skepticism

The Magic Man Can

Here, this is the complete curriculum for the intelligent design part of the syllabus:

A magic man done it.

There, finished! There are no experiments that need to be summarized, no details that need to be explored, no complicated mechanisms that need to be explicated. Parents can exhaustively cover the subject in a moment or two some evening, or perhaps Mom could could scribble it down on a note in her child’s lunch. If they’re ambitious, they could send them off to a Sunday School, which might be taxed by the sudden increase in difficulty over the usual pap they dispense, but they’ll cope, perhaps by dumbing it down a little more.

The Definition of "Skeptic"

A skeptic is one who prefers beliefs and conclusions that are reliable and valid to ones that are comforting or convenient, and therefore rigorously and openly applies the methods of science and reason to all empirical claims, especially their own. A skeptic provisionally proportions acceptance of any claim to valid logic and a fair and thorough assessment of available evidence, and studies the pitfalls of human reason and the mechanisms of deception so as to avoid being deceived by others or themselves. Skepticism values method over any particular conclusion.

— Steven Novella

Here Be Dragons

Video: 

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Brian Dunning (of Skeptoid and The Skeptologists) presents this introduction to critical thinking. It’s 41 minutes, but you’ll be smarter for watching it. If you skip Oprah and Dr. Phil to watch it, you’ll be doubly, nay, triply smarter.

If everyone else looks down, look up

Don’t accept current theories as absolute fact. If everyone else is looking down, look up, or in a different direction. You may be surprised at what you will find.

— [Grote Reber]

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