In Praise of being Skeptical

I like this definition of skepticism:

-a method of intellectual caution and suspended judgment.

The opposite of this is gullibility, or credulity, simply believing what you are told without the slightest attempt to verify or absent even a hint of critical thinking.

People who fail to think critically are prone to being taken in by liars and scammers. They seem to believe what makes them feel good, rather than what is demonstrably true.

Getting back to the definition cited above, intellectual caution is being careful about what you give credence to, what you accept as true. You need evidence. Young children lack this capacity, accepting at face value what their parents say. But a necessary part of groing up is learning to require more than the mere say so of a parent. Santa Clause may be a comforting character, but that's not enough to make him real.

The second part of the definition, suspended judgment, is the ability to withhold one's acceptance of a claim until after the relevant facts are acquired.

I am heartened by an apparent increase in critical thinking among Americans, as evidenced by the recent study showing that fewer people claim to have a religion than ever before.

What I find difficult to understand is the fact that, no matter how absurd the claim, there will always be people who will believe it.

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