 other
false things to get the same result.

Objective scientific skepticism therefore is not sound philosophically,
however it is pragmatically economic and thus has it's uses. Where it goes wrong
is when it is dogmatically elevated to philosophical status. Extremists who do
this are evoking lots of faith and are behaving religiously without realising
it.


(b) The second problem with `skeptical extremism' is that it retards
advancement (as Mark points out). This is an issue of attitude.
Let me explain:

Go into any bookshop and read biographies of successful people who have
created advancement in society. You will notice that the majority are
positive thinkers, optimists etc. That is because those who are negative
and pessimistic make little progress because they whinge and worry about
what might go wrong, instead of getting on with progress. This retards
progress.

Now a positive optimistic person regards skepticism as one of any number of
techniques that can he can pull out of his `toolbox' wherever appropriate.
He can be a skeptic when it has economic benefits.

He has a heathly veiw of skeptic techniques.

Now the psychology of the negative pessimistic person is that he is generally
that way because he has a low self-esteem. Skepticism is his prop.
Skepticism is his way of psychologically protecting himself. Because
of low self-esteem he does not like to risk ever appearing wrong.
Skepticism is a convenient way of always appearing right. Because if
you play the skeptic you will some times be right in which case you
take delight in saying "I told you so." And if you are wrong, your
self-esteem is propped up by saying to yourself "well, it's all part of
the method that I took that position." So it's just a way of never looking
stupid.

However, successful people are ones who are prepared to risk failure.
They make progress, even though they may have a trail of failures behind
them. They kept moving.

The guy who keeps static and just protects himself, using skepticism as a
psychological mask, retards progress.

I think this is what Mark might have been alluding to. Correct me, if I'm wrong.
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,alt.sources