“Aim is to debunk” trope

(Brian Dunning from a weekly newsletter, in the context of Keane, a UFOlogist, saying that skeptics’ only aim is too debunk.)

The old “aim is to debunk” charge is commonly used by those whose own flimsy claims fall apart under any scrutiny, as Kean’s always have. The purpose of skepticism, which is really just the scientific method, is to improve our knowledge. When someone sees a UFO and they insist on believing it to be a visiting alien, they are not doing science and not learning anything new. The scientist (or the skeptic) would continue the investigation, continue looking for possible explanations and testing them to see if they match the evidence. When I heard about famous haunted house stories when I was a kid, I didn’t know that there’s a process I could have followed to learn more and find out what was actually going on; I simply stopped at the popular “It was a ghost” explanation. That’s what Kean and most other UFOlogists do as well; they simply stop looking for explanations and stick with the conjecture they like. They don’t take the next step, they don’t do the work, and thus their knowledge never improves.

The old “skeptics refuse to accept ideas that challenge their worldview” idea is an old joke, it is so comically wrong. Most working scientists will never make a major discovery. But if they could, it would make their entire career. Nobel Prizes are won by researchers who look at new ideas that challenged what we thought we knew before. Kean’s criticism is exactly backwards; finding new ideas that can withstand scrutiny is exactly what all working researchers do. It’s why they’re paid. In Kean’s mind, where nobody dare challenge The Dogma, grantors and scientists hope to learn nothing. It’s such a childish idea, and yet it continues to be one of the foundational pillars of science denialists.