Sep 25 2008
Circle of the Intellectually Picky?
The 96th edition of the Skeptics’ Circle has been posted over at Endcycle.
Hmm. Could skeptics be described as intellectually picky individuals? Do they take their mental forks to the plate of common beliefs, closely examine the items, then spear and reject what they deem as bogus and bad?
BTY – When I write about skeptics I include myself in the category.
Religious peas!!! Get those out of here!
Hmm. Can I steal an image from Richard Dawkins? If you put a religion or philosophy on your plate, by the time you’ve finished picking and probing at it with your fork, there’s nothing left but fragments — impossible to reassemble. If you take a watch apart, after you’ve examined and analyzed it — voila! Put it back together and you have a working watch.
Catana,
Interesting point. I have a friend who likes to say something like this: Data we can agree upon (hopefully) — It’s our explanations that are up to debate.
A watch consists of definite parts. We don’t need to interpret or explain them, we just need to put them back together for the watch to work.
One thing I struggle to better understand is the philosophical elements/underpinnings to “the scientific method” (scientific methods). Yes, our explanations for why the scientific approach is the best for understanding the world rest upon mountains of data successfully predicted, but they are explanations nonetheless.