If you think up a list of the world’s biggest problems what is the one which gets the least attention? It may well be weak scepticism. It’s a planet wide plague that slows human progress. Weak scepticism goes unnoticed because it is so pervasive and has been a normal part of the landscape for so long. One example that frustrates science literates, is that almost half of American adults believe the Earth is less than 10,000 years old. Every day unknown numbers of people suffer because they trust medical quackery over evidence based medicine. Democracies often produce incompetent leaders because too many people are in the habit of accepting and believing before they think and vote. Every moment, somewhere, children are taught speculative nonsense packaged as confirmed facts. But the root problem for all of this –scarcity of skeptical thinking – is rarely acknowledged, much less addressed in any meaningful way. Few parents encourage their children to be skeptical thinkers. Most teachers don’t teach it and politicians never talk about it. This is the world’s great unrecognised crisis.
