Welcome to the wonderful world of skepticism! This is a short introduction to what being a skeptic is all about. If you are new to skepticism, this is a good place to start.

One of the first rules of being a skeptic is to inquire and to check. Do not automatically accept anything here as immutable fact. Things change, new evidence comes to light, and new ideas are born. We are not here to tell you what to think; we are just asking you to think. Read what is here, follow some of the links, read some other websites and maybe a book or two, and sit down and think it through. If you disagree, that's fine.  We just ask that you be able to articulate why you disagree and back up your arguments with evidence.

What Is a Skeptic?

Skeptics define themselves as people who try to use the scientific method in their day-to-day life. This generally means that, in the words of Gil Grissom from CSI, we follow the evidence. We look at evidence and go where that takes us, even if we don't like where it is going. A good example of this is Johannes Kepler, a mathematician in the late 1500s who worked out how the planets orbited the sun. Kepler was a deeply religious man who believed that the planets should orbit the sun in a perfect circle as this is what he believed God would have designed. However, from the observations and calculations he made, he realised that the planets orbited in an ellipse, not a circle. No matter how hard Kepler tried, his observations and evidence would not support the idea of a circular orbit, so he was forced to follow the evidence into accepting the elliptical orbit, despite his personal expectations. That is what it means to be a skeptic, you go where the evidence takes you.

What Isn't a Skeptic?

Skeptics get accused of being many things. We will examine the main misconceptions here:

Skeptics are close-minded and take all the fun out of things!

Skeptics like fun as much as anyone else. The world is an amazing place, full of wondrous and fantastic things. From the amazing life that populates the planet in all of its forms; to space with comets, stars, black holes; to the whole universe and what lies beyond the area we can observe. Skeptics find enjoyment in learning more about the truth of these things and how they work. Taking the mystery away does not necessarily mean taking the fun away. Finding things out is fun. The journey can be more important than the destination. The discovery of new things and new ways to do it--that is fun.

Skeptics are atheists and want to destroy religion.

Not all atheists are skeptics, and not all skeptics are atheists. You don't have to be one to be the other. All that is needed is a willingness to critically examine your arguments and be prepared to defend them. People who believe  and also consider themselves skeptics are generally interested in a personal relationship with their faith which doesn't involve organized religion and accept that religious books (the Bible, Torah, Koran and others) contain metaphors and rules to live your life by, but are not historical facts.

Skeptics are conspiracy theorists.

Some people claim to be skeptical of the moon landing or that terrorist-controlled airplanes flew into the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, or they claim that the truth about an extra-terrestrial landing was covered .p at Roswell, New Mexico. These people are not skeptics as defined in this article. Why? Because they have seen evidence to refute their beliefs and they have chosen to ignore it. Mountains of evidence have been made available to support the widely accepted explanation of these events. There are numerous sources that provide detailed overviews and explore the evidence for and against the conspiracy theories. If some new piece of evidence comes to light, a skeptic evaluates it and if the evidence is sufficient, changes their mind. The people described in this paragraph are better described as conspiracy theorists when they are unwilling to change their minds on anything, rather than as skeptics.