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This page has gone to hell without my intervention. It's become Reddi's little anti-skeptic page. I'll fix it up and remove those silly Boerner quotes, the guy is nuts and is a liar. Reddi, stick to traditional science, not psychic power crap. What B.S... - Lord Kenneth 04:16, Mar 3, 2004 (UTC)
And your references are ridiculous, amateurish idiocy. The web site you cite even advocates the idea of alien abductions. I'm not allowing your trash. - Lord Kenneth 01:36, Mar 6, 2004 (UTC)
You are insane. - Lord Kenneth 15:51, Mar 6, 2004 (UTC)
It appears that this page is going to be protected for a long, &oldid=2652731 Here] is the one that has balance. Here is the one that does not have balance. Here is the Diff.
As much as I'd love to point out all the ridiculous claims and strawman arguments in your citations, I'm too busy to sit around and debate with someone who can hardly think, let alone spell. If I cited a source that said aliens abduct humans and claimed it as fact, it would still be ridiculous. This is an encyclopedia, not a sci-fi novel. - Lord Kenneth 00:33, Mar 7, 2004 (UTC)
Put down the bong, Reddi. - Lord Kenneth 00:46, Mar 28, 2004 (UTC)
I'm afraid it's painfully obvious that I'm the sober one here. - Lord Kenneth 01:53, Mar 28, 2004 (UTC)
hehehe... you guys are a hoot...
but seriously, Reddi, if you indeed believe you are correct in placing your comments about UFOs and abductions in this article, then I think you may be misguided in your skepticism. A true skeptic must be able to question everything, but he must also NOT base his beliefs on anecdotal evidence. That leads to a cherry-picking of data to 'prove' a viewpoint, instead of trying hard to 'disprove' it. In your case, if you believe in UFOs, you should try extra hard to disprove their existence.
Just because you dont believe 'mainstream' science, doesn't make you a skeptic. Its a start, but that's all. -- Bex 19:47, 11 May 2004 (UTC)
80.169.197.50 ( talk) 15:28, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
Is it nescesary to point out that scientific skepticism is a bit of a misnomer, because scientific skepticism and science are orthogonal? (if not occaisionally downright opposed ;-) ). Hmm, it's lightly mentioned in the article.
Science appears to have a different measure of truth to scientific skepticism.
Short version:
Having said that, it looks like I can actually defend a stronger position than I set out with. I could probably get away with saying that scientific skepticism is in fact unscientific!
I'd have to find someone who actually said that before I'm allowed to put it in the main article though. Perhaps Richard Feynman would be a good place to start looking.
Kim Bruning 15:05, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC) (+ later edits Kim Bruning 17:11, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC))
Okay, further reading suggests that I'm not the first person to have this kind of criticism. At some point it might be interesting to add some common defences or answers to this criticism. Kim Bruning 23:31, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Well:
The article claims for scientific skepticism:
" Scientific Skepticism (...) is a (...) position (...) in which one does not accept the veracity of claims until solid evidence is produced. "
Alright, so that says we start with a hypotheses (claims), and if we get enough proof for it (when we have solid evidence), we call it a fact. And we do so until a better hypothesis comes along perhaps (the article makes a point of provisionality a bit further along).
Using ascii art to put it schematically:
From scientific method, we find that for scientists things tend to go in the opposite direction:
So there appears to be a bit of a discrepancy between the two positions, at least within wikipedia.
Regardless of merit, this might make the wikipedia somewhat self-contradictory.
Kim Bruning 13:56, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Hmm, the
sci.skeptic FAQ and
Philosophy of science seem to agree with each other (and with my view of things too), but -subtly- do not agree with this article. See above for the full rant. I'm trying to figure out how it can be fixed. Any ideas?
Kim Bruning 12:44, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Reread article now, but it's already much improved. Only the intro perhaps :-) Kim Bruning 13:02, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Hmm,
No comments for over a year.
I've been tweaking the definition to make it more NPOV.
