Indeed, what you can’t see, can hurt you. For centuries, people did not understand the concept of germs as micro-organisms which had the ability to enter a living creature to cause sickness. It was actually Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) who formulated the germ theory, motivated in his studies by the untimely death of his own children.

It took the scientific and medical community time to accept the results of Pasteur, Semmelweiss and Lister, men who worked on germ theory in the fields of food, obstetrics and surgery respectively. The society of that time resisted the idea that something that couldn’t be seen, something invisible to the eye, not only existed but was indeed menacing. Germ theory was a revolutionary concept, and lack of sight meant lack of belief.

These people were poor skeptics - in the sense that they were unwilling to believe in the face of evidence. Authentic skeptics use the process of doubting to arrive at certainty. Doubt is not meant to be an end in itself but rather the means to attain what knowledge there is to be known.

Have you ever found yourself in a position of skepticism in the face of evidence to the contrary? None of us likes to think of ourselves as naive and gullible. We have reached, through education and experience, a stage of discernment and sophistication. Indeed a healthy skepticism is necessary in light of all the truth claims in the marketplace today. (Do you really believe all those advertisements which promise popularity, status, wealth, health, power, or sex?)

Doubting in the face of evidence, as we have seen, can be equally as dangerous as believing based on weak, insufficient, inadequate or unreliable data. Right beliefs and right doubts are crucial.

For Reflection:

• Recall a situation when you doubted but should have believed. Describe the reasons you rejected the information or the source.
• Conversely, recall something in which you believed but which led you astray and harmed you. What prompted you to put your faith in a shaky person, product or claim? What happened?