Dr. Steven Novella

You kick the tires.

You look under the hood.

You don't come to a conclusion unless you think it's justified by the evidence.

You apportion your belief to logic and evidence.

That's being a skeptic.

So generally speaking, people are born curious, very interested in things, but analytical thinking is a learned skill.

So no, you're not born a skeptic.

That's like saying, are you born a scientist?

That's something you have to learn.

It is a muscle you have to exercise.

And again, you never get there.

Like there's no point where I'm now a skeptical.

So I only believe true things.

Like it's an endless process of refining and refining and more and more nuance and just trying to get better at doing it.

Yeah.

So it's, first of all, being a skeptic is extremely empowering, you know, and having done this now for 30 plus years, you know, interacting with many people who get, continue to get emails from listeners who are like, first feel so freed by, oh, I don't have to believe this thing anymore.

I don't have to carry water for my tribe, my identity, whatever.

I could now just think what I want to think and believe what I want to believe, whatever is supported by logic and evidence.

So that, I think, overwhelms anything else.

It really is incredibly freeing to just say, I'm just going to call it like I see it and not feel like I have to defend some ideology or whatever.