About The Term and Its Scope
Scientific skepticism is also called rational skepticism, and it is sometimes referred to as skeptical inquiry.
The term scientific skepticism appears to have originated in the work of Carl Sagan, first in Contact (p. 306), and then in Billions and Billions (p. 135).
Scientific skepticism is different from philosophical skepticism, which questions our ability to claim any knowledge about the nature of the world and how we perceive it. Scientific skepticism primarily uses deductive arguments to evaluate claims which lack a suitable evidential basis. The New Skepticism described by Paul Kurtz is scientific skepticism.
Read more about this topic: Scientific Skepticism
Famous quotes containing the words term and/or scope:
“It’s given new meaning to me of the scientific term black hole.”
—Don Logan, U.S. businessman, president and chief executive of Time Inc. His response when asked how much his company had spent in the last year to develop Pathfinder, Time Inc.’S site on the World Wide Web. Quoted in New York Times, p. D7 (November 13, 1995)
“Revolutions are notorious for allowing even non- participants—even women!—new scope for telling the truth since they are themselves such massive moments of truth, moments of such massive participation.”
—Selma James (b. 1930)