"No matter how honest scientists think they are, they are still influenced by various unconscious assumptions that prevent them from attaining true objectivity. Expressed in a sentence, Fort 's principle goes something like this: People with a psychological need to believe in marvels are no more prejudiced and gullible than people with a psychological need not to believe in marvels"
About this Quote
Objectivity gets treated like a lab coat: put it on and your biases stay home. Colin Wilson is needling that comforting myth, and he does it by turning skepticism itself into a kind of craving. The first move is strategic: he grants scientists their good faith ("think they are" honest) and then quietly pulls the floorboards up by naming the real culprit, the unconscious assumptions you do not audit because you do not know they are there. Wilson is less interested in calling anyone corrupt than in pointing to the psychology that rides shotgun in every method.
Invoking Charles Fort is a tell. Fort was the patron saint of the anomaly, the collector of weird data that institutions either mocked or filed away. Wilson borrows Fort's posture not to endorse every marvel, but to indict a cultural hierarchy: credulity is embarrassing, disbelief is respectable. His punchline flips the status badge. The need to believe in marvels and the need not to believe in them are presented as mirror appetites, each capable of filtering evidence, each capable of confusing emotional comfort for rigor.
The subtext is a critique of mid-century rationalist confidence, when "science" often doubled as a social identity: the modern person who will not be taken in. Wilson suggests that this identity can become its own superstition, complete with taboos (do not entertain the strange) and a priesthood of permissible questions. It's a warning that the line between healthy skepticism and defensive dismissal is thinner than we'd like, especially when reputations, institutions, and self-image are on the line.
Invoking Charles Fort is a tell. Fort was the patron saint of the anomaly, the collector of weird data that institutions either mocked or filed away. Wilson borrows Fort's posture not to endorse every marvel, but to indict a cultural hierarchy: credulity is embarrassing, disbelief is respectable. His punchline flips the status badge. The need to believe in marvels and the need not to believe in them are presented as mirror appetites, each capable of filtering evidence, each capable of confusing emotional comfort for rigor.
The subtext is a critique of mid-century rationalist confidence, when "science" often doubled as a social identity: the modern person who will not be taken in. Wilson suggests that this identity can become its own superstition, complete with taboos (do not entertain the strange) and a priesthood of permissible questions. It's a warning that the line between healthy skepticism and defensive dismissal is thinner than we'd like, especially when reputations, institutions, and self-image are on the line.
Quote Details
| Topic | Truth |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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