Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
I encounter many posters all the time whom I would consider dogmatic skeptics. By that I mean someone so against a particular proposition ( eg. that uaps, or ghosts, or bigfoot exist) that they won't even look at the evidence. This is not your normal and healthy skepticism--the kind we should all exercise when we encounter claims that sound extraordinary. That is a provisional and methodological skepticism that serves to help us in knowing the truth. That is real science.
Dogmatic skepticism otoh is based on an unswerving and faithheld belief system--that such things as paranormal or anomalous Fortean phenomena simply do not exist in spite of all the continuing evidence for it. And that therefore there is no good evidence for such.
It reminds me of the black swan fallacy. The dogmatic skeptic makes a claim of absolute knowledge---that there is no such thing as black swans because they have never seen one. And yet there is no rational basis for this claim since at any time a black swan might turn up. How do you KNOW there is no such things as etc etc is my question. How can you be so sure?
Below is an actual case of such skepticism as encountered by Rupert Sheldrake at a public debate. Totally rings true to me!
"Last week I took part in a public debate on telepathy at the Royal Society of Arts in London. My opponent was Professor Lewis Wolpert, a pillar of the science establishment.
Prof Wolpert claimed that telepathy did not exist. He provided no evidence for this opinion. He just kept repeating it, implying that those who disagreed with him must have something wrong with them. When I summarised evidence for telepathy from thousands of scientific tests and showed a video of recent experiments he looked away from the screen. He did not want to know.
Over 80 per cent of the audience disagreed with him. The great majority had experienced telepathy themselves, particularly in relation to phone calls, thinking of someone who then rang. There is a similar situation in the country as a whole. Most people believe in psychic powers because they have experienced them personally, or seen them in their pets. Yet a minority claim these abilities are impossible, and dismiss them as superstition. Usually they have never taken the trouble to look at the facts. Like Prof Wolpert, they believe they know the truth already. But science is not about dogma, but about evidence. As I have discussed in this column over the last two months, the facts strongly support the existence of psychic abilities. It is scientific to accept these abilities on the basis of evidence, and unscientific to deny them on the basis of ignorance. Of course scepticism is necessary and healthy, and we would be foolish to believe everything we are told. But genuine scepticism is about open-minded enquiry, not denial (see the excellent website SkepticalAboutSkeptics.org)."--- https://www.sheldrake.org/reactions/dogmatic-scepticism
Dogmatic skepticism otoh is based on an unswerving and faithheld belief system--that such things as paranormal or anomalous Fortean phenomena simply do not exist in spite of all the continuing evidence for it. And that therefore there is no good evidence for such.
It reminds me of the black swan fallacy. The dogmatic skeptic makes a claim of absolute knowledge---that there is no such thing as black swans because they have never seen one. And yet there is no rational basis for this claim since at any time a black swan might turn up. How do you KNOW there is no such things as etc etc is my question. How can you be so sure?
Below is an actual case of such skepticism as encountered by Rupert Sheldrake at a public debate. Totally rings true to me!
"Last week I took part in a public debate on telepathy at the Royal Society of Arts in London. My opponent was Professor Lewis Wolpert, a pillar of the science establishment.
Prof Wolpert claimed that telepathy did not exist. He provided no evidence for this opinion. He just kept repeating it, implying that those who disagreed with him must have something wrong with them. When I summarised evidence for telepathy from thousands of scientific tests and showed a video of recent experiments he looked away from the screen. He did not want to know.
Over 80 per cent of the audience disagreed with him. The great majority had experienced telepathy themselves, particularly in relation to phone calls, thinking of someone who then rang. There is a similar situation in the country as a whole. Most people believe in psychic powers because they have experienced them personally, or seen them in their pets. Yet a minority claim these abilities are impossible, and dismiss them as superstition. Usually they have never taken the trouble to look at the facts. Like Prof Wolpert, they believe they know the truth already. But science is not about dogma, but about evidence. As I have discussed in this column over the last two months, the facts strongly support the existence of psychic abilities. It is scientific to accept these abilities on the basis of evidence, and unscientific to deny them on the basis of ignorance. Of course scepticism is necessary and healthy, and we would be foolish to believe everything we are told. But genuine scepticism is about open-minded enquiry, not denial (see the excellent website SkepticalAboutSkeptics.org)."--- https://www.sheldrake.org/reactions/dogmatic-scepticism
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