Being Skeptical of "Skeptics"

"In the scientific method, as in formal logic, as in litigation - court proceedings from the lowest to the highest level, if anyone does not formally rebut the evidence produced, then the scientific evidence stands as absolutely valid until it is rebutted-if ever it can be rebutted. That is a fundamental scientific premise."  Victor Zammit   
                      

I understand the scientific method.  In fact, if there were a Guinness world record for applying the scientific method, I might be bold enough to claim it.  In a 40-plus year career in insurance claims work, I had to examine and weigh the evidence, i.e., apply the scientific method,  well over 100,000 times - in law suits or potential law suits, involving auto accidents, fires, industrial and commercial accidents, products liability, malpractice, defamation, sexual harassment, discrimination, what-have-you.  Some were little fender benders; others involved death or devastation with millions of dollars at stake.  I well know from experience that there are often two sides to a story and that one "expert" in a particular scientific or technical discipline can totally disagree with another "expert" as to cause or effect.  I know that facts can be manipulated by both experts and lawyers as well as the victims or parties involved so as to arrive at opposing "Truths."

One cannot survive in the business without being a skeptic.  Few survive 40 years, as they find themselves becoming too distrusting of fellow humans and too cynical.  During those 40-plus years, I struggled to avoid being a negative skeptic.  I found it easy to doubt and distrust as Truth is elusive and often clouded by emotion and greed. One has to learn to think in shades of gray rather than in black and white, to compromise rather than stand firm on a particular position.       

My dictionary defines "skeptic" as "a person who questions the validity or authenticity of something purporting to be factual."  The word comes from the Latin scepticus and the Greek skeptikos, meaning "thoughtful" or "inquiring."  I think it is safe to say that all thinking people are skeptics until they have been satisfied by ample evidence that something is true.  Of course, whether the person accepts a particular "Truth" based on a preponderance of evidence, beyond a reasonable doubt, or with absolute certainty is something else.  Truth is often relative and subjective.  

Besides those things subject to sensory "proof," I am a skeptic in most things beyond immediate sensory verification.  At least I begin as a skeptic before investigating the subject in the pursuit of knowledge that might permit me to move off that skepticism.  Rarely, however, do I move to a position of absolute certainty, and therefore I remain a skeptic to some degree. For example, I am 99-percent certain that consciousness survives bodily death, but I am only around 70-percent certain that reincarnation is a fact, at least in the manner generally accepted.  If we move to the group soul or higher-self concept, I am about 90-percent certain that reincarnation exists.

I am about a 75-percent believer in crop circles, meaning that while I recognize some are human hoaxes, I lean toward a belief that there is some other-worldly explanation for many of them. I am about a 15-percent believer in Big Foot and the Loch Ness Monster, which means I doubt they exist but I recognize a remote possibility that they do.  Incidentally, while visiting Scotland's Loch Ness several years ago, I was standing at the top of the ruins of Uruquat Castle and saw a triangular wake moving rapidly toward the castle as if something underwater were generating it. However, the wake stopped well short of the shore and remains in my mind as nothing more than a perplexing and amusing sight. 

I believe that skepticism is a positive trait. What I don't understand, however, is the attitude of the person who proudly calls himself a skeptic but refutes, rejects, or repudiates all evidence, no matter how strong that evidence, of a non-material or non-mechanistic world.  

Based on my observations, "skeptics" fall into one of four categories:

The Seeker:   This is the true skeptic, open minded and searching for Truth, recognizing the interconnectedness between science and spirituality.  Often, the seeker becomes a "believer" but retains some degree of skepticism as he or she understands the difference between evidence and proof while recognizing that absolute proof is rare in any scientific endeavor. He or she also recognizes conflicting non-mechanistic explanations for various phenomena.  However, unfortunately, many seekers are restrained somewhat by ego and/or fear of being ridiculed in going public with their beliefs. 

