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Skeptics are often disliked by just about every group, because they usually act as "party poopers" pointing out the flaws in various comfortable presumptions, but they're the experts on how and why people believe various things that "ain't so" -- and how to learn to think more critically (about other people's claims, as well as about your own beliefs) and how to use more reliable methods of learning and understanding.

Can you give assurances, Ichneumon, that the insights of "party-pooper skeptics" cannot in principle be included in that vast category of "bogus knowledge" which includes "visions, intuition, hallucinations, faulty conclusions, jumping to conclusions, fallacious reasoning, prejudices, 'common sense', revisionism, deceit by others, faulty memories, 'recovered' memories, bias, preconceptions, indoctrination, propaganda, emotions, superstitions, rationalizations, bandwagon groupthink, etc. etc.?"

If so, will you demonstrate why the insights of skepticism must be excluded from this nasty category? On what basis are we to rationally accept the skeptic position as not just another of the many "various comfortable presumptions?"

To me, skepticism is a variant of ideological thinking. That suspicion seems justified to me, for its basic premises are hidden as is usually the case with ideologies. If we are to penetrate the mysteries of skepticism, then it seems to me we first need to have disclosure of the hidden premise(s).

Can you help with this?

Generally, sceptics are open to new phenomena as long as they come with 'knowledge' derived from naturalistic evidence based investigations. If the phenomena can be replicated only in convenient environments and/or circumstances or can be shown to be trickery they are rejected.

Carl Sagan had 10 tools to detect suspect reasoning. Most sceptics try to use these tools before jumping to conclusions.

1. There should be independent confirmation
2. There should be substantive debate on the evidence
3. Avoid arguments from authority. Experts are from within the field in question not outside.
4. Consider more than one hypothesis. Then falsify them.
5. Fairly compare your own hypothesis to other's.
6. If possible, measure, measure, measure.
7. In a chain argument, every link must work.
8. Occam's Razor.
9. Is the hypothesis falsifiable? If not look again.
10. Rely on experimentation.

Sceptics don't just brush something off because it looks goofy or doesn't jibe with their world view, they question the amount of careful study that has gone into the claim and will dismiss it if extravagant or poorly backed.

Weigh the evidence.
Weigh the credibility of the evidence sources.
Weigh the counter evidence.
Weigh the credibility of the counter evidence sources.

Why do you feel sceptics hide their premises? It certainly isn't a part of being a sceptic

[Skeptics are often disliked by just about every group, because they usually act as "party poopers" pointing out the flaws in various comfortable presumptions, but they're the experts on how and why people believe various things that "ain't so" -- and how to learn to think more critically (about other people's claims, as well as about your own beliefs) and how to use more reliable methods of learning and understanding.]

Can you give assurances, Ichneumon, that the insights of "party-pooper skeptics" cannot in principle be included in that vast category of "bogus knowledge"

Of course not, since it is impossible "in principle" to rule out such a scenario for *any* viewpoint, philosophy, or premise. For example, you cannot "give assurances that" the following "cannot in principle" be true as well:

1. The universe and all in it (and ourselves) was created only last Thursday, but with the appearance and hallmarks of a much longer history (prefab fossils in the ground, houses that look decades old, etc.), and we were created with "memories" of "prior" events/lives that never actually occurred.

2. "Jehovah" and "Lucifer" are just fictions created by Loki, the god of mischief, in a charade maintained for thousand of years, in order to divert mankind from following Odin, the All-Father.

3. We all live in a "Matrix" style virtual reality -- none of what we see and do is real, it's all a hoax maintained by the aliens which enslaved us several centuries ago.

And so on.

If so, will you demonstrate why the insights of skepticism must be excluded from this nasty category?

Sure -- because it works when compared against reality. QED.

The "insights of skepticism" -- i.e. that knowledge is best gained by using reliable methods of determining truth, and that people should avoid believing that which is the result of unreliable methods -- are clearly not only not "this nasty category", they are in fact its antithesis, a vaccination against it.

On what basis are we to rationally accept the skeptic position as not just another of the many "various comfortable presumptions?"

On the basis that it eschews presumptions, comfortable or otherwise, and embraces "rational acceptance" of that which can be actually demonstrated as true.

To me, skepticism is a variant of ideological thinking.

To you, of course it is.

But the only "ideology" of skepticism is that people should not believe that which is derived from unreliable methods. Your mileage may differ.

That suspicion seems justified to me, for its basic premises are hidden as is usually the case with ideologies.

There's nothing "hidden" about skepticism's premises. Those premises are that there are reliable and unreliable methods of reaching conclusions, and that the unreliable ones should be avoided, and the reliable ones should be used. A corollary is that claims and beliefs must be supportable.

If we are to penetrate the mysteries of skepticism, then it seems to me we first need to have disclosure of the hidden premise(s).

Insert conspiracy theory here.

Can you help with this?

I doubt it.