How truly skeptical is our skepticism?

[Chanakya]

I self-describe as skeptic. On the other hand, my skepticism is of fairly recent vintage. That is, while I’ve always been skeptical of very many things, a generally skeptical outlook (towards everything, not just some individual things) is something I’ve ‘converted’ to not very long back.

Here’s one stumbling block I seem to have come up against, and I was wondering if any of the more seasoned skeptics here might have thoughts about this. (And while this occurs to me only now, perhaps this has already been discussed elsewhere, in which case you could just point me to those discussion/s.)

I was, just now, reading this article about some studies that turned out to be rigged by pharmaceutical companies. The article went on to talk about how “evidence-based medicine” is sometimes, in specific instances, not really “evidence-based” at all. It was a newspaper article, which I read in today’s (physical) paper, and I’m not attempting to search the article out online and link to it here, since the article itself is only incidental. I mention it only because it set me thinking : how truly skeptical is our skepticism? Or are there limits to (individual) skepticism?



Our overall (rational) worldview comprises so many elements that we take simply on trust. Our trust in medication that research apparently pronounces beneficial is one egregious example of this. Similarly, our trust in certain dietary and lifestyle choices that research apparently validates (and which research could be vitiated by junk-food manufacturers, for example, or tobacco manufacturers, or cell phone manufacturers, just as medical research is sometimes subverted by pharmaceutical companies). But these examples are very focused, very specific. What I’m talking about now, in this post and thread, is in a more general sense, and this applies to most things that make up our worldview.

Take, for instance, the ‘fact’ that nothing can go faster than light. Even schoolchildren ‘know’ this. But you and I, ordinary individuals, how sure are we of this after all? If we wanted to make sure of this, at the individual level, then what would we do? Read up a bit. Browse through the Internet. Read some books. Talk with friends and acquaintances who happen to be physicists. Perhaps laboriously work our way through some research papers. And yet, these are only words written online, talks delivered by someone online, or words written in a book or paper. How ‘true’ are they?

If we’re really really determined, we could educate ourselves, get the necessary training in physics and mathematics to be better able to evaluate this question. Perhaps we could go even further, and get ourselves the qualifications, perhaps even the jobs, that would give us direct access to actual experiments, and we could then actually verify this for ourselves. Yes, then we could really and truly verify this!

But doing this would take up years and years of our life! And what we’d have verified would be only one single thing/idea, or at least, one single class of things/ideas. That would still leave unverified all of the other things that we think we know about the world. To take a random instance, the veracity of, say, evolution. That’s a wholly different subject altogether, a wholly different disciple. And these two (the speed of light, and evolution) were just two random examples, there are so many other things the “knowledge’ of which we simply take for granted, isn’t it?



My point is, all of our skepticism notwithstanding, it seems to me that we are still, at the individual level, reduced to taking most of the elements of what we know simply on trust.

Had we been born five, six centuries before today, perhaps a couple of millennia before today, then could our skepticism (assuming we could have somehow, magically, been equipped with an uncompromisingly skeptical outlook back then) have led us to reject the nonsense that made up the worldview of people back then? We could have read, and ‘researched’, and still gone round and round exploring the minutiae of theology and philosophy. But could we have broken out of the system, into realization that we don’t actually know anything at all? Back five hundred years ago, or a couple millennia ago, I mean?

Can we really do it now, today? At the individual level? (And after all, for true skepticism, the “individual level” is ultimately the only/truly meaningful level, right? Or am I wrong in assuming that?)



Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this!

 

[JoeMorgue]

You've created a wonderful strawman version of skepticism and I look forward to learning what Woo you hold dear that lead to it.

 

[ahhell]

You've created a wonderful strawman version of skepticism and I look forward to learning what Woo you hold dear that lead to it.

This.

I'm somewhat disappointed, I was hoping for a discussion of the difficulties of actually be being a skeptic which requires a lot work to overcome our biases. It appears to be more along the lines of, "We can't know everything and trust scientists so really we know nothing and ?????? might be true.

