When I am presented with a claim I reserve the right to reject that claim until such time as the claimant produces sufficient evidence to support that claim.  If I find the evidence compelling, then I might provisionally accept the claim as true – provisionally because I may be presented with more evidence tomorrow that proves the claim to be false.

Obviously, the quality and quantity of evidence I require will vary from claim to claim. If you tell me that you have a car, I’ll probably accept the claim just on your word. You’re not likely to get anything out of making up stories about owning a car and I know that most people own a car.  If you tell me that you have a car that flies, on the other hand, I’m going to want to at least see the car fly before I believe you.

This attitude is not cynicism – skepticism is not the same as cynicism. Cynicism is more an emotion of jaded negativity, or a general distrust of the integrity or professed motives of other people. Skepticism is a method for discerning truth from fiction, which merely starts from a neutral standpoint and aims to acquire certainty though scientific or logical observation. My position is thus one that seeks to establish the authenticity of scientific and historical claims through a logical and impartial evaluation of the available evidence. I believe this to be a reliable method to distinguish truth from fiction and to uniformly apply these principles to all ideas – new or old, established or controversial. If this makes me a skeptic, then I’m a skeptic…