Frequently Asked Questions

• Why do the RIT Skeptics Exist?
  To "promote and practice the open, rational, and scientific examination of the universe and our place in it, and that ethics and morality can be meaningfully based on rational and humanistic ideals and values, promote skeptical inquiry, and provide community for atheists, agnostics, humanists, skeptics, naturalists and other freethinkers." Basically, to protect people against the harms of pseudoscience and extraordinary claims.
• What is a skeptic?
  Scientific skepticism is a scientific or practical, epistemological position in which one questions the veracity of claims lacking empirical evidence. In practice, the term is most commonly applied to the examination of claims and theories which appear to be beyond mainstream science, rather than to the routine discussions and challenges among scientists. More simply put, a skeptic is someone who requires evidence for extraordinary claims. Skeptics understand all knowledge to be tentative and data dependent. No matter what we may believe to be true, if the data contradict that belief, it is wrong. The world is as it is, not as we might wish it to be. Jon wrote an interesting blog post on what some people claim is skepticism, but isn't.
• Are you guys nihilists or cynical?
  Absolutely not. We are passionate about reality, not about what we would like to be the case. Also, we believe that the more time and energy spent on believing paranormal or supernatural things is the more time wasted. There are plenty of mysteries that are based in science to think about; no need to spend time waiting for your spaceship to take you away to your new life on planet Xenubilion. We also crack a lot of jokes and are fun to be around.
• What do you consider enough evidence?
  This is a complicated question, because it depends on the claim. Certain claims, such as faith healing and talking to the dead (cold reading), require a large amount of evidence, because they make such extraordinary claims. However, we would accept a local news station's prediction of the weather without further consideration, because it is such a benign and simple claim.
        A good metric to try and evaluate the evidence is to use Occam's razor. Simply see which explaination of a claim is simplest (that is, requires the least amount of suppositions) and choose that one. Moving beyond that requires that evidence shows that the simplest explanation no longer fits.
• Are you guys anti-Christian or anti-theistic?
  No. We are however, critical of the paranormal claims of religion, and this is why many of us are atheists and agnostics.
• Are you guys actually part of an alien conspiracy sent to Earth to convince us that the alien space god Y'gSot won't actually destroy the planet with an invasion of evil ghosts posing as leprechauns?
  Yes.
• For questions relating to theological issues brought up, see our responses to our 2008 debate.