 

[Chanakya]

You've created a wonderful strawman version of skepticism and I look forward to learning what Woo you hold dear that lead to it.

Isn't your categorization of my version of skepticism as a strawman (and precursor to presentation of some species of Woo) itself an out-and-out strawman?

I agree my "version of skepticism" may be flawed (without my realizing that it is, in fact, flawed). Why must you ascribe motives to such flaw(s) -- as they appear to you -- motives that do not, in fact, exist?

I'd be interested in your answer to what I asked. If you think my idea of skepticism is "flawed", I'd be very interested in knowing what you think the flaw(s) is/are. I'll be happy to correct my thinking, if such correction appears warranted.

 

[Chanakya]

This.

I'm somewhat disappointed, I was hoping for a discussion of the difficulties of actually be being a skeptic which requires a lot work to overcome our biases.

The OP turned out different from what the title led you to imagine it would be. Fair enough.

Perhaps we can still have an interesting and (at least to me) instructive discussion?

It appears to be more along the lines of, "We can't know everything and trust scientists so really we know nothing and ?????? might be true.

Strawman, ahhell, strawan.

It isn't "We can't know everything and trust scientists so really we know nothing and ?????? might be true".

It is "We can't know everything and trust scientists. Given that, how truly skeptical is our skepticism? And how best can we be truly skeptical in these circumstances?"


Love to know your views on this.

Don't worry, I'm not trolling! (Feel free to be skeptical about my intentions. But go ahead and post your views about this, taking what I said in my OP at face value.)

 

[JoeMorgue]

Isn't your categorization of my version of skepticism as a strawman (and precursor to presentation of some species of Woo) itself an out-and-out strawman?

I agree my "version of skepticism" may be flawed (without my realizing that it is, in fact, flawed). Why must you ascribe motives to such flaw(s) -- as they appear to you -- motives that do not, in fact, exist?

I'd be interested in your answer to what I asked. If you think my idea of skepticism is "flawed", I'd be very interested in knowing what you think the flaw(s) is/are. I'll be happy to correct my thinking, if such correction appears warranted.

Listen man this whole pretending to treat "skepticism" as a noble quality while only treating it as a backhanded insult that exists only to claim that its inherents can never live up to it is.... really, really old and played out. It is one of the oldest Woo Slinger and Woo Apologetic "Gotcha" setups on the internet and having to sleepwalk through the motions of performing all the steps with someone who thinks they're the first person ever to come up with it is not exactly high on the list of things I want to spend my day doing. There's literally dozens of "Skeptics aren't skeptical enough to accept my random made up nonsense claims at face value" threads already on this board, go read one of them. I'm not going to PRATT at you.

As to your motives... you have some Woo. It literally the only reason anyone has ever decided to attack skepticism as a concept. It's literally the only reason anyone would or could decide to attack skepticism as a concept.

 

[Chanakya]

Listen man this whole pretending to treat "skepticism" as a noble quality while only treating it as a backhanded insult that exists only to claim that its inherents can never live up to it is.... really, really old and played out. It is one of the oldest Woo Slinger and Woo Apologetic "Gotcha" setups on the internet and going through the motions of performing all the steps with someone who thinks they're the first person ever to come up with it is not exactly high on the list of things I want to spend my day doing.

As to your motives... you have some Woo. It literally the only reason anyone has ever decided to attack skepticism as a concept.

Are you having a bad day, or you always this unpleasant? I don't think we've interacted before this. I fail to appreciate the reason for your unprovoked insults.

What is this "backhanded insult that exists only to claim that its inherents can never live up to it is" that you accuse me on making?

You tell me "As to your motives... you have some Woo." Mind-reading, eh? With zero basis? Perhaps your skepticism needs some oiling, since you seem so eager to jump to conclusions without adequate grounds?

"It literally the only reason anyone has ever decided to attack skepticism as a concept.", you say. What attack, man? Why do you find it so difficult to take the OP at face value?




This thread has taken an unexpected turn!

If you would like to tell me your views, I'll be happy to listen.

