I question, therefore I am

'Scepticism' derives from the Greek word 'skeptesthai', which means 'look about, consider, observe', but is also related to 'skopein', which means both to 'observe' and to 'aim at', to observe a target (Shorter OED). Indeed, scepticism is targeted thinking that is based on observation and values evidence. It allows for grey areas, uncertainty, alternative explanations, the inability to provide all the answers; it is incompatible with dogmas, doctrines, and blind belief.

The true sceptic is neither militant nor out to net converts - which is how you can tell a genuine sceptic from a denier. 'Denialism is typically driven by ideology or religious belief, where the commitment to the belief takes precedence over the evidence', writes Michael Schermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine, and a regular columnist for Scientific American, in the New Scientist's special report 'Living in denial'.

Given that the vast majority of people on the planet believe in some god, and that atheism has never been popular in the (recorded) history of humankind, it isn't hard to see why scepticism is a minority interest. Most people don't like grey areas, uncertainty, overwhelming questions. They prefer, or rather need the illusion of clarity, certainty, control. And if they can't be in control, it's comforting to believe that there's someone bigger and stronger who is, whether a leader, an expert, or whichever god each has chosen or been allotted to. This need is exploited knowingly by some, incidentally by others.

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Richard Littlemore looks into 'How corporations manufacture doubt', applying what you might call psychological engineering techniques to create and manipulate specific doubts, which they use as weapons against sceptics whose opinions are bad for business. Whether you're a fossil-fuel company hell-bent on proving that climate change isn't happening, or a tobacco manufacturer keen to dissociate lung cancer from your product, 'techniques appear to be limited only by the imagination and integrity' of your denial-mongers'. So, plenty of scope for fabricating doubt, really.

But why do 'Sensible people reject the truth?', asks Debora MacKenzie. Perhaps because many sensible people are more susceptible to untruths and the tactics of arch-denialists than they realise. If you think about it, there are truths that feel counter-intuitive, meaning that they go against the grain of the status quo - established beliefs, ways of life, political systems, economic strategies - and if they do that, then they almost certainly go against established interests and those who promote them. So it isn't all that hard for the latter to rebrand what's unusual as unnatural and what feels foreign as false, and make such truths look like untruths.

Most sensible people want a peaceful, secure existence, and would naturally be at least a bit suspicious of anything or anyone threatening to shake up the status quo. It isn't hard to steer suspicion into hostility, if you have an agenda and possess the right personality. In fact, most denial movements, writes Debora MacKenzie, share fundamentally similar structures and mechanisms, which enable them to harness the doubts or those 'sensible people' and inject them with rigidity and hostility: the champions of denial movements 'set themselves up as courageous underdogs fighting a corrupt elite engaged in a conspiracy to suppress the truth or foist a malicious lie on ordinary people. This conspiracy is usually claimed to be promoting a sinister agenda: the nanny state, takeover of the world economy, government power over individuals, financial gain, atheism.'

Nevertheless, not all sensible people buy the denialists' arguments, nor do all turn into ardent denialists. Social psychologist Seth Kalichman suggests that certain types of personalities are more prone to denial: 'anger, intolerance of criticism, and what psychiatrists call a grandiose sense of their own importance' are probably what you bash your head against every time you feel that you're trying in vain to have a debate with a wall impervious to rational argumenation and evidence.

Is there a chance for sceptics to win that unfair battle against the die-hard denialist? Well. I wonder...

(Read the full report on denial vs. scepticism in the New Scientist).

Image by Michael Comiskey, on Flickr