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Date Posted: 19:05:23 03/15/06 Wed
Author: amadaun
Subject: 
Skeptics.....
Skeptics, those naysayers who are determined to believe what they believe, no matter what. Who pour their scorn and derision upon things they don't understand.
There's a few gems here- skeptics who rubbished planes, TV, light bulbs and records.
Historically, closed-minded skeptics have opposed every invention and discovery and have made fools of themselves:
• Sir William Preece former chief engineer of Britain's Post Office will be remembered for making one of the most 'idiotic' comments in history about Edison's inventions. Sir William stated that Edison's lamp (parallel circuit) was a 'completely idiotic idea'!
• Professors, including Professor Henry Morton who knew Edison stated, immediately before Edison demonstrated the electric light globe: 'On behalf of science ... Edison's experiments are a ... fraud upon the public.'
• The Scientific American, The New York Times, The New York Herald, the U.S. Army, academics — including Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy Simon Newcomb from John Hopkins University— and many other American scientists all heaped derision, ridicule and denigration onto the Wright brothers claiming that it was: 'scientifically impossible for machines to fly'!
• One of the leading scientists from the French Academy of Sciences stated that hypnosis is a fraud and stated after seeing a hypnotized subject with a four inch needle in the top of his arm: 'This subject has been paid for not showing he's in pain'.
• Another scientist from the French Academy of Sciences, after listening to a record made by Edison, stated: '... clearly that is a case of ventriloquism'!
• John Logie Baird, the inventor of television, was attacked by closed-minded skeptics who stated it was: 'absolute rubbish that television waves could produce a picture! '
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Re: Skeptics..... -- 23, 09:06:41 03/16/06 Thu [1]
I don't understand how anyone can NOT be a fan of skepticism. We'd still be living in the dark ages without it, treating illnesses with mercury, putting butter on our burns, believing that fairies control the weather, believing that the earth is flat and the center of the solar system, burning witches, etc.
The scientific advancements you speak of above would not have been possible without skepticism. Skepticism is what the scientific method is based on - the great scientists invented what they did because they were skeptical of the current explanations.
I think you're confusing skeptics with pessimists.
Skepticism and open-mindedness are not mutually exclusive. One needs a healthy dose of both to navigate through the choppy waters of reality. If one is too much of either the results can range from comical to deadly.
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Re: Skeptics..... -- 23, 09:09:37 03/16/06 Thu [1]
"Skeptics, those naysayers who are determined to believe what they believe, no matter what."
And this is just completely backward.
Skeptics choose NOT to believe what others believe until they can clearly see the proof to the contrary.
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Re: Skeptics..... -- taurus, 09:15:38 03/16/06 Thu [1]
23 wrote:
"Skeptics, those naysayers who are determined to believe what they believe, no matter what."
And this is just completely backward.
Skeptics choose NOT to believe what others believe until they can clearly see the proof to the contrary.
~~~~ Ditto on that. There is usually relevance of other peoples opinions, but without the proof it's not relevant.....YET! I'll believe it when I see it motto.
I don't know maybe I'm a pessimist and a skeptic.
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Re: Skeptics..... -- lump, 13:27:40 03/16/06 Thu [1]
I believe skeptics have an important place in society. How many times have you been told you can't do something (for whatever reason) and been driven to do it just to show that downer/skeptic he/she is wrong?
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Re: Skeptics..... -- amadaun, 22:48:44 03/16/06 Thu [1]
***I don't understand how anyone can NOT be a fan of skepticism. We'd still be living in the dark ages without it, treating illnesses with mercury, putting butter on our burns, believing that fairies control the weather, believing that the earth is flat and the center of the solar system, burning witches, etc.***
I think the opposite. Skeptics are the ones who hold back the advancement of the human race. Skeptics burned witches because they didn't understand how they healed people with herbs or faith healing.
Skeptics are the people who persecuted those who told them that the earth revolves around the sun.
Skeptical doctors laughed at the idea of washing their hands after working on a corpse, before tending to a woman in labour. They kept medicine IN the dark ages!!
And skeptics nowadays prevent the advancement of medicine and science when they rubbish any new ideas or theories simply because they don't conform to what they have always believed.
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Re: Skeptics..... -- amadaun, 22:55:51 03/16/06 Thu [1]
"Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, but to weigh and consider."
Sir Francis Bacon
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Re: Skeptics..... -- 23, 09:26:09 03/17/06 Fri [1]
"Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, but to weigh and consider."
Is that meant as some sort of a lesson to me or something?
skep·tic also scep·tic
1. One who instinctively or habitually doubts, questions, or disagrees with assertions or generally accepted conclusions.
