Exxor - Slashdot User

Comment what is skepticism? (Score 1) 880

by Exxor on Friday June 13, 2008 @12:23PM (#23780049) Attached to: How To Teach a Healthy Dose of Skepticism?

In my view, skepticism is about trying to make an educated guess about the validity of a scientific claim. I already hear people say: "what about non-scientific claims, should we not be skeptical about them?". Well, you can be sceptical about them, but unless the claim(er) is willing to be dragged into the scientific realm, all you say is: "Since you reject facts and evidence for a basis of your claim, there is no way for me to check how valid it is..." And what I mean by "Unless you can drag the claim in the scientific realm" is that most people who make non-scientific claims are reluctant against this idea. For instance, people who claim homeopathy works, do this on the basis of non-scientific claims (like, when diluting a substance in water multiple times, it will not lose it's essence/intensity/effect if you shake the water after diluting it. Doing your own little test with sugar and water will soon prove that it actually does lose it's effect and the water will taste less sweet after diluting it). They don't want the scientific method to touch it, since it'll blow them out of the water (sorry, bad pun) straight away. This brings us back to the topic question? I've found that teaching people this difference really makes them see which claims they can tackle with skepticism and which claims have no leg to stand on.

How To Teach a Healthy Dose of Skepticism? 880

Posted by kdawson on Friday June 13, 2008 @10:57AM from the doubt-early-and-often dept.

c0d3h4x0r writes "It's no accident that 'whatcouldpossiblygowrong' is one of the most common tags applied by this community to stories about proposed ideas or laws. The ability to spot and predict faults is a big part of what makes a great engineer. It starts with having a healthy skepticism about the world, which leads to actual critical thinking. Many books and courses teach critical thinking skills, but what is the best way to encourage and teach someone to maintain a healthy dose of skepticism? Is it even a teachable skill, or is it just an innate part of the geek personality?"

Scientists Surprised to Find Earth's Biosphere Booming 692

Posted by timothy on Monday June 09, 2008 @04:03AM from the but-there's-also-the-slow-hiss-in-the-background dept.

radioweather writes "An article from the Financial Post says that recent studies of biosphere imaging from the NASA SEAWIFS satellite indicate that the Earth's biomass is booming: 'The results surprised Steven Running of the University of Montana and Ramakrishna Nemani of NASA, scientists involved in analyzing the NASA satellite data. They found that over a period of almost two decades, the Earth as a whole became more bountiful by a whopping 6.2%. About 25% of the Earth's vegetated landmass — almost 110 million square kilometers — enjoyed significant increases and only 7% showed significant declines. When the satellite data zooms in, it finds that each square meter of land, on average, now produces almost 500 grams of greenery per year.' Their 2004 study, and other more recent ones, point to the warming of the planet and the presence of CO2, fertilizing the biota and resulting in the increased green side effect."

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