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Skepticism

Before it was named science, this branch of rational debates on natural phenomena was a part of philosophical discourses. However, the biggest differentiator was the approach. Scientific truths were to remain objective and under scrutiny forever when one phenomenon that contradicts a hypothesis is enough to bury it. This explains that scepticism is the central facet of scientific thinking.

Today, the nature and physics of systems have gone too complex for the truth to be objectively identified. We gamble on the empirical formulation of reality and quantify its error. Also, specialisation has made science disciplines wander so far off that a singular authority is hard to conceive. This has ushered into an era where unscientific theories conspire to challenge established truths. This problem is pressing since it seeks to undermine centuries of human intelligence.




Today, when information is abundant, the means of verification are limited and sources of authority in multitude, what could be the prescription for 21st-century citizens. The answer is scepticism. A person who believes in everything he is told is as dangerous as someone who refuses to believe anything. This is more challenging than it may seem because education worldwide has been aimed at making information available rather than teaching how to confirm it. For example, the internet is today tiled with conspiracies and propaganda, which are corroborated by multiple netizens. It is easy to commit the grave mistake of taking corroboration as substantiation. 

Of course, one extreme end of scepticism is paranoia. People need to have trust in certain truths to be able to function efficiently. Therefore, a critical way of regulating scepticism is to keep an open eye for new information. Social media today has intrusive algorithms to take advantage of human conditioning, so one needs to be actively aware to prevent the information trap. The comfort of technology would require us to be more mentally involved with scientific thinking.

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