The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe: How to Know What's Really Real in a World Increasingly Full of Fake

by Steven Novella

There isn’t any definitive or ultimate knowledge (no Truth with a capital T), but we can grind out knowledge about the world that is sufficiently reliable for us to treat it as provisionally true and act upon it.

we cannot trust the stories we are told, tradition, faith, convenient or reassuring narratives, charismatic figures, or even our own memories,

Recovered memory syndrome was a massive failure on the part of the mental health profession.

“Incompetent people do not recognize—scratch that, cannot recognize—just how incompetent they are.”

If you assume that you know relatively less than you think you do and that there is more knowledge than you are aware of, you will usually be correct.

when confronted with information that contradicts a political opinion, subjects increased their belief in the misinformation.

in order to make a positive claim, positive evidence for that specific claim must be presented.

The whole point of ethics is to derive a fair system that allows humans to get along with one another in society. It doesn’t matter what strategies specific animals, who do not have an ethical philosophy, evolved to survive.

If we purchase an item, our assessment of the quality of that item goes up. We’re trying to justify the purchase to ourselves.

Hindsight bias is similar to post hoc reasoning—once we know the outcome, we are really good at inventing reasons to “explain” it.

The very concept of an exception implies a conclusion. It’s not an exception—it’s data, data that are as valid as the instances that appear to support your narrative.

if you want to test your hypothesis, try to prove it wrong. Do not only look for evidence to prove it right.

Millions of people can believe something for thousands of years, even if that belief has no basis in reality.

If we lived in a universe with supernatural phenomena, science would encounter persistent anomalies with which it could make no real progress.

So far, science has not encountered any true anomaly that defies scientific exploration.

anyone making a claim to any truth bears the burden of proving their claim. The more out of sync such a claim is with accepted reality, the greater this burden of proof becomes.

The problem with the denialist approach is that doubt is not used as a tool of honest questioning but rather for undermining a belief one doesn’t like. This strategy can also be called “just asking questions” or “JAQing off.”

Southern California is home to psychiatry-denying Scientology, vaccine-denying Jenny McCarthy, science-denying Gwyneth Paltrow, and reality-denying Deepak Chopra.

I’m not willing to risk dying on a poop machine in an effort to rid my body of vague toxins that my own biology is pretty good at taking care of on its own.

No matter how high you pile up crap, it won’t turn into gold.

In order to be a skeptical consumer of news, you need to be able to assess the quality and credibility of any news source you rely on for information.

Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less. —Marie Curie

There never has been a single proven case of possession in recorded history.