The Shrugger:   This person is open-minded but so caught up in worldly matters as to be indifferent to other-worldly Truths.  She would much rather escape into a novel than explore metaphysical truths. He'd rather talk about babes, booze, and basketball than discuss paranormal phenomena.  For the most part, the shrugger hasn't really examined the evidence for or against paranormal phenomena but simply wants to appear "intelligent" by wearing the skeptic's badge. .   

The Smirker:   This person thinks of him- or herself as too mentally gifted or advanced to believe in anything that is not subject to strict scientific proof, all the while failing to recognize that science has always lagged behind Truth and that very few things supposedly "proved" by science are in fact proved with absolute certainty.  Quite often, this person is a product of a strict religious upbringing but his fertile mind was later enlightened by pompous college professors, thereby supporting his rebellious attitude toward his religious parents.  The smirker is to science what the fundamentalist is to religion. He is stuck on the strictness of the scientific method as much as the religious fundamentalist is stuck on a literal interpretation of the Bible.   The smirker is "born again" in science and a fundamentalist in scientism.  Paranormal phenomena are simply beyond the smirker's boggle threshold and there is no way his ego will permit him to be wrong a second time.  

The Scoffer:   The scoffer, or cynic, is simply a smirker in the extreme.  Rather than just react to his friend's belief in paranormal phenomena with an arrogant smirk or snicker,  the scoffer relentlessly goes on the attack, often sneering and demanding that others conform to his or her strict science code.  The scoffer demands a total separation of the spiritual and the secular, demands that prayer be removed from the classroom, that the Bible be removed from the courtroom, that references to God be removed from the currency and public institutions.  He confuses or doesn't understand the difference between religious dogma/doctrine and spirituality.  He is a closed-minded pseudo-skeptic, i.e., pretend skeptic.  "These people have already made up their minds about everything. And, like the clergy in Galileo's time, they will refuse to consider even scientific information that contradicts their personal beliefs," says lawyer Victor Zammit in his book, A Lawyer Presents the Case for the Afterlife. "They have changed the definition of ‘skeptic' from ‘one who doubts' to one who will never accept'."

"We expect to prove our sanity by laughing where we are ignorant," wrote Dr. James Hyslop, the esteemed psychical investigator of a century ago.  Perhaps it would have been more appropriate for Hyslop, professor of ethics and logic at Columbia University before entering the field of psychical research, to have substituted the word "intelligence" for sanity. 

More recently, in his 1999 book, "Passport to the Cosmos," the late Dr. John Mack, a Pulitzer Prize winner and professor of psychiatry at Harvard, gives his thoughts on the "worldview" in which so many academicians are stuck.  "A worldview functions at both individual and institutional levels," Mack writes.  "It is a source of security and a compass to guide us.  For an individual it holds the psyche together.  To destroy someone's worldview is virtually to destroy that person.  A complex network of institutions, an edifice of power and money, supports a worldview and gives it legitimacy."

Dr. John O. M. Bockris, a distinguished professor of physics, blames his closed-minded colleagues in science for leading many in the West to approach death without hope, thereby giving rise to a materialistic and hedonistic world.  "It is simply hubris - that exaggerated pride in one's own achievements which means that - and this applies in particular to professors at universities - those whose careers have been built upon certain theories - existing viewpoints - and who have taught a science based on these, are horrified to learn that they may not have been speaking the truth," Bockris explains the mindset of the scoffer in his recent book, The New Paradigm.

The bottom line, as I see it, is that the smirker, the scoffer, the cynic, whatever name we give to him or her, is not a skeptic at all.  His or her mind is closed, not open, and therefore this person only poses as a skeptic.   It appears that such people would rather appear intelligent now than be right in the long run.  More than anyone else, the pseudo-skeptic, I believe, is responsible for society's ills.    

 See http://www.victorzammit.com/ for more on skeptics and the evidence in favor of an afterlife. Also, see http://www.lightlink.com/arpr/tymn/index.htm for some intriguing cases suggesting a spirit world.