South African Skeptics

Why another skeptic community?

There are a lot of websites and forums where people discuss essentially the same topics. However, answers on these websites are often from a foreign perspective. It does not take into account, the unique and sometimes radically different South African perspective and influence on ideas. Hopefully a more familiar approach to South African issues will make it more accessible to people in South Africa.

What is modern Skepticism

Skepticism has a lot of negative connotations to it. Many people think that being a skeptic means that you dismiss any or all ideas, or that you distrust everything. But that is cynicism. Skeptics apply the principles of science and critical thinking to find the truth about ideas and claims. To quote The Skeptic Society: "...skepticism is a method, not a position."

In an electronic age, where information is freely available to more and more people, it becomes even more important to be able to separate good ideas from bad ones. This is where critical thinking skills and skeptical evaluation of all ideas become valuable.

Science, by definition, is the search for truth. It does not however claim absolute truth, but tries to come as close as possible to it. Because people are not perfect, it has several mechanisms in place to ensure that as few errors as possible creep in. It is this feature that enables science to correct itself when things do go wrong - a feature not commonly found in other methods for the search of truth.

No idea or belief should be above question.