by Craig Weiler
Why are we skeptical about skeptics? Isn’t skepticism about approaching new ideas rationally and examining evidence objectively before jumping to conclusions? Shouldn’t we avoid believing anything and everything that comes our way? Of course we should; that is the foundation of science after all.
But it is also possible to go completely overboard on skepticism to the point where it’s just overwhelming bias against new ideas. They are rejected out of hand and evidence is disregarded before it is even seen. This is actually quite common. You can pick pretty much any controversial topic and there will be a wide range of opinions ranging from true believers to dogmatic deniers, whether we’re talking about climate change or UFOs or bigfoot, it doesn’t matter. There will be people of all types.
This site focuses on the people who fall in the dogmatic denier category because they present themselves as being the most truthful and objective, which they are not. They call themselves skeptics and they would be harmless save for the fact that they have a lot of influence in academia and the mainstream media and are invested in making sure that mainstream sources, such as Wikipedia reflect their point of view. (And only their point of view.)
Nearly any controversial subject you care to name has another side to the debate that you probably haven’t heard. It is the goal of Skeptical About Skeptics to show you the reasons why you’re only getting one side of the story.
Craig Weiler is owner of the website The Weiler Psi and the author of: Psi Wars: TED, Wikipedia and the Battle for the Internet: The Story of a Wild and Vicious Science Controversy that Anyone Can Join!