>"Pathological Disbelief" was the title of a lecture by 1973 Nobel
>Prize winner Brian D. Josephson, who teaches physics at the
>University of Cambridge, delivered at the 2004 Lindau meeting of
>Nobel Laureates. It describes a problem for science but also one for
>journalism which has over the past few decades moved from ubiquitous
>skepticism to ubiquitous condemnation of skepticism, most popularly
>expressed in labeling the skeptic a "conspiracy theorist."
Pathological disbelief, meet pathological belief. You may sound like opposites, but you depend on each other, promote each other, thrive on each other. Ditto ubiquitous skepticism and ubiquitous credulity. Kinda like instrumental reason and New Age mysticism.
Doug