Skeptical of Skepticism - Brief Article

All ten winners and fourteen runners up on the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER list of outstanding skeptics of the century (January/February 2000) are men. Only six of the total of seventy-four people who received votes are women. Why are there so few women skeptics?

Of course, a good skeptic must ask how likely it is that this observation is a "mere" coincidence. How likely is it that twenty-four randomly chosen people will be men? If we use the rough but reasonable approximation that 50 percent of people are men, then the answer is [(.5).sup.24] or .0000006. The probability that a randomly chosen sample of seventy-four people will contain six (or fewer) women is l.07X [10.sup.-14] It is exceedingly unlikely that these are mere (i.e., meaningless) coincidences.

One way to gain insight into why there are so few women skeptics is to look at the few women who were on the list. One of the six women named was Rachel Carson. Aside from Albert Einstein, Rachel Carson is the only person listed who was also on Time magazine's list of twenty outstanding "Thinkers and Scientists" of the twentieth century.

Rachel Carson was not a typical skeptic. Most skeptics debunk the paranormal--Carson debunked the normal. Her book Silent Spring documented the negative effects of pesticides on the health of humans, other animals, and the environment. At the time, critics accused her of being "hysterical" for her radical idea that our attempts to modify the natural world might cause more harm than good. Thanks to her, what was once considered normal (i.e., indiscriminate use of pesticides) is now recognized as pathological.

Recently, Paul Kurtz wrote an editorial in Free Inquiry that is also skeptical of the normal. Kurtz's article, entitled "Confronting the 'Corporate Mystique'," is very critical of the increasing power of corporations in Western society. Just as Carson was skeptical of what was considered normal (e.g., use of chemicals to control nature), Kurtz is skeptical of what many people today consider normal (increasing corporate control and the assumption that unrestrained free market capitalism is desirable).

While Carson is the most famous of the six women who received votes, Susan Blackmore is the most well-known as a skeptic. Like Carson, Blackmore is not a typical skeptic. Most skeptics question everything under (and above) the sun except for skepticism. But Blackmore has pointed out the limits of skepticism. In a 1992 article in the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, Blackmore defined a continuum of attitudes toward new ideas. At one extreme is the person who "enjoys every crazy theory and follows every faint lead." This person runs the risk of believing things that aren't true. At the other extreme is the person who "takes no interest in wacky theories and sticks only to the conventional." This person runs the risk of rejecting ideas that are true. Blackmore defines the "true skeptic" as someone who avoids both extremes.

Carl Sagan endorsed ideas that resonate with Blackmore's view of the true skeptic. In The Demon-Haunted World Sagan wrote, "As I've tried to stress, at the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes--an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive, and the most ruthlessly skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new." Sagan is suggesting that skepticism alone is not sufficient to understand the nature of reality. Instead, he argues that skepticism must be combined with openness.

I would add a third feature to the definition of the true skeptic: she is just as skeptical of herself as she is of other people. This idea also resonates with the views of a man on the list of top skeptics, Richard Feynman. In an essay called "Cargo Cult Science" Feynman wrote, "The first principle [of science] is that you must not fool yourself--and you are the easiest person to fool."

Feynman's quote suggests that it is just as important for skeptics to be skeptical of themselves (e.g., question their motives, look for biases) as they are of other people. I think there is room for improvement here. For example, skeptics often accuse people who believe in holistic or spiritual claims of wishful thinking. Isaac Asimov is quoted as describing believers in the paranormal as needing "[ldots] a thumb to suck, a skirt to hold." Many skeptics do not seem to realize that they have an equally strong desire for holistic and spiritual claims to be false. A refreshing exception is Tom Gilovich, a frequent contributor to SI who admits that he hopes that psychosomatic explanations of disease are false. In How We Know What Isn't So, he writes, "Personally, I find it mote comforting to believe that whatever crosses my mind will not affect my health (p. 142)." The point is that skeptics and believers are both susceptible to "wishful thinking" although of course, the two groups wish for very different thing s to be true.

In sum, an analysis of the views of some of the women on the list of outstanding skeptics of the twentieth century provides an opportunity to reflect on what it means to be a "true skeptic." The typical skeptic is skeptical of the paranormal, other people, and is not skeptical of skepticism. The true skeptic is skeptical of the normal (Carson, Kurtz), himself (Feynman), and of skepticism (Blackmore, Sagan). These ideas may seem heretical, but one might argue that skeptics should consider this a virtue. In a Newsweek article written shortly after Sagan died, Jerry Adler wrote, "A religion whose highest sacrament is heresy might have won Sagan's allegiance, but he never found one." I hope that there are more women and heretics on the SI list of outstanding skeptics of the twenty-first century.