Respectful Skepticism?
Craig Foster (“Respectful Skepticism,” March/April 2019) makes the serious linguistic mistake of treating disrespect as the negative counterpart of respect—which it is not—and then builds on this mistake in arguing that we skeptics should respect crazy ideas and the misguided people who hold them. Of course we shouldn’t indulge in “disrespecting” other people, if by that one means behaving in a rude, arrogant, or condescending manner, but it doesn’t follow from the admonition to be polite that we should accord respect to noxious beliefs based on superstition, religion, and ignorance that do not deserve respect.