The Skepbitch

I snuggled up skeptically with Kylie Sturgess (aka Kiless), a knowledgeable, passionate and active skeptic and educator. Kylie is also a fellow reporter for The TANK Vodcast and was the recipient of the 2007 Australian Skeptics’ Prize for Critical Thinking.

The intrepid Kylie goes where few skeptics bother to tread…

Not interested in merely preaching to the converted, Kylie’s interests are in communicating science, skepticism and education.

Our pillow talk was about the word skeptic as a label, skepticism as a concept, and people with “large Skep-whatevers.”

How can we get off the soap box, drop the kitchen orator performance and make a difference?

Skepbitch: What is skepticism?

Kylie: Modern skepticism is probably best summed up as “A skeptic follows the evidence and uses it as a tool for thinking.”

Historically, skepticism has its roots in Pyrrhonism and loosely branching off from Plato’s Academy. I recall, however, that in the criticism of such ancient origins, skepticism had (possibly annecdotal) tales of Pyrrho being stopped from walking off cliffs because he ‘doubted they were there’! But the ideas influenced writers like Cicero (probably my first introduction to the term when I did high school Ancient History), Descartes, Hume and so forth, and over time clarified it to become a more practical ‘tool for thinking’, in particular to scientifically testable claims. Whatever value skepticism has for society is up to the society in which it’s practiced.

Skepbitch: How did you become a skeptic?

Kylie: My childhood enthusiasm for The Investigators, the long-running Australian consumer affairs program, led me to become intrigued by consumer education, media claims and how we were led to believe ‘weird things’. I was educated and went on to teach in schools of various religious and educational philosophies. I have relations who trust tonics, vitamins, magnet therapy and psychics. A desire to know why people tend towards various beliefs just led me to research more. In the end, it’s because of an important element of wanting to know how educational systems could better facilitate critical thinking in schools. 

Skepbitch:  Why should other people be skeptics, and what should we be skeptical of?

Kylie: I’m not convinced that it’s something that people ‘must’ become, quite honestly. More often than not I see people responding to the term as about being ‘cynics’ or ‘debunkers’. An interview with Dr Richard Wiseman on Skepticality, pointed out how the term potentially alienates people, which is why he avoids it - I’ve seen myself how ad hoc enthusiasm for ‘getting women into skepticism!’ ignores how there are far better, more accountable and more organised science education programs out there slugging away for many, many years. A great many people (regardless of gender orientation) are promoting questioning of claims and educating and communicating without being lumped under someone else’s label and it seems unfair to do the same with the word ’skeptic’.

Daniel Loxton on the same podcast show points out how what he calls “new skepticism” is tending towards political / atheist / humanist issues that don’t deal so much with testable paranormal and pseudoscientific claims, as seen in the early history of CSICOP. So, I’d say that if people want to be ’skeptics’, they certainly can - but I’d say it’s their choice but to research and figure out how they want to approach the term and whether or not they’ll serve what they see as a need, whether it be social, intellectual, educational, what have you.

Skepbitch: How can other people become skeptics?

Kylie: It’s tough! “As the twig is bent, so grows the tree” is how one friend puts it. As humans and members of our respective cultures, we’re not immune from culturalisation and socialisation and if raised to believe A, we may feel a tendency even after we have intellectually accepted B. That’s something that I think people forget at times - it’s not possible to avoid cognitive dissonance with everything that comes your way. Reading, discussion, research, finding a particular passion in investigating a certain claim all help.

But I wouldn’t, after seeing how people tend to judge others over how ’skeptical’ one is (for example, how deists have been treated), say that it’s something one must do. I’d settle for more people not getting ripped off, or companies not touting false products, or frauds being stopped than having more cliques wearing shirts with a large ‘Skep-whatevers’ on it.

Thanks Kylie!

The rest of us should now tottle over to Kylie’s blog to read her views on women and skepticism in the post, She’s Already Got Science…