2. One inclined to skepticism in religious matters.
Gallileo was a skeptic. He doubted the generally accepted conclusion that the sun revolved around the earth. The Wright Brothers were skeptics who doubted the generally accepted conclusion that man couldn't fly. Charles Darwin was a skeptic who doubted the generally accepted conclusion that god formed adam and eve out of clay and created all the animals in one day. Thomas Edision was a skeptic who doubted the generally accepted conclusion that light could only be created by gas or oil lamps.
We're obviously both imparting our own biases on who we consider the skeptics in each of these scenarios. As you can see, my perspective doesn't contradict the definition any more than yours. Your are just predisposed, for whatever reason, into thinking of skepticism as a "bad" thing and therefore the heroes in your version of these stories WEREN'T skeptics. From my perspective, they WERE.
It's my opinion that skepticism is the fuel that motivates these great thinkers into over-turning the generally accepted conclusions of their day. It's your opinion that they provide the brakes that slow the same progress that I think they fuel.
Maybe they truth lies somewhere in between, or maybe there are two different, distinct types of skepticism, "good" and "bad" skepticism. Or maybe they are of the same type, but sometimes the skeptic is right, and sometimes they are wrong.
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Re: Skeptics..... -- lump, 09:44:18 03/17/06 Fri [1]
A good example of medical skeptics that are doing good things, look up ADD once on the internet! There are pages for both sides of that issue. Skeptics say it's self control or food allergies or th farmer vs. hunter issues and that it's not a disorder at all. Non-skeptics believe these people are genetically wired wrong and that it really is a disorder. ADD is, after all, still a theory and hasn't really been proven other than the fact that some people just can't get their stuff together. It's a battle out there - and I think that's a good thing! Without this debate between skeptics and non-skeptics, wouldn't we just blindly believe in everything?
Don't you think the skeptics on the world being flat did us a huge favor by finding out we're round?
How about the skeptics who believed that tomatos weren't poison? Don't we owe them thanks for pizza, spagetti, and salsa?
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Re: Skeptics..... -- 23, 10:26:19 03/17/06 Fri [1]
One more thing, amadaun.
Wouldn't you consider YOURSELF a skeptic when it comes to the generally accepted conclusions regarding the safety and effectiveness of western medical treatments like vaccinations and chemotherapy?
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Re: Skeptics..... -- amadaun, 19:26:49 03/19/06 Sun [1]
I like your version of skepticism as a driving force for change,Twan, but when people think of a skeptic, they generally think of someone who is preventing any new and radical information being taken seriously.
Skeptic: someone who habitually doubts accepted beliefs [wordnet.princeton]- it would be great if this was how skepticism was practiced today.
As I define Skepticism, it is a state of mind that doubts whether something is possible, and a preference for keeping the status quo ie: that vaccinations could be harmful or ineffective. The skeptic clings to the belief that it is safe and useful procedure. I say belief, because it has been documented many times that vaccinations are neither.
Skeptics liked the theory of gradualism in earth's evolution, but catastrophism is now slowly replacing this view- though it has taken a long time for the theory to be taken seriously. Immanuel Velikovsky's seminal book was rubbished for many decades, but now most of his ideas are accepted.
Skeptics continue to believe that UFO's are imaginary, when there is so much evidence to the contary.
Skeptics pooh pooh the idea of mediumship, when people like Alison Dubois work for the police department solving crimes.[Albeit on the quiet, as they don't like to rock the boat publicly]
I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this one.
Oh yeah, about the Francis Bacon quote, I just though it was good.[no lesson intended]
I should make it my motto :-)
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Re: Skeptics..... -- 23, 08:41:52 03/20/06 Mon [1]
"but when people think of a skeptic, they generally think of someone who is preventing any new and radical information being taken seriously."
I think you need to refine that statement slightly, as I consider myself "people."
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Re: Skeptics..... -- taurus, 09:12:26 03/20/06 Mon [1]
You know we sometimes refer to people in general and like typos forget to add "some" people.
amadaun wrote:
"but when people think of a skeptic, they generally think of someone who is preventing any new and radical information being taken seriously."
I don't think a skeptic is "preventing" any new developments or preventing any radical information from the public or anyone, i think a skeptic just doesn't believe it until all the facts or theories are founded. Nothing wrong with that, sometimes some theories or information turn out to be true or they are false. I think a skeptic has a right to be skeptical.
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Re: Skeptics..... -- 23, 10:00:12 03/20/06 Mon [1]
"You know we sometimes refer to people in general and like typos forget to add "some" people."
I don't disagree that it was a totally innocent mistake. I just think it's important to make that distinction, because NOT making that distinction can often lead to a pattern of thinking that results in conclusions that just aren't true. Like thinking skeptics are closed-minded dolts who block the general progress of the human race.
Skepticism is ALWAYS good, IMO. Even when skeptics are wrong, they force the innovators or dogmatists to refine and hone their positions because of the skeptics' scrutiny.
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