Skepticism Needs to End

A skeptic should only be rejecting anything that is demonstrably false
For everything else they should either accept it or keep an open mind

Skeptics reject ideas that lack hard scientific evidence.

There’s no such thing as “hard scientific evidence”.

People are either convinced by arguments, “experts”, or they’re not.

You can build a mountain of “hard scientific evidence”, still doesn’t make a preposition true. Truth begins when people believe in something.

Precisely. It boils down to how much a person wants to believe for themselves, that what they know, is to be correct in their minds.

In ordinary usage, skepticism, refers to:

  1. an attitude of doubt or a disposition to incredulity either in general or toward a particular object;
  2. the doctrine that true knowledge or some particular knowledge is uncertain;
  3. the method of suspended judgment, systematic doubt, or criticism that is characteristic of skeptics (Merriam–Webster).

In philosophy, skepticism can refer to:

  1. a mode of inquiry that emphasizes critical scrutiny, caution, and intellectual rigor;
  2. a method of obtaining knowledge through systematic doubt and continual testing;
  3. a set of claims about the limitations of human knowledge and the proper response to such limitations.

So with this in mind. Skeptics only regard certain knowledge even if proven evident, yet only to still discredit said proofs. It makes no sense in any age to have discredited a lot of scientific breakthroughs. Or any actual facts of technology and logic these days. Yet Tesla is still not studied in school and certain ancient technology isn’t applied to our contemporary way of living. The urge to just doubt is strictly stemming from avoiding to be wrong. People are as vain as ever in this world. As skeptics go, they may even be as bad as certain belief systems, with their radical way of misinforming the misrepresented objection of falsely accusing anybody else’s certainties to be wrong. Yet if this was in the hands of the other, it may have been different. With every bit of knowledge you get taught, there’s still a a whole lot of knowledge out there to be learned. “Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance". We mustn’t just doubt away every sensible source of evidence. Not guess. But we must always have certain conviction even when it comes down our very own technological research. sheesh. I mean in life, a man could doubt he would die, yet when he’s dead, I doubt! He’ll doubt that again.

How so if there is hard science and soft science? Hard scientific evidence would be through experimentation that can be 100% replicated whereas soft science would be more testimony based efforts that cannot be easily replicated.

I didn’t say anything about truth just that skeptics tend to point to the lack of hard scientific evidence, the lack of proof they trust. There is a great deal of truth in the soft sciences and religion, but without the hard scientific evidence, skeptics will not believe anything an expert or multiple experts in those fields says.

Do skeptics tend to be life negating rather than life affirming? More negative than positive?

Skepticism is a form of revenge against crafty people who are good at argument.
The skeptic rejects everyone, instead of only the crafty people, because he cannot tell who is a lier and who is not.
Skepticism is a form of self castration.

There are so many kinds of skeptic, I would hesitate to generalize, but there is a tendency amongst those who label themselves as skeptics to be selectively skeptical and to never focus, skeptically, on what they choose to aim their skepticism at.

I’ve had similar thoughts. I have often thought that the testicles they cut off are intuition. Because intuition can be bad, then we have to all assume no on is good at it, so cut it off.

The only thing “hard” or “soft” are the standards by which people believe in any particular prepositions, and almost always, or always, directly corresponding with beliefs that benefit or flatter themselves. For science, hard and soft don’t really matter. Either, common humans will defer their opinions to authorities, to “experts” …as long as it suits their underlying agenda.

If science goes against the opinion of a common moron, then they will discount the science, and retain the belief anyway.

In short, “Science” is no guarantee for truth or validity. Science is merely a specialized criterion for what types of premises (based upon experimentation and replication) ought to be believed in, same as any other belief.

More negative than positive, as Dan~ mentioned.

Skepticism is distrust against all, unable to discern which people are lying, false, or anybody telling the truth.

#-o [-o<

Well there you have it it’s unanimous, skeptics can only negate knowledge (i.e. Truth!) and therefore cannot, I repeat CANNOT supplement actual evidence. As facts and proofs go, that’s also out the window.
I can’t just discern evident support and validated confirmation of hypothesis. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurred when a particular factor was manipulated. Pragmatism has always taught me to look into more study and research more. Yet I fail to do any of this looking in from the perspective of ‘skepticism’.
There is really no need to have even been associated with learning and education if all you’re going to do is doubt.
Hell let’s say the sun a liar and doubt it’s even hot.

So There. Skepticism is dead. I hardheartedly agree it is deceased. If not, disagree now and or hold your peace.

Pneumatic-Coma"]So There. Skepticism is dead. I hardheartedly agree it is deceased. If not, disagree now and or hold your peace.

What’s with this black and white thinking? Skepticism must be destroyed? Are you kidding? You’re not even gonna say it should be reduced? I’ll agree that some people can be excessively skeptical, but if you don’t have skepticism at all in society, what do you have? Blind acceptance. ← Is that what you want?

Authorities know what is best for everybody, be silent and accept the noble lies given unto you. It’s for your own good.

“There are different kinds of truths for different kinds of people. There are truths appropriate for children; truths that are appropriate for students; truths that are appropriate for educated adults; and truths that are appropriate for highly educated adults, and the notion that there should be one set of truths available to everyone is a modern democratic fallacy. It doesn’t work.”- Irving Kristol

I had the same reaction, but it seemed, then, like it was skepticism as a general stance, not being skeptical about this or that. Skepticism as a fundanmental behavioral/epistemological category, like realism or idealism or empiricism…

Geez man, you’re on a role, aren’t you?

Skepticism without something to be skeptical about seems kinda vacuous to me… unless it means skeptical about knowledge in general. Would that be a follower of Socrates? The only thing I know is that I know nothing?

Typically, such radical skepticism rests on the common occurrence of being wrong about things we thought we knew. The conclusion is that if you think you know something, you might still be wrong. If you bring in the Aristotelian criteria for knowledge–namely, true justified belief (TJB)–this line of argument essentially says that we’re always missing the J–you can’t justifiably say that you know something if you concede that you might be wrong–and so knowledge is impossible.

I came up with a radical form of idealism the other day which does away with the possibility of being wrong, and replaces it with relativism. Rather than being wrong, we say that we have switched reference frames. What we thought was true in one moment remains true in the old reference frame and happens to be false in the new reference frame. Therefore, the J is preserved in the reference frame. Whatever it is in the current reference frame that leads us to such-and-such belief or knowledge, it is so in relation to this reference frame. This works especially well for empirical knowledge. Don’t have to worry about whether our senses are deceiving us, or this is a dream, or we’re hallucinating–the sensory experience is itself its own justification. If it turns out we were dreaming after all, that’s just a switch of reference frames, and whatever we dreamt up a moment ago remains true in the reference frame of the dream. We can say we knew it was true/real in the world of the dream.

An appropriate pun if merely a typo. Trust the unconscious mind…oweeoweeoooo.

Yeah. I mean realism without something to be real about would be weird also.

Though how you can decide, like, poetry is bad, without knowing anything seems amazing to me.

Or you can’t J enough.

If there was a J. I mean if you aren’t wrong (period?) then you don’t need a J.

Skepticism needs to come to an end, why can’t you schmucks just accept the leadership of your wealthier and more powerful betters? You’re getting in the way of global progress here.

Agreed. I’ll put my right foot in take my right foot out and put my right foot in and SHAKE it all about.

Not an argument or philosophical engagement.