I can't see the "peer review" claimed at the top of talk.
A further improvement I can see would be to tease out the criticism section so that it was clear the different points of view that would criticize skepticism.
The criticism section makes clear that there is tendency of conventional skepticism and scientific skepticism to be conflated by both its proponents and its opponents. I remember some articles from Skeptic magazine that raised this issue.
Hans Joseph Solbrig 05:38, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
I'm leaving the entry for discussion since it seems debatable but...I'm skeptical about inclusion of Crowley as a famous scientific skeptic. He might have attempted to be scientific and he might attempted to be skeptical about the occult and he might be a philosophical skeptic but I don't think he fits the definition of a scientific skeptic.
Hans Joseph Solbrig 20:35, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
I'm going to be changing the initial entry edits by 66.117.135.19 ("religious..."). The addition is clear POV. I am an alternative health practitioner and NOT a "scientific sceptic" but wikipedia doesn't need to have every faction essentially "dissing" the other in their definition page.
Hans Joseph Solbrig 19:51, 22 September 2005 (UTC)
I have proposed a move of the very contentious "list of pseudosciences" from the pseudoscience article to this article. The list has been a magnent for revert wars, but has mostly been coming from the scientific skeptic POV. So I made the following proposal:
If the list represents the skeptical POV there is no POV issue with having it here, an article about the scientific skepticism POV. And I think it can be a valuable addition to this article. Thoughts? -- Brentt 02:09, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Although I think this is a good article in general, I have a few issues with the wording in places and the prominence of the criticism. This article should be about the philosophical position of scientific skepticism, and the movement as a whole - specific references to individual bodies as a means of criticising the whole movement is a little misleading, especially as these bodies (eg CSICOP) have pages of their own. There are also a number of post-modern weasle words, that imply that the position of scientific skepticism is merely a fashioniable paradigm. While this is an interesting viewpoint, many philosophers of science and most scientific skeptics would reject this characterisation, and so it should be made clear that designation as a "paradigm" is a position of criticism.
I'd propose a number of changes, therefore:
Any thoughts? -- JonAyling 12:32, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
It needs to be balanced. Most of the page is currently criticism and resources and external links. Making it balanced would be great! -- Havermayer 03:55, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
I've taken out the link to Kuhn's book, as he isn't now mentioned anywhere in the article (and was rather irrelevant to start off with). Cheers -- JonAyling 13:16, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
Half the page is just the list of well-known skeptics and skeptical organizations. I think they could be moved to a new page and listed. A good idea? -- Havermayer 01:39, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
In adding Hume to this list, I feel it necessary to justify the claim that he is a 'scientific' rather than a 'philosophical' sceptic. Although usually called a 'philosopher', his mental experiments were directed to understanding how we come to understand the world through our senses; hence he was what we would call an 'experimental psychologist' today. Fenton Robb 00:52, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm a little concerned that the only thing on this entire page that is cited properly is a single quote about half way through. Everything assertion made here should be cited.
I'm also concerned that this pages mentions some accusations and criticism, but none of it is properly cited.
perfectblue 17:19, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
Seriously, work needs to be done on this page to cite and source everything. - perfectblue 14:28, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
I definitely take issue with this "...claims and theories which they believe to be far beyond the mainstream of science." It should read 'far fetched' or some such moniker.
The so-called 'Mainstream' is as often the target of Scientific Skepticism as any other. Look at Scholes and Merton, two Nobel Laureats in economics who founded LTCM, a famous hedge fund. A hedge fund that tanked so badly, and lost so much money (using their models.. the ones for which they won a Nobel) that the Fed had to step in to mitigate the damage. Skeptics say, their methods were flawed. Well duh. You shouldn't be able to lose hundreds of billions and not have folks raise an eyebrow.
