Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Scientific skepticism" in English language version.
Within the discourse of anti-New Age, anti-paranormal, sceptical writers, there are personal differences. The most visible is that between the oddly-named 'dry' and 'wet' sceptics.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)If other movements already promoted humanism, atheism, rationalism, science education and even critical thinking, what possible need could there be for organizing an additional, new movement—a movement of people called 'skeptics'?
CSICOP – and with it the global network of likeminded organizations that CSICOP inspired, such as the JREF and the Skeptics Society—was created with the specific yet ambitious goal of filling a very large gap in scholarship. The skeptical movement sought to bring organized critical focus to the same ancient problem that isolated, outnumbered, independent voices had been struggling to address for centuries: a virtually endless number of unexamined, potentially harmful paranormal or pseudoscientific claims ignored or neglected by mainstream scientists and scholars. [...] '[...] We are in effect a surrogate in that area for institutional science.'
The difference is between the long-standing genre of individual skeptical writing, and the recognition that this scholarship collectively comprised a distinct field of study.
If somehow you thought you'd gained some kind of understanding about the natural world [...], how would you then be able to demonstrate to anyone else that the understanding was valid? Seems like you'd need something like the scientific method to do this, otherwise you're left with all such insights being equal, and no way to distinguish which are valid.
It's a little nuanced, but ultimately it comes down to the idea that science can only really falsify a hypothesis. Tests are often constructed to prove the hypothesis false.
A theory is accepted not based on the prestige or convincing powers of the proponent, but on the results obtained through observations and/or experiments which anyone can reproduce: the results obtained using the scientific method are repeatable.
If somehow you thought you'd gained some kind of understanding about the natural world [...], how would you then be able to demonstrate to anyone else that the understanding was valid? Seems like you'd need something like the scientific method to do this, otherwise you're left with all such insights being equal, and no way to distinguish which are valid.
It's a little nuanced, but ultimately it comes down to the idea that science can only really falsify a hypothesis. Tests are often constructed to prove the hypothesis false.
A theory is accepted not based on the prestige or convincing powers of the proponent, but on the results obtained through observations and/or experiments which anyone can reproduce: the results obtained using the scientific method are repeatable.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)