Skeptologic

Today I’d like to talk a little bit about myself, specifically about why I am a skeptic and what led me to the skeptical movement. I was never really a big believer in the paranormal, but then again I never dismissed it either. I always had a healthy appreciation for science and history and I figured out that Santa Claus was not real at an early age. Most of the time I probably didn’t think about it much and thought there might be something to some of the claims, but I never paid it too much attention. I remember being very young and watching my uncle walk around our back yard with a forked stick looking for water (dowsing) and I figured there must be something to it because when they dug the hole, they found it. Little did I know at the time that there was water underground pretty much everywhere. I assumed that chiropractors were real doctors, Bigfoot might be out there somewhere, and took it for granted that UFOs might be alien spacecraft. As the years went by and I got older, I stopped believing in supernatural phenomena, with a mostly dismissive attitude towards it. I thought that was what a skeptic was, and I must admit that that did have a certain appeal. After all, I had heard there were still crazy people who believed the world was flat, that NASA had faked the moon landings, and in other such nonsense. I didn’t know who James Randi was until the late 1990’s, when I remember hearing that he was offering his million dollar challenge. I thought it was great that he was doing that, but didn’t look much further into it at the time. Then in 2003 I came across a little show on the Discovery Channel called Mythbusters.

You see, I grew up in the 70’s and 80’s and remember hearing the urban legend that Mikey from the Life Cereal commercials had died when his stomach had exploded from eating pop rocks and soda. I didn’t really think that one was true, but it was so much fun to see someone actually test it! On episode after episode, Adam and Jaime debunked myth after myth, many of which I had believed and that had been told to me by adults when I was growing up. That’s when I really got interested in weird beliefs and began searching the internet for more information. I was fascinated by why so many people could be taken in by these things. I would read James Randi’s commentary on his web site often, and found out there were wacky beliefs I had never even thought of. It was at this point that I learned the true meaning of what a skeptic was. A skeptic is not is a person who just dismisses things out of hand. I found out that skeptics were relatively open minded people who simply wanted proof through science, logic, and reason for whatever the claim was. An objective method to get to the truth no matter what it was, I liked that idea a lot.

A few years later I had a major change in my life that really pushed me to learn everything I could about logic and evidence through scientific skepticism: I became a parent. I now had the health and education of my children to think about, and that was not something I was going to take lightly. Suddenly the ability to find the truth about things mattered in a way that I had never thought would be so relevant. I wanted to be informed properly about any potential medical decisions I was going to have to make for them. I needed to learn how to really distinguish science from pseudoscience. It was also around this time that I discovered podcasts. I found Point of Inquiry, Skepticality, The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe, and Skeptoid. Learning about a subject was never so fun and entertaining. I learned about critical thinking, logical fallacies, how to apply the scientific method, how people are fooled and fool themselves, and how a lack of critical thinking can be dangerous or even deadly.

It was nice to know that there were many more people out there like me. I like being a skeptic because, as Dr. Michael Shermer points out, it’s not a position. It does not rely on ideology, belief, tradition, or superstition. It does not push me towards any one side of the political spectrum. You’ll find weird unsupported beliefs on both sides and all the way in between. From the right wing religious fundamentalist who thinks people walked around with dinosaurs like Fred Flintstone, to the new age believer whose idea of medicine is getting his feet massaged while drinking wheatgrass juice and listening to Yanni. Skepticism can give you the tools you need to protect yourself and your family from quacks, frauds, and charlatans. It can save you time, money, and it can even save lives.

There are some people who criticize skeptics by accusing us of being party-poopers. They think we take the wonder out of life when we point out that the light in the sky is not a spaceship or that the log floating in the lake is not a monster. That the splotch of light in the photo is not a ghost or that we are not particularly special because the Earth is not at the center of the universe. But I don’t see it that way. I think there is so much grandeur to marvel at in the real universe that we live in. We could study it forever and never run out of amazing things, without ever having to invoke the supernatural.

So thanks to all of you in the skeptical community. Thank you to both the Mythbusters and Penn & Teller for your great television shows which bring skepticism to a broader audience than ever before. Thank you Dr. Novella and the Skeptical Rogues, Derek and Swoopy, DJ Grothe and the CFI, and Brian Dunning for doing your podcasts which have sharpened my critical thinking skills, entertained me so much, and allowed me to listen to the thoughts of so many great skeptics, especially James Randi and Dr. Michael Shermer. And a very special thanks to the late Dr. Carl Sagan for teaching so many the value of science and rational thought with unrivaled passion. I know sometimes it seems frustrating, but little by little you are all making the world a better place.