#skeptic

In an extroverted society, the difference between an introvert and an extrovert is that an introvert is often unconsciously deemed guilty until proven innocent. ↗

— Criss Jami

#assumption #bias #blame #extroversion #extroverts

I am too much of a skeptic to deny the possibility of anything... ↗

— Thomas Henry Huxley

#skepticism #thinking #skepticism

It is evident that skepticism, while it makes no actual change in man, always makes him feel better. ↗

— Ambrose Bierce

#always #better #change #evident #feel

We all approached doing a sequel with great trepidation and skepticism. ↗

— Jason Biggs

#doing #great #sequel #skepticism #trepidation

Where journalists have gotten themselves in trouble over the last few decades is that their skepticism often extends only to American officials, the U.S. military and Republican politicians. ↗

— Linda Chavez

#decades #extends #few #gotten #journalists

Skepticism: the mark and even the pose of the educated mind. ↗

— John Dewey

#even #mark #mind #pose #skepticism

There are skeptics who do not come to their view because they have a source of income from carbon polluters. ↗

— Al Gore

#carbon #come #income #skeptics #source

There exists in society a very special class of persons that I have always referred to as the Believers. These are folks who have chosen to accept a certain religion, philosophy, theory, idea or notion and cling to that belief regardless of any evidence that might, for anyone else, bring it into doubt. They are the ones who encourage and support the fanatics and the frauds of any given age. No amount of evidence, no matter how strong, will bring them any enlightenment. They are the sheep who beg to be fleeced and butchered, and who will battle fiercely to preserve their right to be victimized… patent offices handle an endless succession of inventors who still produce perpetual-motion machines that don't work, but no number of idle flywheels will convince these zealots of their folly; dozens of these patent applications flow in every year. In ashrams all over the world, hopping devotees of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi will never abandon their goal of blissful levitation of their bodies by mind power, despite bruises and sprains aplenty suffered as they bounce about on gym mats like demented (though smiling) frogs, trying to get airborne. Absolutely nothing will discourage them. ↗

— James Randi

#science #skepticism #age

I wanted to cast doubt on the step he was about to take, to help him see there are other ways to live, other ways to seek knowledge, love...even self-transformation. I wanted to convince him his dignity depended on maintaining a free, skeptical attitude towards doctrine. I wanted...to save him... Doubt, like faith, has to be learned. It is a skill. But the curious thing about skepticism is that its adherents, ancient and modern, have so often been proselytizers. In reading them, I've often wanted to ask: "Why do you care?" Their skepticism offers no good answer to that question. ↗

— Mark Lilla

#skepticism #attitude

Don't you believe in flying saucers, they ask me? Don't you believe in telepathy? — in ancient astronauts? — in the Bermuda triangle? — in life after death? No, I reply. No, no, no, no, and again no. One person recently, goaded into desperation by the litany of unrelieved negation, burst out "Don't you believe in anything?" Yes", I said. "I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I'll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be. ↗

— Isaac Asimov

#faith #skepticism #ufo #death