Query: Royal Society embraces skepticism

Relevant passages:
Skepticism <=SEP=> Skepticism ( American English ) or scepticism ( British English ; see spelling differences ) is generally any questioning attitude or doubt towards one or more items of putative knowledge or belief . It is often directed at domains , such as morality ( moral skepticism ) , religion ( skepticism about the existence of God ) , or knowledge ( skepticism about the possibility of knowledge , or of certainty ) . Formally , skepticism as a topic occurs in the context of philosophy , particularly epistemology , although it can be applied to any topic such as politics , religion , and pseudoscience .   Philosophical skepticism comes in various forms . Radical forms of skepticism deny that knowledge or rational belief is possible and urge us to suspend judgment on many or all controversial matters . More moderate forms of skepticism claim only that nothing can be known with certainty , or that we can know little or nothing about the `` big questions '' in life , such as whether God exists or whether there is an afterlife . Religious skepticism is `` doubt concerning basic religious principles ( such as immortality , providence , and revelation ) '' . Scientific skepticism concerns testing beliefs for reliability , by subjecting them to systematic investigation using the scientific method , to discover empirical evidence for them .

Philosophical skepticism <=SEP=> For a general discussion of skepticism , see Skepticism .  Philosophical skepticism ( UK spelling scepticism ; from Greek σκέψις skepsis '' , `` inquiry '' ) is both a philosophical school of thought and a method that questions the possibility of certainty in knowledge . It is generally agreed that knowledge requires justification . It is not enough to have a true belief : one must also have good reasons for that belief . Skeptics claim that it is not possible to have an adequate justification .   Skepticism is not a single position but covers a range of different positions . In the ancient world there were two main skeptical traditions . Academic skepticism took the dogmatic position that knowledge was not possible ; Pyrrhonian skeptics refused to take a dogmatic position on any issue -- including skepticism . Radical skepticism ends in the paradoxical claim that one can not know anything -- including that one can not know about knowing anything .   Skepticism can be classified according to its scope . Local skepticism involves being skeptical about particular areas of knowledge , e.g. moral skepticism , skepticism about the external world , or skepticism about other minds , whereas global skepticism is skeptical about the possibility of any knowledge at all .   Skepticism can also be classified according to its method . In the Western tradition there are two basic approaches to skepticism . Cartesian skepticism -- named somewhat misleadingly after René Descartes , who was not a skeptic but used some traditional skeptical arguments in his Meditations to help establish his rationalist approach to knowledge -- attempts to show that any proposed knowledge claim can be doubted . Agrippan skepticism focuses on the process of justification rather than the possibility of doubt . According to this view there are three ways in which one might attempt to justify a claim but none of them are adequate : one can keep on providing further justification but this leads to an infinite regress ; one can stop at a dogmatic assertion ; or one can argue in circular reasoning , never reaching a viable conclusion .   Philosophical skepticism is distinguished from methodological skepticism in that philosophical skepticism is an approach that questions the possibility of certainty in knowledge , whereas methodological skepticism is an approach that subjects all knowledge claims to scrutiny with the goal of sorting out true from false claims .