Editing Scientific skepticism (section)

{{short description|Questioning of claims lacking empirical evidence}}
{{for|a general discussion of skepticism|Skepticism}}
{{Use American English|date=April 2021}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=April 2021}}
[[File:Five Fellows CSI 2018.jpg|thumb|Five Fellows of [[Committee for Skeptical Inquiry]] in 2018]]
'''Scientific skepticism''' or '''rational skepticism''' (also spelled '''scepticism'''), sometimes referred to as '''skeptical inquiry''',<ref name="KendrickInquiry">{{cite web|last1=Frazier|first1=Kendrick|author-link1=Kendrick Frazier|date=1 November 2013|title=Why We Do This: Revisiting the Higher Values of Skeptical Inquiry|url=https://www.csicop.org/si/show/why_we_do_this_revisiting_the_higher_values_of_skeptical_inquiry|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170610192458/http://www.csicop.org/si/show/why_we_do_this_revisiting_the_higher_values_of_skeptical_inquiry|archive-date=10 June 2017|access-date=12 November 2018|website=csicop.org}}</ref> is a position in which one questions the veracity of claims lacking [[scientific evidence]]. In practice, the term most commonly refers to the examination of claims and theories that appear to be [[Pseudoscience|unscientific]], rather than the routine discussions and challenges among scientists. Scientific skepticism differs from [[philosophical skepticism]], which questions humans' ability to claim any knowledge about the nature of the world and how they perceive it, and the similar but distinct [[Cartesian doubt|methodological skepticism]], which is a systematic process of being skeptical about (or doubting) the truth of one's beliefs.<ref name="Merton">{{cite book|last=Merton|first=R. K.|title=The Normative Structure of Science|year=1942}} in {{cite book|last=Merton|first=Robert King|url=https://archive.org/details/sociologyofscien0000mert|title=The Sociology of Science: Theoretical and Empirical Investigations|publisher=[[University of Chicago Press]]|year=1973|isbn=978-0-226-52091-9|location=Chicago|author-link=Robert K. Merton|url-access=registration}}</ref>

The '''skeptical movement''' ([[American and British English spelling differences#Miscellaneous spelling differences|British spelling]]: '''sceptical movement''') is a contemporary [[social movement]] based on the idea of scientific skepticism. The movement has the goal of investigating claims made on [[fringe science|fringe topics]] and determining whether they are supported by [[empirical research]] and are [[reproducibility|reproducible]], as part of a methodological norm pursuing "the extension of certified knowledge".<ref>{{citation|last=Stemwedel|first=Janet D.|title=Basic concepts: the norms of science|date=2008-01-29|url=http://scienceblogs.com/ethicsandscience/2008/01/29/basic-concepts-the-norms-of-sc|work=ScienceBlogs: Adventures in Ethics and Science|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130512231940/http://scienceblogs.com/ethicsandscience/2008/01/29/basic-concepts-the-norms-of-sc/|publisher=[[ScienceBlogs]]|format=blog|archive-date=2013-05-12|url-status=live}}: quoting [[Robert K. Merton|Merton, R. K.]] (1942)</ref>

Roots of the movement date at least from the 19th century, when people started publicly raising questions regarding the unquestioned acceptance of claims about [[Kardecist spiritism|spiritism]], of various widely held [[superstition]]s, and of [[pseudoscience]].<ref>
Asbjørn Dyrendal: "Oh no it isn't!" Skeptics and the Rhetorical Use of Science in Religion. in Olav Hammer & James R. Lewis (red.) ''Handbook of'' ''Religion and the Authority of Science''. pp. 879–900. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers 2010, Dyrendal refers to spiritualists as early targets of skeptics based on Hammer 2007.
</ref><ref>
Loxton, 2013, pp. 10ff.
</ref>
Publications such as those of the Dutch [[Vereniging tegen de Kwakzalverij]] (1881) also targeted [[medical quackery]]. Using as a template the Belgian organization founded in 1949, [[Comité Para]], Americans [[Paul Kurtz]] and [[Marcello Truzzi]] founded the [[Committee for Skeptical Inquiry|Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP)]], in [[Amherst, New York]], in 1976. Now known as the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), this organization has inspired others to form similar groups worldwide.<ref name=Hammer/>