Skepticism isn't license to promote personal beliefs without evidence or research.

Critical thinkers accept "no decision" if evidence is insufficient, avoiding rushed conclusions.

Last week, I got some useful feedback on a post from earlier this year, Why “Do Your Own Research” Is Bad Advice. The feedback, from a friend who also teaches critical thinking, focused on one line that stood out: Don’t confuse skepticism with justification to promote your own opinion. Of course, I meant: If you are skeptical of a point of view, good; then investigate the research literature on that topic further. Don’t assume, because you’re skeptical of a concept, what you believe is correct by default.

The received feedback extended to an example of how people conflate skepticism with justification: the observation that many say things like, ‘I don't believe anything I hear on the news’ and, then, in the next breath, parrot off some spiel they learned from the one news source with which they do agree. I have observed many such arguments where once an individual has established that they are skeptical of an idea, it’s as if they feel they've finished all the heavy lifting with respect to good thinking and then, once established as skeptical, somehow have carte blanche to posit whatever they think to be true as fact. Sources be damned!

What, really, is skepticism? Skepticism refers to a process associated with: the challenging of ideas; withholding judgment before engaging all the evidence or when the evidence and reasons are insufficient; looking at findings from various perspectives; and the taking of a position and the ability to change position when the evidence and reasons are sufficient (Dwyer, 2017; 2025; Dwyer and colleagues, 2016). From a critical thinking perspective, skepticism refers to a disposition toward critical thinking; the latter being an inclination, tendency, or willingness to perform a given thinking skill (Dwyer, 2017; Facione, Facione and Giancarlo, 1997; Ku, 2009; Valenzuela,........

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