Concept

Scientific skepticism

Overview

Scientific skepticism or rational skepticism (also spelled scepticism), sometimes referred to as skeptical inquiry, is a position in which one questions the veracity of claims lacking scientific evidence. In practice, the term most commonly refers to the examination of claims and theories that appear to be unscientific, rather than the routine discussions and challenges among scientists. Scientific skepticism differs from philosophical skepticism, which questions humans' ability to claim any knowledge about the nature of the world and how they perceive it, and the similar but distinct methodological skepticism, which is a systematic process of being skeptical about (or doubting) the truth of one's beliefs.

The skeptical movement (British spelling: sceptical movement) is a contemporary social movement based on the idea of scientific skepticism. The movement has the goal of investigating claims made on fringe topics and determining whether they are supported by empirical research and are reproducible, as part of a methodological norm pursuing "the extension of certified knowledge".

Roots of the movement date at least from the 19th century, when people started publicly raising questions regarding the unquestioned acceptance of claims about spiritism, of various widely held superstitions, and of pseudoscience.

Publications such as those of the Dutch Vereniging tegen de Kwakzalverij (1881) also targeted medical quackery. Using as a template the Belgian organization founded in 1949, Comité Para, Americans Paul Kurtz and Marcello Truzzi founded the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), in Amherst, New York, in 1976. Now known as the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), this organization has inspired others to form similar groups worldwide.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

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Thus the scope and power of _a priori_ principles is strictly limited. All knowledge that something exists must be in part dependent on experience. When anything is known immediately, its existence is known by experience alone; when anything is proved to exist, without being known immediately, both experience and _a priori_ principles must be required in the proof. Knowledge is called _empirical_ when it rests…
Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy
States what Scientific skepticism is; the author is tied to Scientific skepticism in the knowledge graph.
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The consideration that philosophy, if there is such a study, must consist of propositions which could not occur in the other sciences, is one which has very far-reaching consequences. All the questions which have what is called a human interest--such, for example, as the question of a future life--belong, at least in theory, to special sciences, and are capable, at least in theory, of being decided by empirical…
Bertrand Russell, Our Knowledge of the External World as a Field for Scientific Method in Philosophy
States what Scientific skepticism is; the author is tied to Scientific skepticism in the knowledge graph.
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To infer a proposition from a previous proposition or propositions; to give credence to it, or claim credence for it, as a conclusion from something else; is to _reason_, in the most extensive sense of the term. There is a narrower sense, in which the name reasoning is confined to the form of inference which is termed ratiocination, and of which the syllogism is the general type. The reasons for not conforming to…
John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic
States what Scientific skepticism is.
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Scientific skepticism

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