Science Is Not Skepticism

By Leo Gura - August 18, 2025

How do you tell real skepticism from fake skepticism? If a skeptic is not deeply questioning and doubting his own worldview, then it’s fake. It is in vogue these days for scientists to act like they are skeptics. No! Science is fake skepticism. No scientist is a skeptic. Skepticism is fundamentally incompatible with science. Science requires too many assumptions to be skepticism. But scientific people like to think of themselves as skeptics. That is because they are ignorant of philosophy, they never studied actual ancient skepticism. Skepticism is an impractical, radical rejection of all knowledge other than direct experience. A real skeptic would reject science for being too loose, for making too many ungrounded assumptions. Science is not rigorous enough to be skepticism. Science is fake skepticism because it does not question its own foundations. Science is not a coherent philosophy, science is a utilitarian kludge. That’s all it’s ever been, yet people take it to be something more. If people understood what science actually is, they wouldn’t hold it with such mindless authority. People mistake a kludge with truth. Spiral Dynamics stage Orange has bastardized skepticism. Stage Orange mindlessly thinks that science and skepticism are compatible, like they are allies.

Real skepticism is the enemy of the science. It makes science impossible. Doing science requires making too many assumptions. Why has science so often turned out wrong? Because of all the assumptions it must make in order to do work. You choose skepticism when you value rigor over utility. A scientist is one who chose utility over rigor and truth. So just by virtue of someone being a professional scientist reveals the character and quality of that mind. A serious mind doesn’t become a professional scientist because it needs to do philosophy first. How can you devote yourself to science if you haven’t even figured out if it’s epistemically sound? Only if you prioritize utility over truth. See, to become a scientist is to assume science as a whole is sound. That is not a safe assumption — and one that virtually no scientist questions.

Just by being proudly scientific, a mind betrays its misguided value system. But so few are able to read this tell.

Click Here to see ALL of Leo's juicy insights.