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How To Teach a Healthy Dose of Skepticism?
c0d3h4x0r writes "It's no accident that 'whatcouldpossiblygowrong' is one of the most common tags applied by this community to stories about proposed ideas or laws. The ability to spot and predict faults is a big part of what makes a great engineer. It starts with having a healthy skepticism about the world, which leads to actual critical thinking. Many books and courses teach critical thinking skills, but what is the best way to encourage and teach someone to maintain a healthy dose of skepticism? Is it even a teachable skill, or is it just an innate part of the geek personality?"
You got that far? I saw which "editor" (a term used too loosely) posted the story and knew that the tags should be !news and kdawsonsucksandisretarded. Of course, I had to read the blurb to know that this is also askslashdot.
"skepticism is simply an innate resistance to something new. "
You could not be more wrong. I mean. it is unbelievingly, fundamentally wrong. You could only be more wrong id you said skepticism is a round banana square.
Where the hell did you get such a stupid idea?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Why amusing? It's a perfectly logical, rational conclusion based on the available evidence. No one has ever provided any evidence or test to show that there is a supreme, omnipotent being watching over us. Nor has anyone ever provided any evidence to indicate how such a being could come into existence in the first place. The best anyone has ever offered is simply, "God/Vishnu/Chutulu/whatever has always existed." That is no evidence.
The difference that matters is that faith is, by definition, trust in things that are impossible to prove by nature. The New Testament writers made this really, really clear and the logic itself isn't hard to follow. Whether you choose to believe is one matter, trying to disprove that which was never meant to be proven is another. This is why skeptics and militant atheists can be so obnoxious sometimes with regards to religion: they're missing the point, and making themselves out to be super-intelligent when they're really just re-stating the obvious, ad-nauseum, and making a lot of noise over an issue that will never be resolved.
Religious folk are aware that there's no proof for their belief, their faith and trust in a supreme being would be useless without it.
As far as the "seeing is believing" attitude is concerned, it neglects to take into account the existence of things that humans can't perceive or understand, which is ironically narrow-minded.
Oh, I know that you believe in reason. I don't doubt that at all. I'm merely asking you to prove that reason exists, using "external proof," as you put it, so that you can be consistent with your stated principle that only objective things should be believed in.
You shouldn't believe in reason unless there is some external proof for it, right? But, empirical proof does not exist for metaphysical attributes, such as reason and logic; empirical objective proof only exists for entities that inhabit the physical world, and it relies on reason to make it all work. So, what is your evidence for reason as a truth? I can guess that it is internal and subjective evidence, just like the evidence for the existence of God that other people accept as truth.
Wow. That one deserves a Nobel prize for sophistry. I'm really quite impressed. God-lovers are not typically capable of twisting words with such skill.
You've essentially said that because it's difficult to put into words the obviousness of the existence of things like "reason", "the universe", "stuff", etc., people aren't allowed to ask for evidence for the silly crap you invent.
So, you can say "you can't prove that reason exists, so I don't have to prove the Jewish zombie who'll save you from the evil of the rib-woman who chatted to the snake in the magic garden." And I can say "you can't prove that the universe exists, so I don't have to prove that the flying spaghetti monster is about to rape you with his glutinous tentacles and suck out all memory of it afterwards."
By rhetorically demolishing all rational scepticism (on the basis that any such sceptic is a hypocrite), you've just found a way of proving in practical terms any random nonsense you choose to pull out of your arse. I salute you.
I almost read your verbose nonsense, and then decided I had other things to do, being as busy as you guessed.
A brief skim revealed the following:
If you want to write some more concise nonsense then I can reply to it.