you are right and wrong. we wonder if any one will ever find a unifying theory, but dismiss out of hand ghosts, astrology and psychics.There's a massive difference between being skeptical (as in wondering if something is really true, and taking steps to try and find out) and simply dismissing whole classes of things as definitely (or even probably) wrong without really thinking.
just because i have reached a conclusion, based on years of observation, doesn't mean i'm not hopeful that one day, a politition will turn up who is not self serving, dishonest and arrigant, but i'm not holding my breath.
Originally Posted by dashwood
Skeptics dismiss faith healers and psychics not 'out of hand', but based on the logic that though the supposed abilities should be easy to demonstrate convincingly for people who claim great success rates, no such demonstrations appear to have ever been performed in trustworthy circumstances, instead there are whole reams of rationalisations about why providing proof is hard.
It's clearly up to people claiming extraordinary abilities to demonstrate the same, and given the history of large numbers of frauds and self-deluded people, it's a perfectly fair and open-minded for a skeptic to take the position of saying to a believer:
"Your starting move should be offering sufficient evidence to make it worth thinking about doing some more serious studies"
I don't think skeptics really say "I could *never* believe in ghosts", more "I don't currently believe in them, and suspect that's unlikely to change".
On the other hand, though there are evidently politicians who are self-serving, or who are looking out for the interests of a narrow group to which they belong, there clearly are many politicians who are honestly trying to do what they think is right for society as a whole.
I don't have to agree with someone's goals in order to take the view that they are being sincere.
Thing is, real evidence of faith healing beating placebo, psychic phenomena, etc would be difficult to argue with - most real skeptics would have a fairly similar level of proof even if they had strong prior doubts, and given a good demonstration, they'd have to accept there was *something* happening, even if they weren't initially convinced it was exactly the claimed power.
When it comes to someone deciding largely emotionally that every single politician is self-serving, they're unlikely to be convinced by any number of counterexamples, since they can easily explain away anyone apparently sincere as faking it for some reason or another, and they're likely to bolster their belief every time some supportive case crops up.
Ultimately, it's possible to take a position that every single human is selfish, since if someone spends their entire life helping others, someone could assert that the person must get pleasure or satisfaction from helping people.
However, that viewpoint effectively makes 'selfish' as an absolute term a meaningless word, since it would apply to everyone.
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