If you insist on aggressively ascribing made-up motives to me, well I can't stop you I suppose.

 

[TX50]

Had we been born five, six centuries before today, perhaps a couple of millennia before today, then could our skepticism (assuming we could have somehow, magically, been equipped with an uncompromisingly skeptical outlook back then) have led us to reject the nonsense that made up the worldview of people back then?

Yes. Because there were "skeptics" back then. Thomas Ady, a humanist who wrote skeptical books on the (then current) witch mania, springs immediately to mind as just one example.

 

[ahhell]

The OP turned out different from what the title led you to imagine it would be. Fair enough.

Perhaps we can still have an interesting and (at least to me) instructive discussion?

Strawman, ahhell, strawan.

It isn't "We can't know everything and trust scientists so really we know nothing and ?????? might be true".

It is "We can't know everything and trust scientists. Given that, how truly skeptical is our skepticism? And how best can we be truly skeptical in these circumstances?"

Love to know your views on this.

Don't worry, I'm not trolling! (Feel free to be skeptical about my intentions. But go ahead and post your views about this, taking what I said in my OP at face value.)

An important lesson from skepticism is that we are limited in our ability to know the truth. At best we have a provisional model on the universe based on current evidence. The best evidence available is that the scientific method is the most reliable method for producing more accurate models of the universe. I will defer to the consensus of expert opinion in matters of science based on that.

 

[Spock Jenkins]

Not having the history of some other posters here, I took the OP at face value.

The premise I read is that without conducting first hand experiments and gaining first hand knowledge, we are left to taking other experts word for it. These experts today, may be proven wrong by new discoveries in the future. In the past, we, as skeptics, may have taken different experts at their word only later to have them proven incorrect.

I think a reasonable skeptic is okay with having some idea they accepted, based on the preponderance of the evidence, proven wrong at some point in the future. It is the non-skeptic who would hold fast to their prior understanding in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

At present, we are left to make decisions with the best information available to us that has been tested and verified to an acceptable degree.

 

[theprestige]

I think that for most of this stuff, the properly skeptical thing to do is recognize that it's not important enough to actually care about.

So what if the speed of light is 299,792,458 meters per second? So what if it isn't?

Most of day to day skepticism boils down to heuristics for reaching (provisional) conclusions based on the consilience of multiple lines of evidence and the opportunity cost of investigating more thoroughly.

I think that most people engage in a practical form of skepticism, one of the key tenets of which is "knowing when to not give a **** about claims".

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Like most things, "real-life"-scepticism is a 80/20 thing:
you can usually spot the flaws in an argument easily, and dismiss it without much effort.
If someone manages to stump you with clever reasoning, it is probably worth dissecting the entire argument, even if false, because we will probably learn something in any case.

We seriously don't need flawless scepticism today when the President lies so blatantly.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

...

Can we really do it now, today? At the individual level? (And after all, for true skepticism, the “individual level” is ultimately the only/truly meaningful level, right? Or am I wrong in assuming that?)

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this!

You need to differentiate between skepticism as a way of living versus scientific skepticism.
Can you learn skepticism as a way of living? Maybe.
Do you need to learn skepticism as a way of living? No, you can still have a good enough life without learning that.
Do you really, really want to learn skepticism as a way of living? I don't know that, but I will give you some examples and compare with scientific skepticism.

Historically as an idea modern science is the realization, that philosophical systems of proof of what all of reality is, doesn't work.
As a skeptic I know, that the idea, that reality can explained using proof, truth, knowledge(justified true belief), logic and reason(epistemological and metaphysical rationalism), doesn't work. It has been tried and it has failed. So enter modern science and evidence/explanation, falsification, prediction and the difference between the map and the landscape.

Now in philosophical terms that is known as analytical philosophy, i.e. you use methodological naturalism in answering philosophy. When you combine that with skepticism, you get cognitive and moral/ethical relativism. In biological terms morality/ethics is subjective, because of the theory of evolution. The replication of the fittest genes is what results in moral/ethical relativism and subjectivism.

