Relativism amounts to the denial of an objective world about which true and false statemen

Relativism amounts to the denial of an objective world about which true and

false statements can be made; there is no absolute truth, though there may be

many "relative truths". Scientific skepticism in its simplest form. denies only

Line that we ever know, in the sense of establishing for certain, whether a

(5) statement made by us is absolutely true or false, for the grounds of what is

accepted as true themselves require grounds, thus initiating an infinite regress

of justification. In supplement, Hume noted that reports of experience,

observation and experiment, do not conclusively justify any prediction

concerning the future or more generally the unobserved, even if they are held

(10) to be so solidly based as to need no justification themselves. This may be

regarded as skepticism about induction, the principal by which Bacon famously

warranted inference from the known into the unknown. When we abandon the

dream of conclusive justification, Hume argued, we must become all the more

skeptical about opinions supported only by experience. Modern skeptics relish

(15) especially this second discovery of Hume's: that there exist no grounds

whatever, conclusive or inconclusive, for anything that we claim to be certain

of.

Hume's argument is indeed open to question, though we ought not assume

too quickly that his conclusion encourages relativism. Even if skepticism is

(20) correct, his argument does not concede anything to relativism, for skepticism

does not recommend universal suspension of judgment or the ruinous doctrine

that all rational opinion is justified opinion. The level-headed skeptic, the

critical rationalist, does not doubt that there is truth to be had, but thinks that

it may be had only by making a lucky guess. If one judges that there is life

(25) elsewhere in the galaxy, and the other judges the opposite, then one of them

has hit on a fragment of the truth.

Remorseless though the logic is, it is at this point that reasonable people

ask in incredulity: can it be seriously maintained that present-day science is

simply a more widely accepted form. of study of UFOs, dianetics, and similar

(30) unseemly charlatanism？ Scientific hypotheses are guesses no better backed by

observation and experiment, and have no more claim on our credulity, than the

fancies of pseudo-scientists. But science is more than the sum of its hypotheses,

its observations, and its experiments, for from the point of view of rationality,

science is above the critical method of searching for errors. What is wrong with

(35) pseudoscience is the manner in which it handles its hypotheses, not the

hypotheses themselves, though if they are designed to be unassailable and

unfalsifiable, then unassailed and unfalsified they doubtlessly remain.

Consequently, though a hypothesis that survives all criticism directed at it is

preferable to a hypothesis that dies, it does not become a better hypothesis

(40) through being tested.

In the passage, the author is primarily concerned with

A．identifying the differences between science and pseudo-science as they relate to skepticism

B．stressing the importance of employing the scientific method to assuage skeptics

C．proposing a new scientific approach which answers the objections presented by skepticism

D．offering a model of skepticism that is both useful to science and avoids the pitfalls of relativism

E．explaining the difference between the assumptions made by relativists and those made by skeptics