#scepticism — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #scepticism, aggregated by home.social.
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it bothers me that in #philosophy, a "sceptic" is someone who just assumes that some underbaked hypothesis (like "brains in a vat") explains our experience just as well as reality does.
unlike, you know, an actual sceptical person who tries to find ways of distinguishing what's real from what isn't.
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Full disclosure: I've long been suspicious of psychology and its claims. Sabine Hossenfelder points out how psychology corrupts neuroscience and cognitive science. At least that's my take.
#philosophy #psychology #cognitivescience #neuroscience #agency #substack #blog #essay #fMRI #scepticism #pseudoscience #tarot #ontology #methodology
Post not endorsed by Sabine Hossenfelder, though I appreciate her prompts.
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@Rycochet
I like this from one of the BBC articles on same: “One of the top comments on OpenAI boss Sam Altman's X post about the incident summarises this scepticism: "If y'all can't understand that this was written to purely brag about the model then I don't know what to tell you."”https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd9w22n9e4go
#stenographersNotJournalists #journalists #unthinkingBelief #scepticism
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#SoftBank CEO #MasayoshiSon expressed #scepticism about the feasibility and cost-effectiveness of #ElonMusk’s #orbitaldatacentre vision, arguing that it wouldn’t address the current compute constraints in the #AIindustry. While Musk’s plan could benefit SpaceX’s launch and compute businesses, Son’s comments highlight the need for a more immediate solution to the #datacentreshortage. https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/27/softbanks-ceo-isnt-the-only-one-with-questions-about-elon-musks-orbital-data-center-hype/?eicker.news #tech #media #news
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The Problem with Democracy.
👉 https://brywillis634737.substack.com/p/the-problem-with-democracy
If you follow my work closely, you know that I am a vocal critic of Democracy and Enlightenment Age ideals. I share a summary overview in this Substack post. I do love my Nano Banana pig image.
#philosophy #politics #blog #podcast #democracy #substack #critique #language #ideology #power #propaganda #hegemony #rhetoric #scepticism
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Objective reality is a heuristic resulting from constraints of subject-object grammar. Nagel asked What's it like to be a bat? But more fundamentally, what's it like to be human?
https://philosophics.blog/2026/06/02/living-in-the-house-of-the-bat-man/?utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=social
#Philosophy #batman #nagel #consciousness #blog #podcast #substack #reading #language #perception #heuristics #scepticism #epistemology #intersubjectivity #history #philosophyofmind -
📼| SkeptixTalk with Susan Blackmore
Susan is one of the most colourful figures in the international sceptical community. In conversation with @hummler.bsky.social , she recounts how she evolved from a student determined to prove the existence of supernatural phenomena into a leading figure in the sceptical movement.
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« My patient is refusing a drug studied in 170,000 people because of side effects that a 124,000-person analysis just confirmed do not exist — while injecting a compound studied in 14 humans, from unregulated sources, based on the recommendation of someone who profits from selling it. »
https://www.statnews.com/2026/04/03/peptides-statins-research-trust-bpc-157/
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This is sickening. The public broadcaster (ARD) in #Germany is downplaying the AfD neo-Nazi position by refering to their #antimigration #policies and #sentiments as #scepticism. No, they are opposed to #migration. They are openly debating #deportstionnof all with a #migrant background. Even people who have been here for generations. Scepticism is doubt and uncertainty. They are very certain that migration is bad, contrary to #reality and actual #data. Typical #conservative like, #fear and #lies
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Village THE SOLDIER AND THE HUNCHBACK Propaganda from Hermetic Library Office of the Ministry of Information https://hermetic.com/information/the-soldier-and-the-hunchback/index
#propaganda #TheVillage #ThePrisoner #AleisterCrowley #soldier #hunchback #belief #doubt #faith #scepticism
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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.
Richard Dawkins, The Greatest Show on Earth
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I keep discovering that deflationary philosophy attracts mystics like moths to a freshly cleared void, so I wrote about it.
