Rational E.T.
BBC Radio 4 once again put up an excellent piece entitled “Reclaiming Scepticism” by Prof. Philip Stott:
Professor Philip Stott explores how scientists use scepticism and doubt in their work and how the proper application of these tools helps produce reliable and valuable information. […] He also discovers how the scepticism of science differs from the scepticism within science – and how the principle of scepticism can be abused by those who wish to undermine an area of science, applying the principle unevenly to doubt what they don’t like yet remaining uncritical of that which matches their personal prejudices.
In other words, Prof. Stott does a wonderful job at distinguishing scepticism in science, a Popperian falsification process that allows to get rid of bad theories, from antiscientific dogmatism hiding under the name of scepticism.
It is a wonderful, concise piece of radio that I recommend everyone to listen to.
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[...] He makes the excellent point that the BBC is sometimes too balanced in its coverage of some controversial issues. He mentions in particular coverage of climate change. There is a fairly large consensus among scientists that climate change is real. Yet whenever the BBC interview a scientist explaining some new results and facts, they also often interview a climate skeptic, who is rarely a scientist, and who will be a sceptic in the wrong sense of the word. [...]