In practice skepticism amounts to that you are critical about local groups of humans and their claims. For the big picture the following apply: In general broad claims about science holds, e.g. medicine works, but from that doesn't follow that a given drug works.
Further you always have to check for the Dunning–Kruger effect in general and more specific when it comes to science. A specialist within science, e.g. a chemist, doesn't not necessarily have expertise in soft science and ethics.

You can spot that very fast, when you notice that scientists in the hard sciences are good at hard science objectivity, but some has a tendency to believe that hard science can answer morality/ethics. As for politics and to a certain extent economics it always connects to the different ideas/opinions about rights and what makes a good life a good life. Further it revolves around fairness, what harm is, authority, liberty, group/tribal thinking and what the sanctity of life is.

In short skepticism is critical thinking and that reveals the limitation of reason, logic, truth, proof and evidence. At the end of the day it amounts to in practice morality/ethics and psychology; e.g. what do you want out of life, how do you get a good enough life, how do you treat other humans and what do you believe good/bad and right/wrong are?

So yes, skepticism can become a way of life for a given human and that is not the same as hard science skepticism. Some of us here on this forum are good at scientific skepticism and others are good at general skepticism and they are not the same.

With regards

 

[Chanakya]

Yes. Because there were "skeptics" back then. Thomas Ady, a humanist who wrote skeptical books on the (then current) witch mania, springs immediately to mind as just one example.

Looks like a perfect example, that.

And yet, it seems -- I hadn’t been aware of Thomas Ady, actually, and looked him up on Wikipedia after reading your post -- it seems that he refuted witchcraft by basing his arguments on what is written in the Bible!

While his refuting of witchcraft is a lovely example of skepticism, given those ignorant and superstition-infested times, nevertheless it appears his skepticism didn’t extend to the larger superstitions, for instance it didn’t apparently extend to the Bible itself!

Of course, it is possible I suppose that the man was, in private, just as skeptical of the Bible as well. Perhaps he merely pretended to go along with the Bible, and strove to refute witchcraft accusations basis scripture because he knew that refuting the Bible itself, in those times, would be going too far, and his immediate objective was to refute the witchcraft business using whatever tools seemed practicable.

While that, the paragraph above, is possible, at least in theory : nevertheless, my larger point is this : even when one is spectacularly successful in using skepticism to push back at one particular instance of superstition (as Thomas Ady apparently was, with witchcraft), one is nevertheless solidly entrapped within the larger context of what one finds all around one. This witchcraft refutation, while obviously laudable, is still no more than a chink in the whole solid superstructure. True, many chinks can collectively end up breaking up some apparently invincible superstructure, and that is what did in fact happen : but that is a collective thing, and takes decades, centuries. Meanwhile, the individual : that’s who I’m focusing on, the individual : how far can his skepticism take him? (Question, not rhetoric.)

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

...
True, many chinks can collectively end up breaking up some apparently invincible superstructure, and that is what did in fact happen : but that is a collective thing, and takes decades, centuries. Meanwhile, the individual : that’s who I’m focusing on, the individual : how far can his skepticism take him? (Question, not rhetoric.)

To some sort of e.g. humanism, secularism, Buddhism like peace of mind (you can also find that in old Greek Skepticism and Stoicism and the modern version is applied cognitive therapy and so on), the understanding that morality/ethics are subjective and relative, that metaphysics is nothing but a variation of pure rationalism) and/or so on.

 

[Chanakya]

An important lesson from skepticism is that we are limited in our ability to know the truth. At best we have a provisional model on the universe based on current evidence.

Agreed.

The best evidence available is that the scientific method is the most reliable method for producing more accurate models of the universe.

Again, agreed.

I will defer to the consensus of expert opinion in matters of science based on that.

This last, while obviously I personally agree with this de facto and in practice, this is exactly the difficulty that I tried to bring up in the OP.

How do we, at the individual level, know that the “experts” are right? After all, the experts could be deliberately lying, or they might be honestly mistaken. Or perhaps their consensus has more to do with politics and economics than with actual science.