But Mainstream Science prevailed, and people are still using those models today, and they have even evolved to become more complex, and more vulnerable to hidden risk. All thanks to Peer Review, that lovely system that encourages incestuous behavior and back slapping. They just say the event was 'unavoidable' and an 'aberration', so the model was still valid. All Hail the Church of Gauss! I'd say that something that tanks that badly, regardless of why, has issues.
There needs to be a solid differentiation in this article between the 'concept' of Scientific Skepticism, and the 'notion' of it as used by supposed skeptics who are really just trying to justify their positions.
As they say, Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Absence, and just because you have fancy formulae doesn't mean your basic assumptions are not ludicrously limited. Or just ludicrous.
Knomegnome 02:40, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
I've made some drastic improvements to this article. I've added citations where citations were missing and added "fact" tags where citations were missing. I have improved the formatting as well as the grammar and prose. I'll be making more improvements. Wikidudeman (talk) 10:15, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
The second sentence seemed to have been written by a non-scientist who is unaware that it is a rough ride within science itself because of the same skepticism, the same unwillingness to just accept what anyone says. The writer probably only noticed this behaviour when it was aimed outside mainstream science. So I've changed:
> In practice, a scientific skeptic generally focuses on critically examining claims and theories which they believe to be far beyond the mainstream of science.
to
> In practice, the term is most commonly applied to the examination of claims and theories which appear to be beyond mainstream science, rather to the routine discussions and challenges among scientists.
to make it more accurate. 137.82.3.44 19:47, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
It appears to me that scientific skepticism is a viewpoint which does not leave much to faith. Perhaps something should be added to the article explaining how scientific skepticism rejects faith as a basis for confidence in a belief. -Todemo
These outlined suggestions demonstrate how ultimately the skeptical perspective is one dominated by fear and a close-minded approach to information. One does not need to have prejudgments or postjudgments about any information they encounter; in other words, one is not required to form beliefs or disbeliefs of things they consider. Yet the skeptical approach would seem to imply that an individual mind is at war with information from the outside world. Many feel that this is an unnecessary perspective to take and that it only serves to blind otherwise intelligent people from the truth by shrouding them in ignorance, all in the name of waiting for proof.
That's clearly POV, original research and lacks any citation. I suggest that it be removed. Any objections? -- ReedEs 05:43, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
The "Criticism" section is, frankly, incoherent. The first paragraph is worth having, but gives an example that doesn't make sense. The second paragraph is just a sentence, and full of bullshit. The phrase "philosophical challenge to materialist fundamentalism" clearly violates NPOV. And what "emerging models and data in physics, the neurosciences and other scientific fields" challenge skepticism? I'd love to see specific claims. JFlav 13:07, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
Removed from page for consideration:
The first paragraph was referring to a NYTimes article about a creationist poll. Doesn't seem a valid criticism - seems totally off-track to me.
As for the second, I'm left wondering exactly what the point is... and the source is an essay from a blog? which cites several Wikipedia articles as references. Not a
WP:Reliable source.
Seems a criticism section could be written, but these two paragraphs don't make the grade.
Vsmith
02:00, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
"rational scepticism (US English spelling: skepticism), sometimes referred to as sceptical inquiry, is a scientific or practical, epistemological position in which one questions the veracity of claims lacking empirical evidence." This could use a bit of skepticism itself. It questions all claims lacking empirical evidence? Really? Empiricism's own validity cannot be proven through empiricism, but I don't think Rational Skeptics ever express scepticism about tha validity of mainstream scientific claims based on this position. And why if this is the definition is it called Rational Skepticism. Rationalism and Empiricism are opposing philosophical views. If the Skeptic be spoken of approaches the world with a hybrid of both views, shouldn't he be called a Kantian Skeptic? And do rational sceptics really question mainstream scientific views that are based on semi-empirical data? I think the line should be changed to say Rational scepticism is a ... belief in which on dismisses claims outside of mainstream scientific consensus, and seaks to disprove them by pointing out their differences with mainstream scientific concensus." Seems more accurate. I also have abandoned trying to spell correctly right now. 212.179.210.204 01:20, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 |
This page has gone to hell without my intervention. It's become Reddi's little anti-skeptic page. I'll fix it up and remove those silly Boerner quotes, the guy is nuts and is a liar. Reddi, stick to traditional science, not psychic power crap. What B.S... - Lord Kenneth 04:16, Mar 3, 2004 (UTC)
And your references are ridiculous, amateurish idiocy. The web site you cite even advocates the idea of alien abductions. I'm not allowing your trash. - Lord Kenneth 01:36, Mar 6, 2004 (UTC)
You are insane. - Lord Kenneth 15:51, Mar 6, 2004 (UTC)
It appears that this page is going to be protected for a long, &oldid=2652731 Here] is the one that has balance. Here is the one that does not have balance. Here is the Diff.