👉 https://philosophics.blog/2026/01/24/why-deflationary-philosophy-keeps-attracting-mystics/?utm_source=masto&utm_medium=social
It's odd, because the entire point is to remove the furniture, not consecrate the space.
#philosophy #psychology #mysticism #moths #scepticism #language #deflation #maps #terrain #reality #perception #blog #podcast #Wittgenstein #silence -
This is a really interesting episode!
333 | Gordon Pennycook on Unthinkingness, Conspiracies, and What to Do About Them - Mindscape Podcasthttps://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2025/10/27/333-gordon-pennycook-on-unthinkingness-conspiracies-and-what-to-do-about-them/
#psycology #sociology #information #misinformation #disinformation #scepticism -
Calling Bullshit by Jevin D. West & Carl T. Bergstrom, 2020
The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World
An indispensable handbook to the art of scepticism from two brilliantly contrarian scientists.
We think we know bullshit when we hear it, but do we?
Politicians are unconstrained by facts. Science is conducted by press release. Start-up culture elevates hype to high art. The world is awash in bullshit, and we're drowning in it.
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Rome mayor’s claim of swimmable #Tiber in five years met with #scepticism
Experts unconvinced by Roberto Gualtieri’s mooted timescale for river to be reopened for public bathing
...Perhaps not in 5 years, but it is (perhaps) doable in 50 (if everything goes well)... 🤔
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#ConspiracyTheories #scepticism #Australia
"Conspiracy theories have leached into public life. Is it scepticism towards power or a complete worldview?
Ideas that were once fringe are increasingly part of Australian public life. Ariel Bogle and Cam Wilson say they may not be about a singular event, but an overarching interpretation of how the world works.
(. . .)
What did people mean when they said they agreed with these ideas? Was it a playful scepticism towards power or a complete worldview? Should we call them all conspiracy theorists? Clearly not.
Conspiracy theories are not just for the 'fringe dwellers of society', the study concluded. 'Our results suggest that basic human motives may give rise to extraordinary beliefs for many ordinary people.'
Many people are suspicious about how power works, and they are right to be. In the United States, it has been argued that conspiracy theories about the 'deep state' – claims that there is a 'shadow government' in control no matter who is voted in – partly emerged from 'excessive state secrecy and official deception'. Australia’s institutions, too, are notoriously secretive and insular. The revolving door between politics and lobbying is well known. Anyone with even the most passing familiarity with our history knows how cruel the state can be, how it was built on violence and displacement, and how it can organise itself against the interests of the people it claims to protect."
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/jul/28/conspiracy-nation-book-extract
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#Figure AI CEO #BrettAdcock addressed #scepticism about the company’s relationship with #BMW. He confirmed plans to manufacture and deploy 100,000 units within four years. https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/06/figure-ai-ceo-skips-live-demo-sidesteps-bmw-deal-questions-on-stage-at-tech-conference/?eicker.news #tech #media #news
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Human stupidity is inevitable. What can we do to protect against our own potential for stupidity? Please see my thoughts in the weekly essay on my personal blog after the jump! https://sharpenyouraxe.substack.com/p/on-human-stupidity #Scepticism #Skepticism
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I find the same with many fans of what is often called ‘hard science fiction.’
Those with a little knowledge are quite pretentiously committed to it and sneer at literature, film and television that explores a wider canvas of possibility and their audiences. Those with advanced science degrees are often impatient with the implausible logical contortions that authors of recent ‘hard SF’ make just to keep the science speculation to a minimum.
While the concept seems intended to describe science fiction, imaginative stories that extrapolate from established science fact and theory, what it usually means to its proponents is that the fiction has to be limited to what a person with a mid 20th century bachelor’s degree in physics would know.
Setting aside the weirdness of holding physics theory constant while allowing fictional biology, chemistry, math and engineering to advance around 20th century physics, such fiction usually lacks the curiosity and ‘What if?’ elements that drive scientists.
#scepticism #ScientificMethod #Curiosity #ScienceFiction #HardScienceFiction #UnexplainedPhenomena
