Skepticism

If you have participated in discussions of religion on the Internet using e-mail, chat or discussion groups, you have certainly met someone who calls himself or herself a "skeptic." But don't be fooled, a skeptic is not someone who is skeptical about everything, a skeptic is usually someone who is skeptical about anything supernatural but completely unskeptical about things like evolution. Don't get me wrong, being skeptical is not a bad thing. I don't believe anyone should accept something just because someone says it's true. Claims about things should be supported by evidence and good arguments before they should be accepted. But if someone considers himself a skeptic, he gets himself into a contradiction - specifically, if one is skeptical of everything, he should be skeptical about being skeptical thus should never call himself a skeptic.

Anyway, I recently picked up a magazine called "Skeptic" (Vol. 8, No. 4, 2001) edited by Michael Shermer. In that magazine, it contains a few short paragraphs under the title "What is a Skeptic?" (p.5, can also be found on Skeptic Magazine's web site). According to the magazine, "Skepticism is a provisional approach to claims, it is the application of reason to any and all ideas - no sacred cows allowed." Well, that sounds good to me, claims should be tested for validity. The magazine continues, "…pure skepticism uncoils and spins off the viewing screen of our intellectual cloud chamber." This is consistent with what I previously mentioned. The next paragraph explains, "Modern skepticism is embodied in the scientific method, that involves gathering data to formulate and test naturalistic explanations for natural phenomena." Oops, I see a possible "sacred cow" here. Since the magazine in question looks at all sort of phenomena, it seems here that it is assuming all phenomena can be explained naturalistically. So it is making the blind assumption that the supernatural cannot exist even though one cannot prove such a claim. Skipping over unsupportable claims about creationism, the conclusion of the article contains bold statements like: "evolution may have designed us…" and "shaped by nature…"

Perhaps I'm not "skeptical" enough but I don't see anything skeptical about the conclusions near the end of this article. I would think a skeptic ought to be skeptical of evolution itself. Especially because of the theory's great many problems and the its extreme lack of evidence. Not only that, the concluding comments seem to assign design capabilities to "evolution" and "nature" in what can only be described as a gaggle of blatant metaphysical statements. One could even replace "evolution" and "nature" in the article with "God" and would not change the type of claim being made.

One can only conclude from the definition of "skeptic" in this leading magazine of skeptics that skeptics assign naturalism as their god and unquestioned "given." Not only that, in speaking with skeptics throughout the years on the Internet, most seem to be anti-religion more then they are skeptical. This is shown in the very next article in the magazine, which appears to be an editorial that uses ad hominem and straw man arguments sprinkled with scare tactics against religious creationists.

It seems to be common today that when ones viewpoints are refuted, he or she just redefines the meaning of the name of those viewpoints. For example, as explained above, "skeptic" doesn't really mean "skeptic." We know from past discussions, "atheist" now means something closer to "agnostic" because the claim "there is no God" cannot be logically proven. "Evolution" means both "adaptation" and "macro evolution" because adaptation has been proven (and seems to be programmed into creatures) and macro evolution has no supporting evidence. Evolution is said to be able to happen suddenly because gradualism has no supporting evidence. This sort of slight-of-hand refutes the claim that all "science" is falsifiable. It seems that when science deals with explanations that attempt to take the place of a creator God, all bets are off.

Mark Harpt
Editor
e-mail: wwcw@wwcw.org

I want to learn more about how I can have a relationship with the creator of the universe.

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