Considering Objections to Skepticism

As both a lover of rational discourse and psychology, I've been recently interested in how our cognitive biases make us come to wrong conclusions, or conclusions that are not justified logically, as well as how people create and reinforce beliefs (needless to say, Michael Shermer is prominent in my upcoming reading list.) I've had some conversations recently with some friends who share quite different views than I do on the subjects of evolution and astrology (I accept evolution, reject astrology). I've noticed some objections to the skeptical way of thinking about things that are worth considering.


1) You've just got to have faith!

Why? What's so special about faith? Just because a worldview gives you comfort does not mean it is true. Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and so forth, all give billions of followers worldwide comfort and happiness, a sense of community, a sense of purpose, and an (mistaken) understanding of the world and our place in it. If faith itself is just a virtue, then there's no need to hold prejudices against those of other religions. Nor is there a need to see them as damned and going to hell, if you admit in the first place that it's just a matter of faith and not really supported by any evidence.

Another spin on this is the objection that skepticism is just too dull, that life is something best viewed with "color", or that skeptics are too pessimistic and we just need to have more hope. Again, does holding a belief because it is aesthetically pleasing or because it gives us hope make it true? No. Some philosophers like William James might argue that it is a justified belief in a pragmatic sense, but it still doesn't make it true of reality. If you are a consistent truth seeker, you should apply skepticism across the board, and not accept something just because it makes you happy.


2) Science is a belief too!

Not quite, science is a way of inquiry about the natural world. However, the findings of science are beliefs. The issue is not over whether or not something is a belief, but whether or not it is a justified belief in the first place -- does it (insert whatever you wish for the "it" here) make sense, or are there good reasons to think it?  Secondly, the issue is over whether or not the justified belief is TRUE, in which we can happily say we know something.

Now, there are a couple of general ways to come to a belief which are rational. The first is deductive logic, which I discuss in a previous blog post. This is, broadly speaking, a method by which you move from some general principles to a specific conclusion.

From where then do these general principles which serve as the premises come? The method by which we move from specific premises to a general principle is called inductive logic. There are many methods of induction, but there is the simple type of induction which works by enumeration, such as the sun rose every day thus far, and therefore will rise tomorrow. This type of reasoning is rather prone to error, and is the subject of much skepticism by philosophers. The "problem of induction" concerns this form of inductive reasoning.

Other types of induction include causal reasoning, which is best exemplified in John Stuart Mill's methods of induction. There is also statistical and probable reasoning, exemplified by the mathematics of statistics, including both the Frequentist and Bayesian methods.

Science of course utilizes all of these methods of reasoning! Science is the disciplined practice of developing hypotheses (positive statements or predictions) about the world, devising a way to test them, and hoping to reject the null hypothesis, or hypothesis of no effect. A hypothesis, for instance, could be that the position of the sun relative to constellations has mystical power on us that determines our personalities and life events. The null hypothesis would be that there is no observable effect of the sun's position relative to constellations has an influence over our life. Unless there is sufficient evidence (in statistics, sufficient evidence means that the probability of it occurring due to chance is less than a mere five percent!), there is no reason to accept a hypothesis. That is a bad example of a hypothesis, of course, but I used it since I mentioned astrology at the beginning of this post. A good hypothesis should be easily falsifiable. You can never directly test whether or not there is a mystical, invisible, force behind anything because it is by nature undetectable. However, you can deduce the consequences of that being true -- such as people born under a specific star sign all truly displaying the same personality, and test that. Of course, there is no such convincing evidence so the null hypothesis is what must be accepted if one wishes to be consistently rational. If the consequences of a hypothesis that is hard to directly falsify are inconsequential, then it can be fully dispensed with. I rather like the pragmatic maxim of Charles Sanders Peirce, which is similar to the "ockham's razor" or principle of parsimony: It appears, then, that the rule for attaining the third grade of clearness of apprehension is as follows; "Consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object." (from How To Make Our Ideas Clear)

While deduction and induction are commonly juxtaposed to each other, even viewed as opposites, I would like to point out that this is not the case. As I said, deductive logic goes from a general to a specific. The general principles that serve as the premises, however, have to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is induction. Science uses both. Induction and Deduction are not opposites, they ought to be thought of as inseparable.

The point of all this is to clarify what thinking scientifically is. Those who object that science is just a belief just don't get the point of it -- to develop justified and hopefully true beliefs.

3) You're being narrow minded!

I see this one used a lot, especially from religious folk who claim their views are supported by the evidence. There is a difference between being consistently rational and being narrow minded. Being narrow minded is clinging to a belief because it makes you happy or because you do not wish to change your opinion. Being rational is only changing your opinion when a sufficiently good argument or evidence warrants it, regardless of your feelings towards the new conclusion. Ironcially, those who accuse people of being narrow minded are often the ones being just that.

In a sense, this objection is a combination of the first two. It's proposing that science or rationality are just one way of thinking, and that they are no better or worse than superstition, mysticism, or faith. The implication is that everything is relative, and that one is better off believing something that makes you happy or gives guidance in life rather than having a "party pooper" belief.

I consider myself a seeker of truth, so if consistently applying rational rules to my thinking makes me a  party pooper, a cynic, or narrow minded, then so be it. I prefer this over what I call "intellectual hedonism." I define intellectual hedonism as the tendency to seek out beliefs that give one pleasure. I propose on the contrary that truth is valuable in its own right. To refer to the popular film The Matrix, I would choose to live in the "desert of the real" over the computer simulation.