To be honest, I was unaware that ‘skeptic’ was the proper American spelling of the word. I always thought it more a brand name of sorts, which I think is useful when using Google and the like. I also agree that it is useful to conform to the American spelling in this case, for the sake of unity.

As a Brit I have hitherto used the British spelling, “sceptic”, but as the skeptical movement as a whole is undoubtedly global I’m seriously considering the wholesale adoption of the American spelling (as certain Commonwealth-based publications have already done).

I don’t think that using “critic” means thowing out “sceptic”. I think it can be a bridge to sceptic in the classic A=B, A=C, therefore B=C kind of way. Perhaps your app could focus on how much like a certain person the user is rather than how much of a sceptic they are. People love to compare themselves to other people.

Personally, I’m highly sceptical of any situation in which too many people agree on the same thing. It goes against my sceptical grain. I think the natural state is for people to disagree. It’s only stress and adversity that get people pulling together. In my world view there is really only common thought when there’s a common problem. So I don’t share your enthusiasm for organizing.

I think you may also be surprised by the extent to which many people reject the notion of rational thinking. They believe the world is what it is and no amount of thinking it through will change it. These people believe that life is about action, not thought, that you change the world by acting in it and not by writing about it, or thinking about it.

As you can see, one of the things I am most sceptical about is thinking itself, and it’s cousin, consciousness. We humans are dazzled by our ability to hold thoughts in our heads, to conjure up memories and to learn from them. We love ourselves because of it and use it as an excuse to meddle in all kinds of things. Here’s an example; we recognize that our actions are endangering various species. The rational thought is to take more action to save these species. However, the actions we propose are just more meddling like the meddling that endangered these species in the first place. Who are we to think we know anything at all about these things? Isn’t the MORE rational thought to DO LESS, not more? Wouldn’t doing less have a better chance of success because it leads directly to an environment more like the one that used to support the species in the first place?

Just a couple of things to think about, ironically!

G.

I agree that some users might do that. However, if my quiz idea were to become a reality, I fear that accounting for these criticisms might detract from the extent to which the application is user friendly. To accomodate for Jim’s would, as I see it, mean asking questions such as ‘which of the following is necessary for a fair scientific test?’, which is not the light-hearted kind of quiz people would bother with, and to account for yours would mean asking users to cite their sources, which is ambitious at best. Let me know if you see an easier way around either problem though.

As far as migrating to the term ‘critic’ is concerned, it would be nice, although if I were to change the word I would probably favour ‘rationalist’. However, as I mentioned in the article, I do not believe this to be doable. The ‘sceptic community’ has invested too much in the word. For example, magazines are already in publication with ‘Skeptic’ in the title, and people already know what to google if they want to read up on the latest blog posts and the like. Perhaps most importantly though, I do not believe that we could get everyone to agree on and adopt a new term. Organising atheists has often been likened to herding cats, and the same may be true of sceptics. I believe that in order to get things done and make our voices heard, we need to come together as much as possible, and I worry that a migration to a new term might make this task harder.

Thanks for your (incredibly quick) reply. The point you make is completely correct and in hindsight the quiz idea does need tweaking to accomodate it. The only possible problem I that I can foresee as a result of this is that it might be difficult to retain the pithy feel that makes these kinds of quizzes attractive to Facebook users in the first place.

Wouldn’t actual skeptics be better identified by questions about *how* a person could come to have reliable answers about various kinds of issues? It seems to me that what makes a good skeptic is engaging in skeptical inquiry rather than necessarily reaching the approved skeptical conclusion. What makes some people “deniers” rather than skeptics is that they aren’t consistently engaging in skeptical inquiry and critical thinking–they are directing skepticism against a particular target, but not against the arguments and evidence they themselves are using in the process.