| SkepticismMethod of suspended judgment, systematic doubt, or criticism.
is certainly an important part of science. New claims or hypotheses
must be considered carefully, and perhaps put to experimental test.
This is why hypotheses must be testable and falsifiable. If they
cannot be tested, we have no grounds for believing them. Yet, as
we've seen, science cannot prove anything. Our conclusions
are always tentative and subject to modification. So if that is
the case, then isn’t it legitimate to refuse to accept any
theory, no matter how well it is supported?
Skepticism is not an absolute refusal to accept a theory. Taken
to this extreme, skepticism becomes obstinacy - and an impediment
to learning. Of course, it would also be a mistake to unquestioningly
accept any hypothesis.
Skepticism is best understood as a provisional approach to claims,
or as a method of intellectual caution and suspended judgment[#](Klein 2005).
Skeptics are not closed to the possibility that a phenomenon is
real or that a claim might be true. Instead, we must see compelling
evidence before we believe.
But that doesn’t mean we can never trust our conclusions.
Each time a hypothesis is tested and not shown to be wrong, we
gain confidence that it is valid. So we can certainly say that
some facts have been determined with enough confidence that we
may consider them to be “true”.
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