The Value of Vertigo: Another fantastic post by @daniel_loxton
The skeptic’s task is not to score rhetorical points, but to seek genuine understanding of fringe claims. We want to learn what is true, what is fake, what the difference between these may be — and (if I may borrow a phrase) learn why people believe weird things.
Late at night, hands cramping from note-taking, eyes bleary with research, I can sometimes catch a glimpse of the Goblin Universe: ”Holy shit, what if there really is a Bigfoot? What if ghosts actually do exist? What if 9/11 was an inside job? What if….”
Sometimes this feeling is uncomfortable, sometimes it is thrilling — but always it comes to me as something of a relief. Here’s why:
- If it doesn’t even occur to us that the claim we’re examining could just possibly be true, we’re not honest investigators;
- If we can’t feel the persuasiveness of a claim, we don’t really understand it.
To my mind, this is where the rubber meets the road: are we really willing to look fairly at weird claims? And, is understanding something we’re psychologically capable of achieving?
Daniel perfectly sums up the skeptical enterprise in that one, short section. Read the full post at Skepticblog.