As much as I'd love to point out all the ridiculous claims and strawman arguments in your citations, I'm too busy to sit around and debate with someone who can hardly think, let alone spell. If I cited a source that said aliens abduct humans and claimed it as fact, it would still be ridiculous. This is an encyclopedia, not a sci-fi novel. - Lord Kenneth 00:33, Mar 7, 2004 (UTC)
Put down the bong, Reddi. - Lord Kenneth 00:46, Mar 28, 2004 (UTC)
I'm afraid it's painfully obvious that I'm the sober one here. - Lord Kenneth 01:53, Mar 28, 2004 (UTC)
hehehe... you guys are a hoot...
but seriously, Reddi, if you indeed believe you are correct in placing your comments about UFOs and abductions in this article, then I think you may be misguided in your skepticism. A true skeptic must be able to question everything, but he must also NOT base his beliefs on anecdotal evidence. That leads to a cherry-picking of data to 'prove' a viewpoint, instead of trying hard to 'disprove' it. In your case, if you believe in UFOs, you should try extra hard to disprove their existence.
Just because you dont believe 'mainstream' science, doesn't make you a skeptic. Its a start, but that's all. -- Bex 19:47, 11 May 2004 (UTC)
80.169.197.50 ( talk) 15:28, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
Is it nescesary to point out that scientific skepticism is a bit of a misnomer, because scientific skepticism and science are orthogonal? (if not occaisionally downright opposed ;-) ). Hmm, it's lightly mentioned in the article.
Science appears to have a different measure of truth to scientific skepticism.
Short version:
Having said that, it looks like I can actually defend a stronger position than I set out with. I could probably get away with saying that scientific skepticism is in fact unscientific!
I'd have to find someone who actually said that before I'm allowed to put it in the main article though. Perhaps Richard Feynman would be a good place to start looking.
Kim Bruning 15:05, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC) (+ later edits Kim Bruning 17:11, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC))
Okay, further reading suggests that I'm not the first person to have this kind of criticism. At some point it might be interesting to add some common defences or answers to this criticism. Kim Bruning 23:31, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Well:
The article claims for scientific skepticism:
" Scientific Skepticism (...) is a (...) position (...) in which one does not accept the veracity of claims until solid evidence is produced. "
Alright, so that says we start with a hypotheses (claims), and if we get enough proof for it (when we have solid evidence), we call it a fact. And we do so until a better hypothesis comes along perhaps (the article makes a point of provisionality a bit further along).
Using ascii art to put it schematically:
From scientific method, we find that for scientists things tend to go in the opposite direction:
So there appears to be a bit of a discrepancy between the two positions, at least within wikipedia.
Regardless of merit, this might make the wikipedia somewhat self-contradictory.
Kim Bruning 13:56, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Hmm, the
sci.skeptic FAQ and
Philosophy of science seem to agree with each other (and with my view of things too), but -subtly- do not agree with this article. See above for the full rant. I'm trying to figure out how it can be fixed. Any ideas?
Kim Bruning 12:44, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Reread article now, but it's already much improved. Only the intro perhaps :-) Kim Bruning 13:02, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Hmm,
No comments for over a year.
I've been tweaking the definition to make it more NPOV.
