Why are You a Skeptic

I can blame my skepticism on George Adamski.

For those who do not know, that unworthy gentleman made money writing books about non-existent aliens. He even went to the extent of writing that his alien friends in their miraculous space vehicles took him on joy rides around our solar system. To back up his claims he published, in his books, a photo of a circular flying saucer against a cloudy sky.

To my shame, I was taken in. My excuse is that I was in my early teens and somewhat naive.

The turning point came when I encountered a magazine article about George Adamski, which very effectively debunked everything he had written. Of note is the fact that the article had a photo that was almost identical to the one Adamski had published, of the flying saucer. Except that the background sky and clouds were totally different. The author of the article had taken the photo by the simple expedient of throwing a steel rubbish tin lid into the air, spinning, and then snapping his picture against the background of the sky. It was immediately obvious that Adamski was a cheat.

Frankly, I was utterly mortified. My horror was that I could be so gullible. Since then I have been a lot more discriminating in what I am prepared to accept as true and correct. Like every good skeptic, I now require credible evidence. My standard is that if something extraordinary is to be believed, the evidence must be strong enough to get it published in a reputable and peer reviewed research journal such as "Nature" or "The Lancet." Any claim not so published is to be taken with a mountain of salt.