While on vacation this month, I’ll be re-posting some of my earliest posts. This one’s from January 2017.
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We’re All Self-Aware Skeptics – But the Other Guy Isn’t
“Science is more than a body of knowledge. It is a way of thinking; a way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility.
If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then, we are up for grabs for the next charlatan (political or religious) who comes rambling along.”
- Carl Sagan (Quote from 1996 interview with Charlie Rose
The irony is that just about everyone agrees with Carl Sagan about the virtues of the scientific way of thinking: global warming activists, global warming skeptics, free marketers, progressives. They all agree that some people are insufficiently skeptical, fail to appreciate their own fallibility, and/or are way too swayed by some version of authority (e.g., the consensus, unorthodox thinkers of one’s own choosing, this particular subset of research, gut feeling…).
Even Carl Sagan, unbecoming of a skeptophiliac, wrote with confidence of things he understood poorly, e.g., economics. Myself included. We think I get it – it’s the Other Guy who doesn’t. (Or, to be consistent: I think we think…. because who am I to speak for other thinkers?)
Recommended
Sagan, Carl (1995). The Demon-Haunted World: Science As a Candle in the Dark Random House. ISBN 0-394-53512-X.