That statement is almost universally true, no matter the subject. But in general, if you’re going to err, erring on the side of skepticism seems reasonable, given the alternatives.
It can be, but its certainly not an unmitigated good. Especially when it leads to aspersions of fraud and conspiratorial thinking (e.g. rasz's comment thread below).
Yes, when it is there for no valid reason, or ridiculous reasons. Skepticism is not a default position you can take like a toddler refusing to eat their vegetables. You need some informed (and non-fallacious) intelligent reasoning behind that. "I'm skeptic about this thing using X because X is so hyped these days" is not such reasoning.
Are we counting being skeptical of a claim as taking the opposite side? Seems like the user is trying to understand the situation rather than advocate for a side.
Yeah, it is pretty wooly. How about taking it from the opposite position, almost like a proof by contradiction, e.g. the opposite position might be “you can see better if you look less often”.
> No, you should tell us how they are not based on sound research and logic.
Your claim is simply a just-so statement. You're the one making an unjustified assumption. Why should I assume you're correct by default? Until you actually provide any plausible reason why I should take it seriously, your claim is invalid.
That statement is almost universally true, no matter the subject. But in general, if you’re going to err, erring on the side of skepticism seems reasonable, given the alternatives.
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