Skepticism is a 'hunch', based on a limited knowledge base, that something isn't right. Whether it's skepticism that the unseen road ahead around the turn is unsafe because the cars ahead are slowing down or the bridge engineer who sees a roof truss that doesn't quite look right
though he's never built a house. Their 'hunch' -- skepticism -- is rooted in experience, albeit tangential and sometimes very limited experience in many cases.
As we all know too well, experience nurtures skepticism. I have personal knowledge of the aphorism, "Experience is what you get a fraction of a second after you needed it". Implied in the humor is the reality that failure and embarassment is, hands down, the best teacher. Skepticism implies the knowledge of failure and/or embarassment. Skepticism implies having been burned at least once. Once burned, twice shy is the operative notion here.
In the more serious aspects of life, like the life-or-death design of a bridge, we would hope that design isn't based on skepticism but on hard engineering experience and the lessons of countless designs that work (or didn't work, as the case may be). Imbuing skepticism, on the other hand, is not like teaching someone to build bridges. With bridges you can't let people experiment with bridge design. A collapse or two while you're 'learning' is simply not an option. As we've seen, too much rides (both literally and figuratively) on the sound design of our bridges, the sad case in point being the bridge in Minnesota that recently collapsed. Skepticism about a bridge design won't do. You have to KNOW unequivocally that the design will work. Skepticism, conversely, is about lessons and failure and embarassment.
Can skepticism be taught? My personal answer would be 'no', not without a copious helping of life's vicissitudes. Skepticism, like morality, is a core survival trait resident in every human being. It's like a mushroom spore just waiting for darkness and bullshit to spring into full bloom. You're skeptical today because someone abused your trust in the past and a lesson was learned. You're moral today because you were immoral in the past and a 'moral of the story' was learned. Scams and schemes are excellent skepticism instructional sets for the naive among us. Waking up hungover, confused and half-naked amidst a flock of sheep can have embarassing moral implications, as well.
As a thirteen year old kid with a new radio my mother warned me not to loan it out or leave it lying around. But, as you might guess, when I was asked by a sixteen year-old if he could borrow it for the weekend and he'd get it back to me on Monday and give me a dollar, I naively said, "Sure, I'll see you Monday". Well, he wasn't there Monday, or Tuesday or Wednesday. It wasn't until I asked a friend of his if he'd seen him and told him about my radio that his friend said, "Was that your radio? He's been trying sell that radio all week".
I eventually got my radio back with a cracked case, loose volume control, dead batteries... and no dollar. Needless to say, from that point forward, I was the world's foremost skeptic when someone asked to borrow my radio. That experience translated to my bike and numerous other possessions. It was a valuable and, dare I say it, needed lesson in life. All of my mother's admonitions were a pointless waste of breath until experience, that commodity I desperately needed a fraction of a second before I gave him the radio, whacked me upside the head, and took up residence a fraction of a second too late.
Even the other core survival trait, morality, can't be taught like engineering. It is experiential in nature and a moral person implies some previous immorality as a knowledge base. The sad fact is that the method that is generally employed to teach a very skewed and tortured morality, religion, in my opinion, has failed more than miserably with unbelievably tragic and terrible consequences. Most unfortunately, we don't learn of the dangers of religion, and the skepticism we should have ha
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Skepticism is a 'hunch', based on a limited knowledge base, that something isn't right. Whether it's skepticism that the unseen road ahead around the turn is unsafe because the cars ahead are slowing down or the bridge engineer who sees a roof truss that doesn't quite look right though he's never built a house. Their 'hunch' -- skepticism -- is rooted in experience, albeit tangential and sometimes very limited experience in many cases. As we all know too well, experience nurtures skepticism. I have personal knowledge of the aphorism, "Experience is what you get a fraction of a second after you needed it". Implied in the humor is the reality that failure and embarassment is, hands down, the best teacher. Skepticism implies the knowledge of failure and/or embarassment. Skepticism implies having been burned at least once. Once burned, twice shy is the operative notion here. In the more serious aspects of life, like the life-or-death design of a bridge, we would hope that design isn't based on skepticism but on hard engineering experience and the lessons of countless designs that work (or didn't work, as the case may be). Imbuing skepticism, on the other hand, is not like teaching someone to build bridges. With bridges you can't let people experiment with bridge design. A collapse or two while you're 'learning' is simply not an option. As we've seen, too much rides (both literally and figuratively) on the sound design of our bridges, the sad case in point being the bridge in Minnesota that recently collapsed. Skepticism about a bridge design won't do. You have to KNOW unequivocally that the design will work. Skepticism, conversely, is about lessons and failure and embarassment. Can skepticism be taught? My personal answer would be 'no', not without a copious helping of life's vicissitudes. Skepticism, like morality, is a core survival trait resident in every human being. It's like a mushroom spore just waiting for darkness and bullshit to spring into full bloom. You're skeptical today because someone abused your trust in the past and a lesson was learned. You're moral today because you were immoral in the past and a 'moral of the story' was learned. Scams and schemes are excellent skepticism instructional sets for the naive among us. Waking up hungover, confused and half-naked amidst a flock of sheep can have embarassing moral implications, as well. As a thirteen year old kid with a new radio my mother warned me not to loan it out or leave it lying around. But, as you might guess, when I was asked by a sixteen year-old if he could borrow it for the weekend and he'd get it back to me on Monday and give me a dollar, I naively said, "Sure, I'll see you Monday". Well, he wasn't there Monday, or Tuesday or Wednesday. It wasn't until I asked a friend of his if he'd seen him and told him about my radio that his friend said, "Was that your radio? He's been trying sell that radio all week". I eventually got my radio back with a cracked case, loose volume control, dead batteries ... and no dollar. Needless to say, from that point forward, I was the world's foremost skeptic when someone asked to borrow my radio. That experience translated to my bike and numerous other possessions. It was a valuable and, dare I say it, needed lesson in life. All of my mother's admonitions were a pointless waste of breath until experience, that commodity I desperately needed a fraction of a second before I gave him the radio, whacked me upside the head, and took up residence a fraction of a second too late.
Even the other core survival trait, morality, can't be taught like engineering. It is experiential in nature and a moral person implies some previous immorality as a knowledge base. The sad fact is that the method that is generally employed to teach a very skewed and tortured morality, religion, in my opinion, has failed more than miserably with unbelievably tragic and terrible consequences. Most unfortunately, we don't learn of the dangers of religion, and the skepticism we should have ha