As I briefly mentioned last episode, human beings are pattern-seeking creatures. By a process of natural selection, we have arrived at tendencies that lead us to make generalisations, which help us make sense of the world around us. Categorisation is what has kept our species (and many other creatures!) alive to this point. 

Unfortunately, the fact that we tend to what is known as bad causal reasoning is an issue — we get confused about the relationship between a cause and effect easily and our senses can mislead us, as well as being influenced by our relationships to others and beliefs we might have. In addition, we may find ourselves committing fallacies and correcting, because (after all!) we’re learning all the time. 

In skepticism, the meta-experimentation of science can be summed up by Carl Sagan as “Science delivers the goods” — it’s one of the best ways we know so far to help us understand the world around us. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence — so any claim that goes against the established knowledge or wisdom, has to be at least equaled with the burden of proof.