Name: Anonymous 2010-07-02 5:13
When considering information, it is prudent and advisable to have a healthy skepticism, but that skepticism itself must be rationally grounded, every bit as much as we want the given information to have been sourced and processed in a rational manner. We want to have a good sense of rational skepticism, and avoid the lure of irrational skepticism. Rational skepticism helps us use reason and logic to evaluate what we are given. Irrational skepticism, at its worst, avoids reason and logic and becomes an insulator against enlightenment so that we might reject entirely valid rationally derived information.
Rational skepticism helps science progress and self-correct, ideally, as we continually observe and consider. Our theories and models are thusly mutable, as for instance, Newton's gravitation became supplanted by Einstein's. Irrational skepticism hinders the furthering of knowledge, as widely accepted information tends to be entirely dismissed in favour of poorly supported reports, speculations, or suppositions.
Rational skepticism helps science progress and self-correct, ideally, as we continually observe and consider. Our theories and models are thusly mutable, as for instance, Newton's gravitation became supplanted by Einstein's. Irrational skepticism hinders the furthering of knowledge, as widely accepted information tends to be entirely dismissed in favour of poorly supported reports, speculations, or suppositions.