Why Are Skeptics Such a Negative Bunch?

Makin Waves asks: "Skeptics are very good at 'disproving' things that can't be proven in the first place, so, how about offering me a reasonable, rational explanation for all the cattle mutilations in Argentina instead? (200 at last count). A decent explanation must include the following...Where did all the blood go? What portable instrument does the cauterized cuts? Why won't scavengers touch the dead bodies? Why are there no tracks or blood around the bodies? Why do they take tissues that have a lot of nerves? Last but not least, if not aliens....then Who, Why and How? A Google search will get you all the info you need. For the lazy, this place has a lot of stories. C'mon skeptics, put your money where your mouth is. Maybe it was 'auto-suggestion' eh?"

Vampire Robots, of course

[whatever3003]

I did. Im a Robot Vampire, created by extremist Argentinian environmentalists that foresaw the need to control the number of cattle, lest they eat all of their fodder and starve themselves. I use an array of surgical tools, of which are in place of my arms. These tools are far beyond the known scope of human science. These dangerously hot and pointy tools are used to remove tissues with a high density of nerves so that I may graft them to my metallic facade in order to pass for human one day and drink from the fount of human life, and not have to feed from bovine blood (which is of course processed and used by by my bio-mechanic innards). Scavengers wont touch my leftovers because of the keen and smelly scent I leave behind, untraceble by humans and their petty, near useless senses. ... Aliens are more interested in probing, silly. With all of that probing, who has time for messy endeavours such as analysing what robot vampires eat for dinner?

Why they're so negative

[Anonymous Coward]

I've had some experience with these types so I'll try to lay it out:

1) They have poor people skills and lack tact. They usually are obsessional and highly impassioned over their chosen field, and wish to bulldoze anything in their way.
2) They hold their values/ideals/theories as personal mojo brownie points, they don't truly care about they truth or any 'scientific method', all they're interested in is warping and ramming in everything to fit in with what is fashionable in the accidemic establishment in their particular area. You wouldn't believe some of the daft things I've seen them try to say to protect the status quo.
3) They view anybody who isn't a part of the 'mainstream' (read: people who have unquestioningly cabon-copied all the ideas fashionable in that area of science) as the enemy, and with scorn and dirision. Anything someone on the outer says is not going to be taken seriously simply because of who has said it.
4) They're very conservative, they hate new ideas. Ideas are like religious dogma in certain accidemic circles, they hate it being altered and challenged. The only way things get changed is if somebody very high up in the hiarachy, who has scored major mojo points by being ultra conformist, makes every so slight alterations to an established idea. This'll then be argued over for a decade or so before being accepted.
5) They don't like anything they can't explain. Something which throws a spanner in the works they don't want to know. Something that sounds like it is from a 'quack' they don't want to know. Some of what you read in your high school text books is incorrect, but nobody in accidemia will accept it because they won't take notice of blatent evidence if it doesn't conform to the status quo.

My (not so) humble opionion...

[moonboy]

...it's Cowboy Neal.

Come on, say it with me...

[litui]

EL CHUPACABRA!!!

Re:Simple explanation. It's a bloody HOAX!!!

[Spackler]

Sorry, my wife used Occam's razor to shave her legs over the weekend. It's a little dull now, so it must have been the aliens