A conversation on the nature of Skepticism

[salvorhardin]

If this is your cup of tea, I had an interesting conversation with Daniel Loxton ("Where Do We Go From Here", Jr. Skeptic Magazine) and Jim Lippard today on Twitter. You can read it prefaced with my summary of my position at Neural Gourmet.
http://neuralgourmet.com/2009/08/26/conversation-nature-skepticism

[trotsky]

1. FWIW, I find myself in total agreement with you.

Maybe our tours of DUty ;-) in the Health Scare Lounge have given us some special insight. This in particular was dead on:

I think what truly differentiates the skeptic from everyone else are a set of values and ethics that comprise a moralistic worldview. We value objective truth highly and see harm resulting when that objective truth is distorted or lied about.

Thanks, by the way, for introducing me to the word "veridical." I had never seen it before.

[salvorhardin]

2. Thanks

It's still unclear to me whether the critical thinking toolkit and knowledge base are necessary and sufficient for skepticism. I think they're necessary but not sufficient. I think the values component is also needed to explain the modern skeptical movement.

Of course, I think pseudo-skepticism or denialism can be explained as the values component sans the toolkit and corpus of factual knowledge.