Quotessence
Home / Topics / Skeptics Quotes

Skeptics Quotes

Browse 10 quotes about Skeptics.

Skeptics Quotes

“But then it is easy, too easy, to sermonize about the dangers of paternalism and the need to take responsibility for our own lives, from the comfort of our couch in our safe and sanitary home. Aren't we, those who live in the rich world, the constant beneficiaries of a paternalism now so thoroughly embedded into the system that we hardly notice it?”

PovertyPaternalismSkeptics
Book:Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty
Create image

“Indeed, to this day, I think if you blame everything on the government, you're not just wrong, you're being reckless. It's as silly as blaming everything on the Freemasons, or the Illuminati, or insert-bad-guy-here. But I do believe that someone must ask the hard questions, especially of our elected officials as well as powerful men who become members of so-called secret societies. Remember: Governments don't lie. People lie. And if you want the real story, you need to find out more about those people.”

GovernmentTruthLyingHistoryLiesBlameGuiltJournalismConspiracyInvestigationSkepticismQuestionsConspiracy TheoryConspiracy TheoriesBlaming OthersConspiraciesQuestion EverythingSkepticsFinding Truth
Book:History Decoded: The 10 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time
Create image

“In her book claiming that allegations of ritualistic abuse are mostly confabulations, La Fontaine’s (1998) comparison of social workers to ‘nazis’ shows the depth of feeling evident amongst many sceptics. However, this raises an important question: Why did academics and journalists feel so strongly about allegations of ritualistic abuse, to the point of pervasively misrepresenting the available evidence and treating women disclosing ritualistic abuse, and those workers who support them, with barely concealed contempt? It is of course true that there are fringe practitioners in the field of organised abuse, just as there are fringe practitioners in many other health-related fields. However, the contrast between the measured tone of the majority of therapists and social workers writing on ritualistic abuse, and the over-blown sensationalism of their critics, could not be starker. Indeed, Scott (2001) notes with irony that the writings of those who claimed that ‘satanic ritual abuse’ is a ‘moral panic’ had many of the features of a moral panic: scapegoating therapists, social workers and sexual abuse victims whilst warning of an impending social catastrophe brought on by an epidemic of false allegations of sexual abuse. It is perhaps unsurprising that social movements for people accused of sexual abuse would engage in such hyperbole, but why did this rhetoric find so many champions in academia and the media?”

MediaDenialBritainContemptChild AbuseSexual AbuseHypeTherapistsChild Sexual AbuseHysteriaMisinformationMass MediaRitual AbuseNazisSociety DenialEpidemicSatanic Ritual AbuseJournalistsAllegationsHyperboleDisinformationSensationalismReportScapegoatingOrganized AbuseRitualistic AbuseMoral PanicSatanic PanicFalse AllegationsSocial WorkersSkepticsConfabulationRitual Abuse MythScepticsJean La FontaineMisrepresentations
Book:Organised Sexual Abuse
Create image

“Invariably, I will be referred to Gleason Archer's massive Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, a heavy volume that seeks to provide the reader with sound explanations for every conceivable puzzle found within the Bible - from whether God approved of Rahab's lie, to where Cain got his wife. (Note to well-meaning apologists: it's not always the best idea to present a skeptic with a five-hundred-page book listing hundreds of apparent contradictions in Scripture when the skeptic didn't even know that half of them existed before you recommended it.)”

SpiritualityAnswersChristianityBibleSkeptics
Book:Evolving in Monkey Town: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask the Questions
Create image

“I've had the same version from patients in a slightly different take, which is the patient looking at me with fixed eyes saying "I'm not multiple but I think some of the others are", or alternatively, fixedly, "we're not multiple". So whatever it is about multiple realities it affects us all. - 15 years as the director of a trauma and dissociation unit: Perspectives on Trauma-informed Care”

SkepticismPsychiatryDissociative Identity DisorderDissociationMultiplicityDissociative DisordersSkepticsMultiple RealitiesPsychiatry HumorMental Health Humor
Author:Warwick Middleton
Create image

“deluded or not, supporters of superstition and pseudoscience are human beings with real feelings, who, like the skeptics, are trying to figure out how the world works and what our role in it might be. Their motives are in many cases consonant with science. If their culture has not given them all the tools they need to pursue this great quest, let us temper our criticism with kindness. None of us comes fully equipped.”

ScienceCultureIgnoranceCriticismDelusionSkepticismSuperstitionCredulityPseudoscienceSkeptics
Book:The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Create image