Prudence and Skepticism

With the "baloney detection kit" in hand, it can be tempting to approach the world with the enthusiasm of a boy who gets a hatchet for Christmas and begins to chop everything in sight. Scientific skepticism can also be used as cover for poor behavior; some people are basically jerks posing as skeptics. Carl Sagan recognized this potential.

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Have I ever heard a skeptic wax superior and contempuous? Certainly. I've even sometimes heard, to my retrospective dismay, that unpleasant tone in my own voice. There are human imperfections on both sides of this issue. Even when it's applied sensitively, scientific skepticism may come across as arrogant, dogmatic, heartless, and dismissive of the feelings and deeply held beliefs of others....When someone comes along who challenges our belief system as insufficiently well-based--or who, like Socrates, merely asks embarrassing questions that we haven't thought of, or demonstrates that we've swept key underlying assumptions under the rug--it becomes much more than a search for knowledge. It feels like a personal assault....

There is some cost-benefit analysis which must be applied, and if the comfort, consolation and hope delivered by mysticism and superstition is high, and the dangers of belief comparatively low, should we not keep our misgivings to ourselves? But the issue is tricky. ...if we offer too much silent assent...we abet a general climate in which skepticism is considered impolite, science tiresome, and rigorous thinking somehow stuffy and inappropriate. Figuring out a prudent balance takes wisdom. (The Demon-Haunted World, p. 297-298)

The cost-benefit analysis must surely include whether the topic under scrutiny is a public issue or merely private belief--although when private belief becomes widespread it can become a public issue. The Enlightenment gave us science, and it also gave us the Constitution, which provides certain guarantees to the exercise of personal belief. But I think it is quite reasonable to expect that where private beliefs affect the general public, that those beliefs should be born out by public methods of investigation, ie. science. (Since this bleeds into the political and legal arena I will leave it where it is.)

Nevertheless, ideally the process of skeptical investigation should be an exercise in respect and persuasion.