Originally Posted by
FrenchFit
Well, I appreciate this is beating a dead horse but:
Classic skeptics believed they didn't know the answers. So, they investigated based on empirical data points and observations, scientifically proved or were unable to prove. Modern skeptics debunk, based on what they consider irrefutable science. Your Skeptic Magazine is a good example, adding to the world knowledge base with such lofty subjects as 'big foot DNA', 'steven jobs caused his own death', 'evolution is proven'. To this observer, your Skeptic Magazine is to science as Fox News is to journalism.
I said, I have an open mind, what do you think?. Your response is, it's proven, your observations are fallacy. Perhaps you are engaging in a logical fallacy, i.e. you have all the answers.
I really disagree with you. Modern skeptics I know and have read have an incredible curiosity about how the world works and they follow the evidence. An open mind must not be so open that all sense falls out. We are in fact able to know things about the world. Skeptics do not say they have all the answers. But some things have been looked at so much that provisionally you can say that the weight of the evidence tells us something exists or alternatively, that there is no good evidence that it does exist. Psi phenomena has been looked at over and over and over again and no well designed study has shown its existence. But a skeptic would not say that there is no such thing as Psi. They would say there is no good evidence for psi. We also have a fair amount of evidence about how people think and we know the power of cognitive biases. There are good alternative explanations for people's supposed experiences of psi. These explanations do not require hypothesis's that violate what we know about the physical world.
I do agree that sometimes skeptics get tired of the same old refuted arguments about a particular topic and can come across as dismissive. It is understandable when faced with stubborn ignorance.
It is important to know that there are differences between facts, theories and hypothesis's. Evolution is both fact and theory. We know that organisms evolve. We have solid proof. For example, genetic evidence and evidence of speciation through the fossil record. We can actually watch organisms evolve, for example bacteria which become resistance to antibiotics. How evolution operates is based on theories which explain the facts. Theories summarize a group of hypothesis that have been validated through repeated testing so that it becomes accepted as the explanation for what is observed.
A hypothesis in contrast is a proposed explanation that needs further testing before it can result in a theory.
Your observations are not a fallacy. The fallacy is the conclusions you draw from the observations.
Strongly held beliefs (like that evolution must not be true or that psi must be true) is evidence of nothing. Certainty is an emotion and can lead anyone down the wrong path. This is why we have the scientific method.