I know, that sounds conspiracy-theory-ish. Which is why I spoke of times past. In times past, it would be the priesthood that would be the “experts”. (And what you say about the scientific method wouldn’t apply, because the scientific method hadn’t been worked out at all back then.) Ought the skeptic, in those times, have bowed to the consensus of those experts? Obviously not, right? But then we know that only now, in retrospect : bang in those times, how could the individual skeptic have been more, well, skeptical of the superstructure of superstition surrounding him? That is my question, that is what I’m asking. (And not rhetorically!)

In more current times : Are we to always defer to the consensus of “experts” on the efficacy of particular medications and medical treatments, for instance, or about lifestyle and dietary choices, to take another instance? Obviously not, right? So this is one case when the layman may legitimately NOT defer to the expert. But must he necessarily wait for some scandal to break before he turns on his skepticism? Or what is he to do, ideally speaking, the individual skeptic?



Like I said in the OP, one obvious answer is to become an “expert” oneself. That is one obvious solution. But the obvious difficulty with that obvious solution is that becoming a true expert even in one focused area is a difficult enough proposition for most (and actually flat-out impossible for a good many). And today’s stock of knowledge is so very diverse and specialized that no one, but no one, can imagine becoming a true “expert” in all branches of knowledge.

What can an individual skeptic really do in these circumstances? Okay, agreed, perhaps he cannot do much in practice, since he is just a poor hassled individual who is juggling job, family, social commitments, and what-have-you, simply to somehow keep his life together in today’s complex world. But how might an ideal skeptic behave in these circumstances? As an ideal, if nothing more? That is what I was wondering.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

...

What can an individual skeptic really do in these circumstances? Okay, agreed, perhaps he cannot do much in practice, since he is just a poor hassled individual who is juggling job, family, social commitments, and what-have-you, simply to somehow keep his life together in today’s complex world. But how might an ideal skeptic behave in these circumstances? As an ideal, if nothing more? That is what I was wondering.

Learn not to worry to much, because you can't control or know everything. You can ask multiple experts and use the Internet, but if you worry to much it is counterproductive.

As a currently non using drug addict, I learn to use this even as an atheist.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
and the Wisdom to know the difference.

With regards

 

[Chanakya]

Not having the history of some other posters here, I took the OP at face value.

I have no clue what history you’re referring to here. And I suppose you couldn’t detail that further here without explicit call-outs, so perhaps we’d best avoid all that.

On the other hand, I’ve witnessed behavior on these forums that would, IRL, certainly qualify as borderline psychotic. Although largely skeptical, and therefore presumably saner than the general norm, these forums are still after all part of the Internet, and so the occasional random unprovoked asshattery ought not, really, take one too much by surprise I suppose.

The premise I read is that without conducting first hand experiments and gaining first hand knowledge, we are left to taking other experts word for it. These experts today, may be proven wrong by new discoveries in the future. In the past, we, as skeptics, may have taken different experts at their word only later to have them proven incorrect.

Absolutely!

You’ve presented what I wanted to say in my OP far better, more clearly and much more concisely.


(ETA : I tried to include your concise summing-up, the portion quoted just above, as a TLDR summary to my rather rambling OP. But it seems I’ve crossed the time frame within which I can edit that earlier post.)

I think a reasonable skeptic is okay with having some idea they accepted, based on the preponderance of the evidence, proven wrong at some point in the future. It is the non-skeptic who would hold fast to their prior understanding in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

At present, we are left to make decisions with the best information available to us that has been tested and verified to an acceptable degree.

That sounds reasonable.

And yet, doesn’t this leave one at the mercy of apparently reasonable ideas and beliefs that are prevalent at some time and place? (I mean, ideas that are “apparently reasonable” largely because they happen to be ubiquitous, as well as all-encompassing, at some particular time and place?)

That larger difficulty is what I was speaking of (or trying to) in my OP.

How truly skeptical, then, at the individual level, is our skepticism? How capable of cutting through ubiquitous and universally accepted superstitions of the day (that are not, at this time and place, recognized as superstitions but are accepted as truth)?