I can't see the "peer review" claimed at the top of talk.
A further improvement I can see would be to tease out the criticism section so that it was clear the different points of view that would criticize skepticism.
The criticism section makes clear that there is tendency of conventional skepticism and scientific skepticism to be conflated by both its proponents and its opponents. I remember some articles from Skeptic magazine that raised this issue.
Hans Joseph Solbrig 05:38, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
I'm leaving the entry for discussion since it seems debatable but...I'm skeptical about inclusion of Crowley as a famous scientific skeptic. He might have attempted to be scientific and he might attempted to be skeptical about the occult and he might be a philosophical skeptic but I don't think he fits the definition of a scientific skeptic.
Hans Joseph Solbrig 20:35, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
I'm going to be changing the initial entry edits by 66.117.135.19 ("religious..."). The addition is clear POV. I am an alternative health practitioner and NOT a "scientific sceptic" but wikipedia doesn't need to have every faction essentially "dissing" the other in their definition page.
Hans Joseph Solbrig 19:51, 22 September 2005 (UTC)
I have proposed a move of the very contentious "list of pseudosciences" from the pseudoscience article to this article. The list has been a magnent for revert wars, but has mostly been coming from the scientific skeptic POV. So I made the following proposal:
If the list represents the skeptical POV there is no POV issue with having it here, an article about the scientific skepticism POV. And I think it can be a valuable addition to this article. Thoughts? -- Brentt 02:09, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Although I think this is a good article in general, I have a few issues with the wording in places and the prominence of the criticism. This article should be about the philosophical position of scientific skepticism, and the movement as a whole - specific references to individual bodies as a means of criticising the whole movement is a little misleading, especially as these bodies (eg CSICOP) have pages of their own. There are also a number of post-modern weasle words, that imply that the position of scientific skepticism is merely a fashioniable paradigm. While this is an interesting viewpoint, many philosophers of science and most scientific skeptics would reject this characterisation, and so it should be made clear that designation as a "paradigm" is a position of criticism.
I'd propose a number of changes, therefore:
Any thoughts? -- JonAyling 12:32, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
It needs to be balanced. Most of the page is currently criticism and resources and external links. Making it balanced would be great! -- Havermayer 03:55, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
I've taken out the link to Kuhn's book, as he isn't now mentioned anywhere in the article (and was rather irrelevant to start off with). Cheers -- JonAyling 13:16, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
Half the page is just the list of well-known skeptics and skeptical organizations. I think they could be moved to a new page and listed. A good idea? -- Havermayer 01:39, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
In adding Hume to this list, I feel it necessary to justify the claim that he is a 'scientific' rather than a 'philosophical' sceptic. Although usually called a 'philosopher', his mental experiments were directed to understanding how we come to understand the world through our senses; hence he was what we would call an 'experimental psychologist' today. Fenton Robb 00:52, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm a little concerned that the only thing on this entire page that is cited properly is a single quote about half way through. Everything assertion made here should be cited.
I'm also concerned that this pages mentions some accusations and criticism, but none of it is properly cited.
perfectblue 17:19, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
Seriously, work needs to be done on this page to cite and source everything. - perfectblue 14:28, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
I definitely take issue with this "...claims and theories which they believe to be far beyond the mainstream of science." It should read 'far fetched' or some such moniker.
The so-called 'Mainstream' is as often the target of Scientific Skepticism as any other. Look at Scholes and Merton, two Nobel Laureats in economics who founded LTCM, a famous hedge fund. A hedge fund that tanked so badly, and lost so much money (using their models.. the ones for which they won a Nobel) that the Fed had to step in to mitigate the damage. Skeptics say, their methods were flawed. Well duh. You shouldn't be able to lose hundreds of billions and not have folks raise an eyebrow.
But Mainstream Science prevailed, and people are still using those models today, and they have even evolved to become more complex, and more vulnerable to hidden risk. All thanks to Peer Review, that lovely system that encourages incestuous behavior and back slapping. They just say the event was 'unavoidable' and an 'aberration', so the model was still valid. All Hail the Church of Gauss! I'd say that something that tanks that badly, regardless of why, has issues.
