This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
In childhood our credulity serves us well. It helps us to pack, with extraordinary rapidity, our skulls full of the wisdom of our parents and our ancestors. But if we don't grow out of it in the fullness of time, our ... nature makes us a sitting target for astrologers, mediums, gurus, evangelists, and quacks. We need to replace the automatic credulity of childhood with the constructive skepticism of adult science.
My main reason for scepticism about the Huxley/Sagan theory is that the human brain is demonstrably eager to see faces in random patterns, as we know from scientific evidence, on top of the numerous legends about faces of Jesus, or the Virgin Mary, or Mother Teresa, being seen on slices of toast, or pizzas, or patches of damp on a wall. This eagerness is enhanced if the pattern departs from randomness in the specific direction of being symmetrical.
Legends | Mother | Reason | Scepticism |
Wielding his sword of reason in one hand and shield of acerbic scepticism in the other, Professor Richard Dawkins rides out against the forces of faith, superstition and New Age nonsense. It's hardly a fair fight, Dawkins easily destroys the arguments of astrologers, dowsers and the tricks behind the trade of mediumship. His manner may be off-putting but Dawkins' message is clear
Age | Reason | Scepticism | Superstition |
Rupert Sheldrake, fully Alfred Rupert Sheldrake
Machines are designed not to be random. When you call up a word processing program on your computer, you don't want it to be different every time you call it up. You want it to stay the same.
Belief | Discovery | Need | Skepticism | Discovery |
Rupert Sheldrake, fully Alfred Rupert Sheldrake
Unfortunately, at present, practically no one under thirty goes to workshops. It's a system of education entirely for the middle aged.
The proper method of philosophy consists in clearly conceiving the insoluble problems in all their insolubility and then in simply contemplating them, fixedly and tirelessly, year after year, without any hope, patiently waiting.
Skepticism's bad rap arises from the impression that, however necessary the activity, it can only be regarded as a negative removal of false claims. Not so... Proper debunking is done in the interest of an alternate model of explanation, not as a nihilistic exercise. The alternate model is rationality itself, tied to moral decency--the most powerful joint instrument for good that our planet has ever known.
Good | Impression | Meaning | Model | Rationality | Reason | Safe | Skepticism |
Thomas Dewar, Lord Dewar, fully Thomas Robert "Tommy" Dewar, 1st Baron Dewar
Yesterday's success belongs to yesterday.
Money | Play | Skepticism |
Though I shall for convenience often speak of two standpoints, the subjective and the objective, and though the various places in which this opposition is found have much in common, the distinction between more subjective and more objective views is really a matter of degree, and it covers a wide spectrum.
Appearance | Attention | Design | Doctrine | Evidence | Evolution | Force | Law | Life | Life | Nothing | Position | Present | Question | Reading | Skepticism | Think |
William P. Montague, fully William Pepperell Montague
To regard the successful experiences which ensue from a belief as a criterion of its truth is one thing--and a thing that is sometimes bad and sometimes good--but to assume that truth itself consists in the process by which it is verified is a different thing and always bad.
W. E. H. Lecky, fully William Edward Hartpole Lecky
There can indeed be little doubt that for nearly two hundred years after its establishment in Europe, the Christian community exhibited a moral purity which, if it has been equaled, has never for any long period been surpassed. Completely separated from the Roman world that was around them, abstaining alike from political life, from appeals to the tribunals, and from military occupations; looking forward continually to the immediate advent of their Master, and the destruction of the Empire in which they dwelt, and animated by all the fervor of a young religion, the Christiana found within themselves a whole order of ideas and feelings sufficiently powerful to guard them from the contamination of their age.
Curiosity | Destroy | Magic | Men | Practice | Rites | Skepticism |
Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh
In the future my name ought to be put in the catalogue as I sign it on the canvas, namely Vincent and not Van Gogh, for the simple reason that they do not know how to pronounce the latter name here.
Cynicism | Enough | Skepticism |
There is but one unconditional commandment, which is that we should seek incessantly, with fear and trembling, so to vote and to act as to bring about the very largest total universe of good which we can see.
Consciousness | Present | Scepticism | Truth |
Mercy among the virtues is like the moon among the stars, - not so sparkling and vivid as many, but dispensing a calm radiance that hallows the whole. It is the bow that rests upon the bosom of the cloud when the storm is past. It is the light that hovers above the judgment seat.
Fear | Scepticism | Science | Truth | Universe |
Americans once expected parents to raise their children in accordance with the dominant cultural messages. Today they are expected to raise their children in opposition to them. Once the chorus of cultural values was full of ministers, teachers, neighbors, leaders. They demanded more conformity, but offered more support. Now the messengers are violent cartoon characters, rappers and celebrities selling sneakers. Parents are considered "responsible" only if they are successful in their resistance. That's what makes child-raising harder. It's not just that American families have less time with their kids; it's that we have to spend more of this time doing battle with our own culture.
People | Sense | Skepticism |
The greatest power in the world is the power our thought, for it is Creative Mind in action.
Education | History | Sense | Skepticism |
Étienne Gilson, fully Étienne Henry Gilson
The great curse of modern philosophy is the almost universally prevailing rebellion against intellectual self-discipline. Where loose thinking obtains, truth cannot possibly be grasped, whence the conclusion naturally follows that there is no truth.
History | Skepticism | Study |