It seems our skepticism is focused only on details and on egregious differences from the accepted norm. But how equipped is our skepticism, at the level of the individual, to be skeptical of the whole superstructure of belief that is all around us? (Question, not rhetoric.)

 

[Chanakya]

I think that for most of this stuff, the properly skeptical thing to do is recognize that it's not important enough to actually care about.

Ah, but isn’t it important?

Well, “importance” is subjective I suppose, so perhaps at one level you’re right. But this “most of the stuff” could include beliefs in all kinds of God-ideas and theologies (as it actually did in times past ; and as it continues to do even in the present time in some isolated places), and everything that entails.

So what if the speed of light is 299,792,458 meters per second? So what if it isn't?

In a different context, that would translate to : “So what if God created the world, and monitors it minutely like some crazed and unpredictable sadistic maniac?” Or “so what if the Sun God insists on blood sacrifice in order to bring light to the world every morning?” Or … well, or whatever extravagant (and widely accepted) thing in times past and present you can think of!

I would say it does matter, or should! In the ideal, if not actually in practice. In some instances even if not universally, for some individuals at least even if not for everyone.

Most of day to day skepticism boils down to heuristics for reaching (provisional) conclusions based on the consilience of multiple lines of evidence and the opportunity cost of investigating more thoroughly.

I think that most people engage in a practical form of skepticism, one of the key tenets of which is "knowing when to not give a **** about claims".

Agreed, that is indeed what is practicable.

In practice, though, that will mean focusing merely on one’s essential day-to-day existence, or that portion of what comprises one’s day-to-day existence that is clearly in view, and for the rest simply accepting the status quo, simply and unthinkingly buying into the received wisdom of the day.

I spoke of past times in order to point at how dysfunctional (at least from today’s perspective) that sounds. Sure, given the context of those times what folks did then was perfectly reasonable. It was reasonable to believe in all kinds of God-ideas and theological mumbo-jumbo. It was reasonable to believe in all kinds of priestly mummery. And today it is equally reasonable to believe what pharmaceuticals companies and junk food manufacturers orchestrate and/or publicize (unless you happen to see a spate of newspaper articles criticizing some specific studies or practices).

My question is : Is that the best we can do? How truly skeptical, then, is our skepticism (at the individual level)? Is there any way we can do better -- or at least conceive of doing better? Is there any way of going beyond the all-encompassing and ubiquitous falsehoods of the day, whatever those falsehoods might be? (And obviously, you wouldn’t know, starting out, which of these are actually falsehoods! It would be blasphemous, it would be immoral, it would be insane, it would be disloyal, it would be conspiracy-theory-mongering, it would be <insert whatever adjective, depending on the time and place and situation> to go against the existing superstructure. That is the whole point.)

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

...
And yet, doesn’t this leave one at the mercy of apparently reasonable ideas and beliefs that are prevalent at some time and place? (I mean, ideas that are “apparently reasonable” largely because they happen to be ubiquitous, as well as all-encompassing, at some particular time and place?)

That larger difficulty is what I was speaking of (or trying to) in my OP.

How truly skeptical, then, at the individual level, is our skepticism? How capable of cutting through ubiquitous and universally accepted superstitions of the day (that are not, at this time and place, recognized as superstitions but are accepted as truth)?

It seems our skepticism is focused only on details and on egregious differences from the accepted norm. But how equipped is our skepticism, at the level of the individual, to be skeptical of the whole superstructure of belief that is all around us? (Question, not rhetoric.)

Here is an example from the Internet:
Someone: The universe is physical.
Me: No!
Someone: That is wrong!
Me: Then both the "no" and "wrong" are also physical and the universe is physical becomes meaningless.

That points to everyday belief for some people in the western culture, but as a skeptic you are supposed to understand that the claim that the universe is physical is to simple.
As a skeptic you ought to be equally skeptical of metaphysical materialism, dualism and idealism and not just religion per se.
Look up the word "scientism" for a common contemporary belief.

With regards