There needs to be a solid differentiation in this article between the 'concept' of Scientific Skepticism, and the 'notion' of it as used by supposed skeptics who are really just trying to justify their positions.
As they say, Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Absence, and just because you have fancy formulae doesn't mean your basic assumptions are not ludicrously limited. Or just ludicrous.
Knomegnome 02:40, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
I've made some drastic improvements to this article. I've added citations where citations were missing and added "fact" tags where citations were missing. I have improved the formatting as well as the grammar and prose. I'll be making more improvements. Wikidudeman (talk) 10:15, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
The second sentence seemed to have been written by a non-scientist who is unaware that it is a rough ride within science itself because of the same skepticism, the same unwillingness to just accept what anyone says. The writer probably only noticed this behaviour when it was aimed outside mainstream science. So I've changed:
> In practice, a scientific skeptic generally focuses on critically examining claims and theories which they believe to be far beyond the mainstream of science.
to
> In practice, the term is most commonly applied to the examination of claims and theories which appear to be beyond mainstream science, rather to the routine discussions and challenges among scientists.
to make it more accurate. 137.82.3.44 19:47, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
It appears to me that scientific skepticism is a viewpoint which does not leave much to faith. Perhaps something should be added to the article explaining how scientific skepticism rejects faith as a basis for confidence in a belief. -Todemo
These outlined suggestions demonstrate how ultimately the skeptical perspective is one dominated by fear and a close-minded approach to information. One does not need to have prejudgments or postjudgments about any information they encounter; in other words, one is not required to form beliefs or disbeliefs of things they consider. Yet the skeptical approach would seem to imply that an individual mind is at war with information from the outside world. Many feel that this is an unnecessary perspective to take and that it only serves to blind otherwise intelligent people from the truth by shrouding them in ignorance, all in the name of waiting for proof.
That's clearly POV, original research and lacks any citation. I suggest that it be removed. Any objections? -- ReedEs 05:43, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
The "Criticism" section is, frankly, incoherent. The first paragraph is worth having, but gives an example that doesn't make sense. The second paragraph is just a sentence, and full of bullshit. The phrase "philosophical challenge to materialist fundamentalism" clearly violates NPOV. And what "emerging models and data in physics, the neurosciences and other scientific fields" challenge skepticism? I'd love to see specific claims. JFlav 13:07, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
Removed from page for consideration:
The first paragraph was referring to a NYTimes article about a creationist poll. Doesn't seem a valid criticism - seems totally off-track to me.
As for the second, I'm left wondering exactly what the point is... and the source is an essay from a blog? which cites several Wikipedia articles as references. Not a
WP:Reliable source.
Seems a criticism section could be written, but these two paragraphs don't make the grade.
Vsmith
02:00, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
"rational scepticism (US English spelling: skepticism), sometimes referred to as sceptical inquiry, is a scientific or practical, epistemological position in which one questions the veracity of claims lacking empirical evidence." This could use a bit of skepticism itself. It questions all claims lacking empirical evidence? Really? Empiricism's own validity cannot be proven through empiricism, but I don't think Rational Skeptics ever express scepticism about tha validity of mainstream scientific claims based on this position. And why if this is the definition is it called Rational Skepticism. Rationalism and Empiricism are opposing philosophical views. If the Skeptic be spoken of approaches the world with a hybrid of both views, shouldn't he be called a Kantian Skeptic? And do rational sceptics really question mainstream scientific views that are based on semi-empirical data? I think the line should be changed to say Rational scepticism is a ... belief in which on dismisses claims outside of mainstream scientific consensus, and seaks to disprove them by pointing out their differences with mainstream scientific concensus." Seems more accurate. I also have abandoned trying to spell correctly right now. 212.179.210.204 01:20, 18 October 2007 (UTC)