Anti-Science 'Skeptics' Are Not Skeptics: They Are Incredibly Willing to Believe BS
Posted by Ross Pomeroy, February 17, 2015, RealClearScience.com
Being a "skeptic" is in. Doubtless, a great many "skeptics" of manmade climate change, vaccines, and 9/11 fancy themselves as brave, stalwart holdouts, standing tall against a tide of opposition, like Davy Crockett at the Battle of the Alamo.
But they aren't.
They are, however, incredibly willing to believe alternative, pie-in-the-sky explanations. Put it another way: They're not skeptical; they're extremely gullible.
Many climate skeptics contend that the massive scientific consensus on climate change is instead a conspiratorial hoax. Some vaccine refusers believe that health officials knowingly or unknowingly permit vaccine manufacturers to inoculate us with dangerous chemicals. 9/11 truthers argue that the attacks on the World Trade Center may have been orchestrated by our own government and covered up by the media. There is no convincing evidence to support any of these theories, but there is quite a lot that debunks them. In short, while these "skeptics" are incredulous to facts, they are incredibly credulous to fairy tales. This makes them some of the least skeptical people on Earth. Blinded by their ingrained, ideological worldviews, all they're doing is fooling themselves, and denying reality.
"They tell themselves that they’re the ones who see the lies, and the rest of us are sheep. But believing that everybody’s lying is just another kind of gullibility,” Slate's William Saletan elegantly stated.
(Continued here.)
Being a "skeptic" is in. Doubtless, a great many "skeptics" of manmade climate change, vaccines, and 9/11 fancy themselves as brave, stalwart holdouts, standing tall against a tide of opposition, like Davy Crockett at the Battle of the Alamo.
But they aren't.
They are, however, incredibly willing to believe alternative, pie-in-the-sky explanations. Put it another way: They're not skeptical; they're extremely gullible.
Many climate skeptics contend that the massive scientific consensus on climate change is instead a conspiratorial hoax. Some vaccine refusers believe that health officials knowingly or unknowingly permit vaccine manufacturers to inoculate us with dangerous chemicals. 9/11 truthers argue that the attacks on the World Trade Center may have been orchestrated by our own government and covered up by the media. There is no convincing evidence to support any of these theories, but there is quite a lot that debunks them. In short, while these "skeptics" are incredulous to facts, they are incredibly credulous to fairy tales. This makes them some of the least skeptical people on Earth. Blinded by their ingrained, ideological worldviews, all they're doing is fooling themselves, and denying reality.
"They tell themselves that they’re the ones who see the lies, and the rest of us are sheep. But believing that everybody’s lying is just another kind of gullibility,” Slate's William Saletan elegantly stated.
(Continued here.)
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