Scientific skepticism

Scientific skepticism is the practice of evaluating claims through critical inquiry and empirical evidence. It favors conclusions that remain open to revision as evidence changes.

Scientific method: A systematic approach to investigating questions through observation, hypothesis, testing, and revision. It supplies the broad investigative framework that skeptical claim-checking draws on.
Empiricism: The view that knowledge depends fundamentally on experience and observation. Scientific skepticism grounds judgments in observable evidence rather than authority alone.
Project Alpha: A 1980s psychokinesis demonstration in which magicians James Randi and Steve Shaw exposed weaknesses in experimental safeguards. It showed how ordinary trickery could exploit poorly controlled paranormal experiments.
Scientific denialism: The rejection of well-supported scientific conclusions through rhetorical tactics that resist contrary evidence. Unlike skepticism, denialism often protects a conclusion from testing or revision.
Falsifiability: The property of a claim that could, in principle, be contradicted by an observation or experiment. A claim must risk failure against evidence to be scientifically testable.
Evidence: Information used to support or challenge a proposition. Evaluating claims requires distinguishing relevant evidence from assertion or anecdote.
Ganzfeld experiment: A telepathy-testing procedure using sensory homogenization and a sender–receiver protocol. Disputes over its controls and results illustrate scrutiny of anomalous evidence.
Cynicism: A disposition to distrust people's motives or the possibility of sincerity. Scientific skepticism assesses evidence, not merely the presumed motives behind a claim.
Replication: The repetition of a study or experiment to determine whether its findings recur. Independent repetition tests whether a reported result survives scrutiny.
Measurement: The assignment of values to properties according to defined procedures and units. Reliable measurements make observations comparable and claims testable.

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